“Call me Ishmael, is the famous opening line in Herman Melville’s literary masterpiece Moby Dick and the book is being celebrated this weekend at the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s 25-hour non-stop reading marathon, that began in 1997. According to the museum’s Director of Education and Science, Robert Rocha, it’s the world’s best known readathons. ( Watch the LIVE stream)
Rocha was interviewed by WGBH Morning Edition host Bob Seay and says the readathon began 20 years ago. He says they host it in January, since the book begins in January in 1841, when Herman Melville sailed out of New Bedford Harbor in the whaling ship called the Acushnet.
Every year, early in January, a local celebrity figure traditionally kicks-off the reading, beginning with the most famous opening line in American literature, "Call me Ishmael."
According to Museum officials, from the moment those words are uttered to approximately 25 hours later when Ishmael is rescued from the Pacific by the Rachel, more than 150 readers each read a short passage from this novel. Some read in Portuguese, Japanese, Italian, Danish, Spanish, Hebrew, Russian and/or French, followed by that same passage in English. One passage is read from Braille. The Seamen’s Bethel, according to the museum, hosts the singing of “The Ribs and Terrors in the Whale” and the reading of Father Mapple’s sermon. At the end, a few hardy souls will have stayed for the whole adventure.
Readers include professors, fishermen, schoolteachers, students, congressmen, mayors, city councilors, journalists, physicians, clergy, and other lovers of Melville and Moby-Dick.
Rocha says everybody gets to read about ten minutes, and the staff and trustees make the difficult decision of who gets to read, which totals about 180 people.
There is a LIVE stream of the 25-hour readathon, that can be seen on the museum’s website. The reading started at 12 noon Saturday and runs until 1 p.m. Sunday.
According to Rocha he says, “the allure is the fact that the book is a challenge to read and that there are so many layers to it, that when you get through it once, you want to go back to it and read it again. He says it’s like a piece of classical music.”
You can listen to the entire interview with Bob Seay and New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Robert Rocha discussing what’s known as “The Greatest American Novel- Moby Dick” by clicking on the audio file link above.
