On these blustery spring afternoons, when I take my walk along the harbor, I often think of the young men who 180 years ago sailed from these shores for the whale fishery. True, Bristol and Warren were minor whaling ports compared to New Bedford or Nantucket, but the profit from whale oil was so stupendous, what shipowner could resist?
But what propelled young men to leave home for four years of certain danger? The tales of South Sea beauties who had not yet met a missionary? The balmy seas once you reached the Bahamas? Sheer poverty… or something they, like Ishmael, were running from?
It wasn’t the money – their slice of the pie was wafer-thin. Yet they were willing to say good-bye to parents, young wives, childhood friends, and the comforts of the 1840s version of Aidan’s to set sail for uncharted waters.
Learning what awaited them – 20 or 25 of them crowded into the fo’c’s’le – is one thing awaiting you on Saturday, April 6, if you join Bristol BookFest’s day-long exploration of Herman Melville and his astonishing Moby-Dick. Mary Bercaw Edwards, one of the world ‘s leading Melville scholars (and someone who herself has traveled under sail around the world), will take you below deck and then up into the rigging, to help you understand life on the Pequod.
She is only one of our distinguished panel of speakers who over two days will tell us about Melville’s strange and unhappy life, his great debt to Hawthorne, his channeling of Shakespeare, and his fascination with whales.
So if you haven’t yet registered at bristolbookfest.com, don’t delay in coming aboard. The Friday, April 5 keynote (5 pm, Colt School Auditorium) and the Rogers Free Library reception afterwards (one of Bristol’s best parties of the year!) are free of charge, upon registration. The 9 am-4 pm Saturday series of talks and community discussions in the Linden Place Ballroom costs $40. A box lunch is available for $15. Again, please register for either or both days.
The Boston Sunday Globe (March 10) says Bristol BookFest is one of the 30 “must-see” cultural events in New England this spring. Don’t miss it!
