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Chicago Tribune
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Thar she blows! Chicago artist and writer Dmitry Samarov brings ‘Moby-Dick' back to life
Moby Dick was a whale, a very big whale. It is also a book, a very big book, written by Herman Melville and published in 1851. It was initially a commercial failure, this tale of Captain Ahab on a whaling ship named the Pequod on his mad quest for vengeance on the giant white sperm whale of the title that had chomped off Ahab's leg on a previous encounter. The story's narrator, a seaman along for the journey, opens with what is arguably the most famous first line in English literary history, 'Call me Ishmael.' 'Moby-Dick,' the book, entered the life of artist and writer Dmitry Samarov two decades ago when he was 33. 'I was going through a divorce and came upon a cheap paperback copy of the book,' he says. 'It was a crazy time for me and I was grasping at anything that might help me. This novel was a life raft and I felt lucky to be among the few who had not been assigned to read it in high school, so I wasn't spoiled by having to do it for homework.' And so he was helped and life moved on. But in the days following the bloody events of Nov. 4, 2024, in Gaza that rattled this world, Samarov was particularly affected. He set about trying to 'forget the news.' He canceled his subscriptions to newspapers. Never a tech aficionado, he severed his remaining internet ties so there was 'no headline-blaring app (following) me out the door.' Samarov came to the United States from his native Russia in 1978 when he was 7. He lived first in Boston and then came here. He went to the School of the Art Institute. He started driving a cab. He wrote. He made art. In 2006, he started writing an illustrated blog about his behind-the-wheel experiences. This attracted the folks at the University of Chicago Press, and that led to 'Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab' (2011) and 'Where To? A Hack Memoir' (2014). His next book arrived in 2019, 'Music to My Eyes,' a gathering of drawings and writing handsomely published by the local Tortoise Books. 'For more than 30 years, I have been bringing my sketchbook to concerts and drawing the performers on stage,' he said. I wrote of it: 'His writing has matured over the years and in wonderfully compelling ways his new book can be read as a memoir, for in it he shares stories that help explain why and how music has, as he put it, 'haunted my entire life.'' He lives in Bridgeport and makes his living by working some fill-in bar shifts at the Rainbo Club and a couple of shifts at Tangible Books, near his apartment. 'My life is all freelance and flexible,' he told me some time ago. 'The goal is total unemployment.' Now, on to the latest book, seeded by an article Samarov read about, as he puts it, 'tech hucksters claiming to make millions publishing new versions of classics from the public domain.' He was not at all interested in 'tricking anyone into paying me $15.99 for a cut-and-paste reprint of some dusty tome.' He discovered Project Gutenberg, the internet site that allows people to download books or read them online at no cost. It offers some of the world's great literature, focused on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Near the top of its most-downloaded list, Samarov found his old friend, 'Moby-Dick.' And so he got to work. In his short but lively 'Designers Note' at the book's end, he gives some of the details, and he tells me one of his goals with this project is 'to introduce it to younger people.' He writes that he feels the novel is 'as relevant as any news story.' The book is handsomely published by Samarov's friends at local publisher Maudlin House and is available there and elsewhere for $25, not at all bad for a 650-page book. Melville dedicated 'Moby-Dick' to his great friend, novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. Samarov dedicates this new edition to Harry Synder, the late manager of a theater in Boston about whom Samarov writes elsewhere, 'Harry and I didn't talk much about art over the 35-plus years of our friendship but he showed me how to carry myself in the world without neurotically making sure anyone who crossed my path knew of my 'true calling.' He was a fully-rounded person first but an artist to the core.' The whale is on the cover of this new edition, striking in black and white, though to me, he appears to be smiling. 'I was inspired by scrimshaw art,' says Samarov, then explaining that art form that is created by engraving or carving on such whale parts as bones and teeth. There are nearly 100 drawings of people, boats, buildings, implements, ropes in knots and other items. There is a Samarov self-portrait and a drawing of Melville, accompanied by Samarov's writing, 'I wonder what (Melville) would make of there now being over 7,000 versions of his masterpiece. … I'd like to believe he'd judge the version you hold in your hands worthwhile and not a cheap cash grab.' Far be it from me to dip into Melville's mind, but I think Samarov's right.
