Zen And The White Whale: A Buddhist Rendering of Moby-Dick by Daniel Herman (review)

Trying to catch Moby Dick the whale, like catching Melville’s novel, can be a frustrating and often self-defeating quest. It is not simply the foundational great American novel (see Lawrence Buell’s 2014 work, The Dream of the Great American Novel) but a text that cannot be contained by any geographic, disciplinary, or ideological boundaries. Yet, Daniel Herman has caught it (or come as close as possible to catching it) in simply one of the most imaginative, creative, and fascinating academic works I have read in years.

In Zen and the White Whale, Herman draws upon his experience and study of Japanese and Chinese Zen Buddhist traditions and writings as the lenses to explore the often illusive meanings of Melville’s novel and its key characters. A reader can potentially drown in the speculative nature of Herman’s text (and here I refer to the academic work, though the novel also has its casualties). Words and phrases like “perhaps,” “maybe,” or “it is possible” are linked with every one of Herman’s assertions, but this is an academic detective novel immersed in the possible, not the actual. Herman is clear that little to no evidence is available to prove Melville was aware or deeply read Zen Buddhist writings (xiv). Ironically, it seems to be the case that Melville’s (unconscious) awareness of Buddhist principles was sharper before he was more formally exposed to them, as evidenced in some of his later writings (13). Moreover, in some cases, historical scholars can prove that American knowledge of Zen Buddhism was virtually nonexistent when Melville composed Moby Dick, and only imaginative leaps and educated guesses can point to possible encounters and interactions on Melville’s peripatetic global journeys. But no matter: the confluence and mirror images or echoing ideas between Buddhist thought and Melville’s novel are so eerie and interrelated that one could call Melville (or perhaps Ishmael) an anonymous Buddhist, if we employ Catholic theologian Karl Rahner’s anonymous Christian terminology from the mid-twentieth century. Let me give a few succinct examples.

Herman sees Ishmael as the embodiment of the Middle Way (141), where a self transcends the self, free of detachment or illusion or permanent naming. “Call me Ishmael,” the novel’s famous opening, testifies to this fluid and contextual process. In Buddhist terms, all reality, including the self, is non-existent as such because everything depends on everything else. The piece of bread I eat, as Thich Nhat Hanh argues in Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, incorporates the earth, the sky, the sun, water, and the labor of the worker so that all of these ultimately are one and indistinguishable. In Buddhist doctrine this is the notion of dependent co-origination. Ishmael sees even the great whale in this context, but Ahab, obsessed and narcissistic, cannot free himself from his quest and seeking no matter the consequences or even after possible moments of enlightenment. Clinging to his quest and seeking to conquer and subdue the whale, he drowns. Only Ishmael survives, ironically on a coffin turned life buoy, again showcasing the fluidity and contextual nature of all reality.

Although there is much in Herman’s text challenging any viable possibility of the Christian God and so supporting a nontheistic, Buddhist conception of the world, the novel’s greatness is that Herman’s fresh, invigorating arguments enlarge rather than restrict other possible readings. A Christian interpretation of the novel that, for example, takes Jesus’ challenge to the rich man to deny himself, take up his cross, and “follow me,” could serve as another hermeneutical key in unlocking Melville’s text. Such a reading would parallel many of the ideas and passages which Herman opens up, but through a so-called Christian portal. It is a testament to Herman that his insights and creativity can expand an already seemingly saturated novel. He does not catch Moby Dick in part because catching it (whether as Moby...