B2 Arts & Culture
The Top Shelf
The Antidote—Classic Poetry for Modern Life
A Reading of the ‘The Maldive
Shark’ by Herman Melville
By Christopher Nield
The great white shark is one of
nature’s most ferocious predators
—happy to swallow down dolphins,
seals, porpoises, sea lions, sea turtles and the carcasses of whales.
It’s also known, from time to time,
to take a chunk out of an unwary
holidaymaker…
Who could forget the opening
scene of Steven Spielberg’s film
Jaws, where a lone swimmer is
dragged beneath the waves to John
Williams’s spine-chilling musical
score? Yet when Melville takes us
down to the bottom of the sea to
view this monster from the safety of
our imagination, we see something
quite different. To our surprise, the
lean, mean killing machine turns
out to be a “phlegmatical,” “pale
sot.”
To be phlegmatic denotes a slow,
stolid temperament: in some people
an enlightened temperance, in others mere doltishness. The phrase
“pale sot” makes the shark sound
like an ashen-faced drunkard on the
point of collapsing in a heap. Presumably, the shark is drunk on the
ocean water washing through his
“charnel of maw,” a depository for
bones. His gaping mouth denotes
pure appetite—and pure stupidity.
His head is “Gorgonian” because
he is not only as hideous as the mythical Medusa, he also turns his prey
to stone by freezing them in terror.
Yet, with disarming nonchalance,
the “sleek little pilot-fish” zip around
him “alert” and unfazed, a beautiful
“azure” against his pasty fat flesh.
Ironically, they find a “haven” in his
ghastly mouth rather than a hell.
Oddly, the biggest and the smallest creatures have become “friends.”
Are we in the world of Walt Disney
here, with the Little Mermaid frolicking with smiling sea dragons?
February 4 – 10, 2010
The Epoch Times
“The Maldive Shark” by Herman Melville
About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw,
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.
No, the repetition of “friends” and
“friendly” suggests sarcasm, not sentimentality. We soon learn why. The
lovely little fish in fact “guide him to
prey,” so they are as vicious as he is.
When it comes to the kill, they’re the
brains and he’s the brawn.
The pilot-fish “in attendance”
around the shark are like courtly
flunkeys, bowing and scraping before their king—all the while knowing they hold the real power. We can
recognize this kind of back-scratching relationship in other contexts
too: from the brutal dictator and
his fastidious bureaucrats making an unholy alliance to maintain
their iron rule, to the bullying boss
and his simpering cronies in the
swamps of office politics.
The poem’s spritely, galloping
rhythm lightens the mood, however.
The anapestic meter—in which two
unstressed syllables are followed by
one that’s stressed—gives each line
a vaudevillian verve and vigor that
invites us to burst into life-affirming
laughter.
I can’t help but be reminded of
the crocodile in Lewis Carroll’s
Alice In Wonderland: “How cheerfully he seems to grin!/ How neatly
spread his claws,/ And welcomes
little fishes in/ With gently smiling
jaws!” The concluding repetition of
“pale” may also remind us of that
great white whale Moby Dick in Melville’s famous novel. Are these two
somehow undersea brothers?
Readers have found profound
symbolic significance in Captain
Ahab’s hunt for Moby Dick, so does
“The Maldive Shark” contain a hidden meaning as well? I’m not sure if
there’s any need to dive any deeper
than Melville’s genius for description: the rich muscularity of the
language, the brilliant colors, the
sense of movement and the shiver
of the unknown. When we say the
words aloud, we can just taste that
“horrible meat”…
Herman Melville (1819–1891) was
an American novelist, poet, short story
writer. He is most famous for his novel
Moby-Dick.
Children’s Selections
A Serendipitous Find: ‘Spiderweb for Two’
By SHARON KILARSKI
Epoch Times Staff
When I failed to find a copy of “Little Women” at
the local library for my nine-year-old daughter who
wanted to reread it, the librarian suggested a title I
had never heard of: “Spiderweb for Two.”
I was not acquainted with the Newbery Award-winning author, Elizabeth Enright, either, but am very
satisfied that I now know her—Spiderweb is an engaging read.
“Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze” is the last of
the Melendy Quartet. The Quartet was published between 1941 and 1951 and chronicles the adventures of
the Melendy family, particularly the four children.
Certainly, “Spiderweb for Two” can stand alone,
without its older companion pieces introducing it.
Here, practical Oliver and imaginative Randy Melendy are lonely because their older rambunctious
siblings are away at school. They have nothing to do.
Their father is away, too, on business, and their beloved housekeeper cannot seem to cheer them.
But, when a mysterious riddle arrives in the mail,
a riddle that insists it must remain a secret, the pair
must put their heads together to solve it. Solving one
clue leads to the discovery of the next, until, taken
together, their sum equals a year of adventure, concluding with a final and happy surprise.
The clues more than kept my daughter engaged and
eager to learn what was coming next. Unlike many
mysteries, where the reader passively watches the
enigma being unraveled, these clues beg the reader
to join in the fun. They ranged in difficulty from one
that she could answer in a moment, (“That’s easy”)
to several that had us both scratching our heads. All
the clues—poems really—are beautifully written and
intriguing. Moreover, they lead the reader from topics as far afield as ancient Grecian history to Oriole
nests.
The Melendys explore their house, grounds, neighbors’ yards and houses, a store in town, and a graveyard. These places open up for the reader and ring very
true, as children are the truer owners of their homes
and neighborhoods in the sense that they hold them
in so much more acute regard than do adults.
Best yet, both Melendy children, although real
human beings, manage to treat each other well, treat
the adults they visit with respect, and treat their family, friends, and pets with warm devotion—this alone
makes the book a treasure among children’s books.
I, like the Melendy children who often take wrong
turns on their searches, started this Melendy Quartet
at the wrong end. But no end is the wrong place to
start when it provides the readers a happy experience.
In fact, this experience leads me to three other titles
that precede this one in the Quartet.
AMAZON
About Elizabeth Enright
Elizabeth Enright was born in Oak Park, Illinois,
but spent most of her life around New York City. She
planned to illustrate, following her mother’s path,
and so studied art in Paris. When her first book was
published in 1937, however, her career path changed
and she became better known for her writing (winning two Newberry Medals, among others) than for
her art.
Perhaps her most beloved stories are the Melendy
Quartet: “The Saturdays,” “The Four-Story Mistake,”
“Then There Were Five,” and “Spiderweb for Two: A
Melendy Maze.”
The Top Shelf aims to acquaint or reacquaint readers
with books that edify children’s nature, uplift their spirits,
and encourage them in wholesome pursuits. Some titles
The Epoch Times editors recommend will be new releases,
some will be rediscovered treasures, but each title will be
selected with your child’s heart in mind.