New Scientist - 19.10.2019

28 | New Scientist | 19 October 2019

Book

Ahab’s Rolling Sea:

A natural history of

Moby-Dick

Richard J. King

University of Chicago Press

ASIDE from being one of the

greatest works of American

literature, Herman Melville’s

Moby-Dick spawned the term

“Moby-Dickering”, describing

the activity of spending too

much time hunting for meaning

in the book’s pursuit of a giant

white sperm whale.

Fortunately, marine biologist

Richard J. King has approached

the classic very differently in his

own book, Ahab’s Rolling Sea. The

process of unravelling fact from

fiction can make it a slow read, and

like Moby-Dick, you may want to

put it down at times. Don’t: you

will be rewarded for persevering.

Moby-Dick teems with natural

life. Aside from the sperm whale,

there are other whales, seals, coral,

giant squid, sharks, sea ravens

(which King thinks are in fact

cormorants), sky-hawks (frigate

birds), albatrosses and more.

King has been rigorous. He

studied Melville’s original sources

to work out what he probably

knew rather than what he wrote,

delved into specimen tanks below

the Natural History Museum in

London, interviewed scientists

and took to the seas himself. This

results in some rare gems, from

the biological to the linguistic.

Take right whales. How these

mammals got their name is clear.

“Since it was slow, coastal, and

plump with oil, hunters called it

the ‘right whale’, as it was the best

one to chase,” writes King. Today,

we know these whales use the

baleen plates in their mouths to

filter plankton and krill out of the

A whale of a tale

Teasing apart the fact and fiction in the classic novel Moby-Dick produces

some fascinating insights and rare gems, finds Chris Simms

water. But Moby-Dick was

published in 1851 and the word

“krill” didn’t come into regular

usage until the 20th century. In

the novel, narrator Ishmael says

right whales feed on “brit”. There

are clues to suggest he meant

krill, but we can’t be sure.

Other details are clearer.

Ishmael refers to whales as fish,

not mammals, even though he

knows they have lungs and warm

blood. This is deliberate, says King,

because Ishmael “positions the

practical hunter’s knowledge of

the whalemen above that of the

‘learned naturalists ashore’ ”.

Yet the novel’s claim that sperm

whales migrate in predictable slim

highways was a genuine mistake,

says King. So were assertions that

Views Culture

OVERSNAP/GETTY IMAGES

cannibalistic metaphor”.

So the novel may also be partly

responsible for the widespread,

irrational fear of sharks and the

deaths of so many of these

beautiful predators.

Ahab’s Rolling Sea will give

you a new appreciation of the

sperm whale. If you are studying

Melville’s book, it will provide

details far more original than any

exam guide. It also underscores

the more undesirable aspects of

another animal that stars in Moby-

Dick: humans, with our penchant

for environmental destruction.

Melville was as aware as we are

of how we wipe out animals – he

feared the effect of hunting on

North American bison. As Ishmael

says: “There is no folly of the beast

of the earth which is not infinitely

outdone by the madness of men.”

Nearly 170 years later, it is time

we got the message.  ❚

males act as lords of harems, and

that those whales are the largest

inhabitants of the globe.

Overall, though, the natural

history in Moby-Dick seems spot

on. For example, the white whale

himself is described as streaked,

spotted and marbled. It turns out

that such patterning is created by

years of scratches and scars from

the suckers and talons of the large

squid that sperm whales eat, as

well as from other whales’ teeth.

King updates other aspects too,

revealing the surprising intellect

of sperm whales, with some

learning to dive down to “floss the

fish off the longlines” when they

hear the sound of commercial

boats hauling back the catch.

While King judges Moby-Dick’s

scientific accuracy, he also reveals

how the book helped raise the

profile of sperm whales, opening

the door to better protection for

them. Yet King also writes that

“Melville fed the period fear and

contempt for sharks, writing of

these fish as a ghastly, fierce and

A sperm whale diving

off the coast of

New Zealand

“ There is no folly of

the beast of the earth

which is not infinitely

outdone by the

madness of men”