There is no bad time to read Melville. For the past 15 years in early January, the New Bedford Whaling Museum has a held a Moby Dick Marathon, an event which includes a non-stop reading of the great American novel. This year’s festivities will be spread over three days starting Friday night, January 7th, running through Sunday, January 9th. From their website, it appears that there will be a live feed for anyone wishing to watch remotely.
But why have a Moby Dick Marathon this time of year? Various locales including Mystic Seaport hold their Moby Dick Marathons around August 1st, – Melville’s birthday. The folks at New Bedford decided to celebrate the anniversary of Melville’s 1841 departure from the Port of New Bedford and Fairhaven aboard the whale ship Acushnet. Any why not? For years, there was a Moby Dick Marathon over Labor Day in Sag Harbor New York, and last year there was a Moby Dic Marathon in March in Falmouth, on Cape Cod. The lesson here – there is no bad time to read Melville.
Old Salt Blog
a virtual port of call for all those who love the sea , hosted by nautical novelist Rick Spilman
Think you mean January rather than December. Easy mistake, I’m still thinking it’s 2010!
Aargh, thanks for catching that. Fixed it.
There also used to be an annual reading of Moby Dick in the forecastle of Charles W. Morgan at Mystic Seaport. I’m not sure they still do it, but one could hardly imagine a more suitable venue.