Melville must have been aware that there were sections of his book that were not going to grip every reader. For that reason his employment of short chapters is quite astute. Few chapters in Moby Dick are more than a few pages long. Some don’t even extend to the length of a page. No doubt there are modern readers who might be tempted to skip the longer descriptions in search of the story. So be it. Even more time could be saved by simply watching one of the film versions of the novel. But readers looking for more than a story will be rewarded with a book that informs and educates just as the experience of a journey benefits the traveller.

My own first book was a very modest little effort compared with any of the above but nonetheless I decided to call it ‘The Iberian Horseshoe – A Journey’. While not concerned with categories or genres, I was bound to be asked what type of book it was. I found it hard to classify. It contained too much reality to be labelled fiction, and seemed too experimental to fall comfortably into travel writing or autobiography. So I prefer to call it ‘a journey’ and leave it at that. The term is open to personal interpretation. A journey can go outwards into unknown worlds but also within as we try to find a comfortable fit for ourselves in the greater scheme of things.

I like fiction which is true to the adjectival meaning of the word ‘novel’. That’s not to say novels should be totally original. Any good novelist is going to have learned something from his predecessors. Melville was no exception, but a quality work of fiction should not be shackled by genre. ‘Moby Dick’ is an adventure story set on the high seas and an enormously ambitious whale of a novel. It includes more information about the whale than anyone could ever need. And whaling is a bloody and cruel activity that I wouldn’t care to enthuse about. But I admire Melville’s ability to digress, his exploration of other avenues and even his ventures out of bounds into non-fictional territory. In chapter 32, Cetology, he lists numerous other authors who have written about the whale and goes into some detail about different types of the mammal. (Apparently they are difficult to classify, too.) Here Melville acknowledges that he is part of a long tradition stemming back to classical Greek philosophy and the bible. Yet, even in this chapter concerned with facts, Melville produces what must go down as one of the most poetic footnotes in history: I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy and contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.

The spirit of Melville lives on in some of today’s writers. Julian Barnes is one of the ‘novel’ novelists whose fictional efforts are, in part, extensive creative essays. See ‘A History of the World in 10 ˝ Chapters’ or the superb ‘Flaubert’s Parrot’. There is much to be learned, as well as pleasure derived, from literary novels which mix fact with fiction and take the reader on a journey through the author’s mental library.

I would do a disservice to the subject of this essay if I didn’t include my own digression here. As a young aspiring writer, who in truth didn’t write nearly often enough, I was living in a basement flat in Albert Street, Edinburgh, when I heard a knock on the door. Standing there was a heavily bearded middle-aged man. He was gibbering about a typewriter he had for sale. He said he would rather another writer made use of it instead of selling it to the second hand shop up the road. He invited me to his home to take a look at the typewriter. Although aware that I could have been walking straight into the hands of a madman, I sensed that he was harmless enough. The flat was sparsely decorated but on the wall was a portrait of Herman Melville, with a lengthy beard not dissimilar to the one my host was sporting. Melville had a serious look on his face as if he saying, “Don’t stand around all day, young man, there are books to be written!”

As I snapped up a new typewriter for a tenner, I asked, “How did you know where I lived and that I was a writer?” Melville’s prodigy explained to me that he had heard the tapping of keys and had managed to locate their source. But looking down from his window and across the green to mine, there was no way he could have heard my typewriter through so many walls. Perhaps it was just about possible to see me seated at the machine on those rare occasions when I was putting my thoughts on the page.

Returning to ‘Moby Dick’ more than ten years after I first read it, what is most striking is that Melville does not shy away from his influences. The book is full of quotes and references to other writers. Diversity of style is provided by first person accounts, epitaphs, essays, and it even breaks into the structure of a play in chapter 40. ‘Moby Dick’ is an inspirational example to writers who want to explore and wander, rather than be confined by the expectations and limitations of genre.

Steven Porter was born in Inverness, Scotland, currently lives in Girona, Catalonia and writes for www.soccer-spain.com. He translates from Spanish & Catalan. For poetry translations from Catalan and for more on the language click here. His poetry has been published in various lit mags including Cutting Teeth, Northwords and Orbis. He is currently seeking publisher for his first collection of poetry. His ebook entitled 'The Iberian Horseshoe', a long intermittent journey through Galicia, Portugal, Andalusia, Valencia and Catalonia, is available from here. For more news on on Steve Porter visit here or for a selection of his writing on the showcase section of this site, click here.