《白鯨記》 (Moby Dick)，兩千多頁，被哈羅德·布洛姆(Harold Bloom)列入美國正典當中(The American Canon)。非虛構章節，關於鯨魚歷史，詞源的章節，很有意思；但失色部分也不少。我可以說，七成的內容值得一讀。作為一本美國巨著，白鯨記達不到我的期望；但不要誤會，這篇文章是想鼓勵大家讀白鯨記的精煉章節。
白鯨記一開頭數頁已經滲出梅爾維爾(Herman Melville)的幽默感，如鯨油般，纏繞著讀者。以實瑪利 (Ishmael)因不快而出海做水手，同時因為這樣就可以令自己無法隨便撞倒陌生人的帽子。
and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off.
到了第九十五章，一個水手在處理鯨魚的陰莖，將其變成聖職法衣。莊嚴和幽默不禁令人想起令人聯想到狄更斯(Charles Dickens)的文筆，特別是《荒涼山莊》 (bleak house)。
Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus （鯨魚陰莖）, as the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.
That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator’s desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer!
除了幽默感之外，帶有莎士比亞風格的文字亦是梅爾維爾(Herman Melville)的一大特色。莎士比亞是他的愛。當過度引典令我感到反感之際，他那種莎士比亞式的散文又重新喚起了我對此書的期待；然而，亞哈(Ahab)的戲劇性獨白雖然模仿了莎士比亞的人物塑造手法，卻有時不知為何令我感到老派。
雖然亞哈在第三十六章和第三十七章中的獨白令哈羅德·布洛姆在《美國正典》中津津樂道，但我卻認為第一百三十二章最為動人。亞哈感到自己浪費了投身捕鯨的時間，然而這種「奴役」卻仍驅使他不斷追尋白鯨，想回家也不能。有點像我在讀這本書的情況，感覺內容無聊時又不能放下書本不看，不況開了個頭。
“Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day—very much such a sweetness as this—I struck my first whale—a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty—forty—forty years ago!—ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain’s exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without—oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!
我曾以英語和中文兩種版本閱讀這本書。遺憾的是，中文譯本失去了莎士比亞式的詩性，只剩下一些對母語為中文的讀者而言顯得生硬而突兀的意象。
《白鯨記》 是本page-turner，不斷讓我翻頁。書中也有解釋航海運作和用字，這點不用擔心。如果未讀過莎士比亞也沒差，文字本身已有足夠張力。只是看到作者受其他人文筆影響也有趣。哈羅德·布洛姆最喜歡分析作者之間如何互相影響，其中一方如何超越他的先前者(precursor)。先前者大概指作者最大的文學影響。有機會再講布洛姆。