What's So Big about Moby Dick?

A pretty, young lady goes swimming alone off the coast of New England in twilight. She is an agile swimmer, full of grace and speed. Without warning, though, she disappears from sight, only to reappear a moment later, screaming in pain. A few shocking moments later, she is again dragged under the water, this time only to reappear the next morning in pieces on the shore.
　　Sound familiar? By now nearly everyone has seen or heard the story of a killer Great White Shark in Jaws, a hit novel turned into a blockbuster movie. Few people realize, however, that the story broadly follows the events depicted in what many people consider one of the best of American novels. Published in 1851, Moby Dick has been making waves ever since.
　　The author, Herman Melville, was born in New York on August 1, 1819. As a youth in a large family he suffered many insecurities due to the family's constantly changing fortunes. As a young man he worked as a farmer and seaman, the latter providing most of the material for several of his later novels and essays. In his 20s Melville found fame with two novels based on imaginary happenings in the South Pacific. Moby Dick, ironically, was not well received. Afterwards, Melville produced another masterpiece, Billy Budd. He continued writing until his death in 1891.
　　Why has Moby Dick since become such a classic despite its initial reception? Melville had a keen eye for not only the human condition but for the tenor of his times: the United States was in his day a country of disadvantaged and mistreated immigrants (many of whom became sailors and laborers), with untrammeled capitalism crushing both nature and man underneath its new country exuberance. His stress on the individual and fate —— often pessimistically, or at least realistically —— were harbingers of the future of literature.
　　Why does the story of Moby Dick continue to enthrall generation after generation? The story line is simple enough: a mad sea captain vows revenge against a white whale which, on a previous expedition, bit off one of his legs. In his vain attempt at "justice" against nature, the captain meets the ultimate tragedy. This was no documentary, however; the characters and setting become vehicles for far larger and more universal themes of the setbacks and successes of the human spirit as well as its darker urges. So accurately does Melville depict the whaling scenes and sea voyages that the reader is taken on an exhilarating ride. Coupled with the absorbing, mad Captain Ahab, the book is "a good read" even by 20th century standards.
　　Earlier in this century, the Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway penned The Old Man and the Sea, another story of a man's struggle with nature on the open ocean. This theme strikes a chord in Americans, whose culture developed along the Atlantic coast of North America and whose seaward passage from the Old World took them to the colonies of the 18th century or the young country of the 19th century by the millions. This fascination with the maritime still holds today: over half the population of the United States lives in counties touching the Atlantic, Pacific, or Gulf coasts. Perhaps some future writer will once again use the metaphor of sailors and the sea to create yet another Great American Novel.

　　黄昏时刻，一位年轻貌美的小姐独自在新英格兰外海游泳。她是一名游泳健将，泳姿优雅而动作矫健。但毫无预警地，她从视线上消失，一会儿后再出现时只见她痛苦地尖叫着。经过几次惊险的场面后，她又被拖到水底下，只是这次在次日早晨再出现时却只剩下破碎的肢体散落在岸边。
　　听起来耳熟吗？到现在几乎每个人都看过或听过“大白鲨”这部由畅销小说改编的卖座电影中那头吃人大白鲨的故事。然而，却很少有人知道故事的大部分情节沿自许多人公认的最佳美国小说之一中所描述的情节。《白鲸记》自1851年出版以来即不时引发争议。
　　作者赫尔曼‧梅尔维尔1819年8月1日在纽约出生。他生长在一个大家庭中，少年时因家境不断变化而极没有安全感。年轻时他当过农夫和船员，后者提供了他日后几部小说和文章所用的大部分题材。梅尔维尔廿几岁时即以南太平洋虚构事件为根据的两本小说崭露头角。具有讽刺意味的是，《白鲸记》却未受好评。之后，梅尔维尔又写了另一本杰作《毕利‧伯德》。他持续不断地写作直到1891年去世为止。
　　《白鲸记》最初并未造成轰动，但为何后来会成为经典之作呢？梅尔维尔对人情世故及当时的思想潮流皆具有独到的眼光：在他那个时代，美国是一个由受欺凌的弱势移民组成的国家（其中有很多移民成为船员和苦力），而无限制的资本主义将大自然和人类踩碎在这个新国家的繁荣之下。他对个人和命运的强调——通常是悲观的，或者至少是写实的——预告了文学未来之路。
为何《白鲸记》的故事不断吸引一代又一代的读者呢？故事的情节实在很简单：一个疯狂的船长誓言报复在之前远航途中咬掉他一条腿的一只白鲸。在他向大自然讨回“公道”的徒劳的尝试中，这位船长终究落得悲剧的下场。然而，故事并不像纪录片，它的人物和场景传达了更宽广、更具世界性的主题，反映出人类心灵的成败及黑暗的欲望。梅尔维尔对捕鲸情形和航海的描写是如此精确，读者彷佛踏上一段刺激的海上之旅。加上深具魅力的疯狂船长艾哈伯，这本书即使以20世纪的标准来看也是一本“好书”。
　　20世纪初时，诺贝尔奖得主海明威写了另一本人类和大海搏斗的故事《老人与海》。这个主题在美国人心中引起共鸣，美国人的文化沿着北美大西洋岸发展，他们的海上通道将数以百万计的人们从旧世界带到18世纪的殖民地或19世纪时的新兴国家。这种对海洋的迷恋到今天仍然存在：超过半数的美国人口住在大西洋、太平洋或墨西哥湾沿岸的市郡。或许将来会有某个作家再度使用水手和大海的暗喻，创造出另一本伟大的美国小说。