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

Abstract

ZEN AND THE WHITE WHALE: A Buddhist Rendering of Moby-Dick. By Daniel Herman. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press. 2014.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 (or come as close as 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, 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 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. …