In preparation to finally read Melville’s classic on Nantucket this year, I decided to start with Philbrick’s thin volume, an excellent call.  Philbrick, a Nantucket resident and a major admirer of Melville, takes the reader through a parallel voyage describing Moby Dick’s structure, characters, themes, and action in short chapters reminiscent of the book itself while also telling Melville’s story.  The reader realizes with shock that Melville wrote this epic book at the age of 31 after shipping out as a whaler on the Acushnet at the age of 20.  The Essex had been staved in and sunk by a whale in 1820 and Melville had learned the story from the son of the Essex’s mate and then later read this account.  His book took a radically darker turn when he had nearly finished it when he met Hawthorne in the Berkshires, a meeting that changed both the book and the man as he perceived Hawthorne’s inner darkness.  Though Moby Dick was a failure during Melville’s life, it became a classic written as the US was approaching a Civil War over slavery and, drawing upon Shakespeare, Hawthorne, the Bible, and much more, Melville made the case that man is a shark who can become an angel if governed.  Now all I have to do is to actually read Moby Dick!!!