Indian Express
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
‘Call me Ishmael': How Herman Melville caught that elusive white whale – the perfect opening line
'Call me Ishmael.' – Moby-Dick, Herman Melville Many would-be authors, should-be bestsellers and wannabe novelists have perished chasing that 'white whale' – the perfect opening line. Fittingly, Herman Melville, the author who birthed the metaphor in his novel, Moby-Dick (1851), was one of the few to craft an opening line so legendary that immortalised him, holding generation after generation in its thrall. In just three words, Melville sets the tone for the novel, after all 'Call me Ishmael' is not quite the same as 'My name is Ishmael.' One wonders, who is Ishmael? A man? A myth? A voice in the oceanic wilderness? The genius of the line lies in its simplicity. It is both an introduction and a Biblical invocation, casting the reader into the confidant role. It asks to be heard, just as the Biblical Ishmael once was. There is a theatricality to his first words, a suggestion of persona rather than identity. He may be Ishmael, or he may only want us to think of him that way. It's an adopted name, a mask, and one loaded with biblical meaning. The name Ishmael is steeped in significance across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the Book of Genesis, Ishmael is Abraham's first son, born of Hagar, Sarah's Egyptian servant. Cast out into the wilderness with his mother, Ishmael is marked from birth by exclusion and exile. But in the desert, an angel tells Hagar: 'Thou shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.' To be named Ishmael is to be known by suffering, to be heard by God, but not necessarily to be comforted. Melville's Ishmael, too, begins his journey as a man afflicted—a self-confessed sufferer of a 'damp, drizzly November in my soul.' He heads to sea as a kind of therapy, to stave off 'methodically knocking people's hats off.' Melville knew the biblical Ishmael intimately—raised a strict Calvinist, he was fluent in the scriptural undercurrents he channels here. This is not a voyage of commerce or conquest, but of existential necessity. He boards the Pequod to save himself from depression, madness, and violence. And yet, by the novel's end, he is the sole survivor of a doomed mission driven by another man's (Ahab's) obsession. He drifts again, now quite literally, clinging to a coffin repurposed as a life buoy. That Ishmael survive is essential, after all someone must live to tell the tale. And yet, the tale itself is strange and fractured. Ishmael recounts episodes he could not have personally seen. He recounts Ahab's most private soliloquies, scenes where he is absent. His omniscience is suspect. His narrative, possibly mad, which just adds to the enduring myth. Published under the original title The Whale, Moby-Dick was Melville's sixth and least-popular novel during his lifetime. However, today it is widely considered a cornerstone of American literature. That first line—'Call me Ishmael'—has become cultural shorthand. It's quoted in films, parodied in cartoons, reimagined in novels, memes, and advertisements. Its biblical and literary gravitas make it instantly recognisable. Over time, the phrase has spawned a small library of titles, tributes, and transformations. Michael Gerard Bauer's Don't Call Me Ishmael (2006) uses the name to explore teenage awkwardness and resilience, while Charles Olson's 1947 Call Me Ishmael repurposes it as a lens into American myth and Melville's legacy. Logan Smalley's Call Me Ishmael Phone Book (2020) transforms the line into a crowdsourced celebration of books that changed lives. In poetry, the line—and the figure—has had a particularly enduring afterlife. Consider the poet Agha Shahid Ali, whose work often meditates on exile and longing. His recurring evocations of Ishmael in collections such as The Beloved Witness and The Half-Inch Himalayas cast the biblical outcast as a symbol of displaced identity and spiritual estrangement. In the poem, Tonight, he writes: And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee—/God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.) ('Drawing a Line' is an eight-column weekly series exploring the stories behind literature's most iconic opening lines. Each column offers interpretation, not definitive analysis—because great lines, like great books, invite many readings.) Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
