'Jonah historically regarded' How Herman Melville describes the story in his masterpiece 'Moby Dick'.

Send us Fan MailI have talked and written in other places about my pleasure in reading Melville’s classic Moby Dick. How the work at the time was a critical failure, mocked by the critics of the age (the 1850s). For me, it is an astonishing work. It has left as great an impression on me as any book, ancient or modern, with which I can compare it.Although published in 1951, its imaginative prose is accessible from its famous first three words from the narrator ‘call me Ismael’ If you you read on, you will find  not just about a man who chases a whale, but an epic also described as a symbolic book dealing with the existential human issues of obsession, morality and redemption.Melville plays with the reader, sometimes with prose concealing near pure Shakespearean blank verse. Sometimes with gentle irony in the brief piece I have chosen to illustrate the point.It is chapter 83, occupying no more than the pages 351-2 in my dog-eared edition.It is titled ‘Jonah historically regarded’. In it, Melville, in the voice of Ismael, describes how the famed whaling community of Nantucket, and the little village of Sag-Harbour, treated the Jonah myth. The spokesman, himself named after the village, expresses doubts as to the veracity of the story of Jonah. Ismael appears to refute Sag-Harbour’s claims, but his words instead reveal the unconvincing nature of the arguments. They also indicate why the book was regarded as being anti-Christian, and too sympathetic to views of some of the ‘savages’ he eulogies...Stay up-to-date with all of Tudor's podcasts, blogs and current affairs commentary by signing up to our newsletter! Email [email protected] to sign up!Follow Tudor on Twitter @TudortweetFollow Tudor's blogs:everydaycreativity.ukleaderswedeserve.wordpress.com