Annual search for the white whale commences this weekend during the Moby-Dick Marathon
This weekend, readers can “sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts” at the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s 28th annual Moby-Dick Marathon. From 9:30 a.m. on Saturday to 1 p.m. on Sunday, Herman Melville’s sprawling, nautical epic will be read aloud by guest readers over 25 hours while participants cozy up in the Lagoda, the museum’s half-size whale ship replica.
“We really want to create that atmosphere, where people feel like they’re really experiencing it,” said Amanda McMullen, the president and CEO of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. “We want it to just feel so authentic and real and rich, and dripping with Melville.”
In 1841, 21-year-old Herman Melville left the New Bedford harbor on the decks of the Acushnet, headed toward the Pacific Ocean with a whaling crew. That voyage inspired him to write “Moby-Dick” 10 years later, and the Moby-Dick Marathon marks the anniversary of his departure.
“You feel Melville everywhere in the city around this weekend in January,” said McMullen, “and you just feel him all the time.”
McMullen describes the beginning of the novel as “a love letter to New Bedford,” a city steeped in the history of the whaling industry. In a chapter to be read by Mayor Jon Mitchell, Melville writes “all about walking the streets of New Bedford, and the beauty of New Bedford, and the richness of the community. Going street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, talking about the way everything looked at the moment,” she said.
Michael J. Bobbitt, the executive director of the Mass Cultural Council, will also read a passage from the novel at the marathon.
“To know that this whole story stems from one of our cities is pretty incredible,” said Bobbitt, who is also a playwright, theater director, and choreographer. Bobbitt will kick off the marathon Jan. 6 at noon with the words “Call me Ishmael” — the famous first line of the opening chapter.
In between scheduled readings that cover about 30 pages an hour, attendees can take part in other activities, games, and discussions. McMullen and Bobbitt both highlighted “Stump the Scholars,” a game where participants can question a panel of Herman Melville scholars and put their knowledge to the test.
Arts and crafts activities such as bookmark-making will be offered, as well as a screen-printing demonstration with artist Jos Sances, a discussion with the Unburied Books podcast with members of the Melville Society Cultural Project, and more. Food is also included in the schedule, with a chance to try soups made by Cousin Hosea’s Chowder Hall and beverages from the Decanter Taproom at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday as well as a “20th-Hour Treat” before the last five hours of reading at 8 a.m. on Sunday.
Tiago Patricio’s abridged Portuguese translation of the novel will be read in Cook Memorial Theater and live-streamed for readers in mainland Portugal and the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde Islands at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The festivities will begin prior to the reading on Friday at 5 p.m. with a sold-out cocktail reception and dinner at the museum’s Harbor
View Gallery. The reception will feature a lecture by Sances and Herman Melville scholar Jeffrey Peterson.
“‘Moby-Dick’ is a book that you could relate to anytime, anywhere, any place, any person,” said McMullen. “There are so many pieces of it around surviving, stamina, death, plague, and sickness. In that moment of the pandemic, all of those things kept coming out for me.”
Now, when she thinks of “MobyDick,” McMullen said “it’s all about climate and nature, like what are we doing with nature as a society, as humans.”
‘We really want to create that atmosphere, where people feel like they’re really experiencing it.’ AMANDA MCMULLEN, president and CEO of the New Bedford Whaling Museum