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MELVILLE at 200 How Columbia Scholars Rescued the Author of Moby-Dick from the Waters of Oblivion

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MELVILLE at 200 How Columbia Scholars Rescued the Author of Moby-Dick from the Waters of Oblivion COLLEGE WALK MELVILLE AT 200 How Columbia scholars rescued the author of Moby-Dick from the waters of oblivion 919 was a big year for a book, Moby-Dick, which long before Stein or Joyce; and also Melville, whose literary centenaries. involved a crazed sea captain he acknowledged America’s seventy-year-old whaling 1James Russell Lowell, hell-bent on destroying the predatory power as well as its masterpiece Van Doren and poet, critic, and diplo- whale that tore off his leg. great promise; he defied con- Weaver were now raising mat, was feted at Columbia The book sold poorly. After vention in writing about sex; like a lost ship. Van Doren University and the Ritz- two more failed novels, and perhaps most shocking wrote of “the extraordinary Carlton, and Walt Whitman Melville, a father of four, of all, he took seriously the mixture in Moby Dick of vivid was toasted by two hundred ditched prose for poetry, possibility of a godless uni- adventures, minute details, at the Hotel Brevoort, near grew ever more melancholic verse. In his time, there was cloudy symbolisms, thrilling Washington Square. Both and insolvent, and became a a limited market for these pictures of the sea in every insights and innovations.” mood, sly mirth and cosmic But in 1919, one American ironies, real and incredible critic knew of the buried characters, wit, speculation, treasure. Carl Van Doren humor, color.” 1911GSAS, a professor of After this, Moby-Dick English at Columbia and became a celebrated main- literary editor of the Nation, stay of the American canon. wanted to mark Melville’s Robert Wallace ’72GSAS, centenary in the magazine. ’67SIPA, a professor at He had a writer in mind: an Northern Kentucky Univer- English instructor named sity who has taught Moby- Raymond Weaver 1917GSAS, Dick for half a century, calls whose mastery of Shake- it “an encyclopedia of world speare was a good prerequi- knowledge at the time” and site for tackling the Ameri- says students today draw can writer who in language lessons that the previous and spiritual turbulence generation didn’t. “They are most closely approached the thrilled that Ishmael, in tell- Bard. At Van Doren’s urging, ing this story of the brutality Weaver dusted off Melville’s of whaling, finds ways to works and was hooked. express the beauty of whales “Essentially he was a mystic, and how they represent the a treasure-seeker, a mystery- natural world that we’re in monger, a delver after hidden the process of destroying.” things spiritual and material,” Though Moby-Dick looms Weaver wrote in the August over all American literature, 2, 1919, Nation. “It was Melville produced other writers had been born in customs inspector on the New Melville’s abiding craving pearls, and Weaver uncov- 1819, and both had been York docks, a job he held for to achieve some total and ered one of them. While dead for thirty years. nineteen years. His death in undivined possession of the researching his biography, So had Herman Melville. 1891 went virtually unnoticed. very heart of reality.” Weaver visited Melville’s The difference was, Melville “Melville was a nineteenth- Weaver embarked on a granddaughter Eleanor Mel- had sunk from view. His first century author writing for a biography, Herman Melville: ville Metcalf at her home in two books, Typee and Omoo, twentieth-century audience,” Mariner and Mystic, that New Jersey. Metcalf showed based on his voyages to the explains Columbia professor would be published in 1921. Weaver a trunk of Melville’s South Pacific, made a splash Andrew Delbanco, author of The same year, Van Doren papers, which included a HAWKINS AUDREY in the late 1840s. Then, in the 2005 biography Melville: published The American manuscript in Melville’s 1851, Melville calved an His World and Work. “He Novel — essays on Haw- inscrutable hand. The writer enormous spouting beast of used stream of consciousness thorne, Twain, James, had been working on a short 16 COLUMBIA FALL 2019 3.19_CW_2.indd 16 8/19/19 10:51 AM nnovelovel bbeforeefore hhisis ddeath.eath. ItIt waswas nneverever ppublished.ublished. WWeavereaver editededited tthehe mman-an- AA VINEVINE GROWSGROWS uuscriptscript aandnd iincludedncluded iitt iinn a ssixteen-volumeixteen-volume editionedition ofof MMelville’selville’s worksworks publishedpublished iinn ININ BROOKLYNBROOKLYN 1924. The novel, Billy Budd, concerns a handsome, inno- Students get a fresh look at the issue of food justice cent sailor who is recruited onto a British warship, where henever the subway government, twenty-three million Ameri- the wicked master-at-arms passes, we yell, ‘Use your cans, including 6.5 million children, live in Claggart mercilessly goads ÒWfarm voice,’” Anita Chan so-called “food deserts,” where fresh produce him until Billy fi nally erupts: shouts as an elevated is scarce. Washington prefers the term “food he strikes Claggart, acciden- train rumbles over a half acre of greenery apartheid,” Wooddell says, “because a desert tally killing him — and must in Brooklyn. is naturally occurring and apartheid is not.” face, under maritime justice, Here at the end of the number 3 line, on New “We want students to get their hands dirty,” the supreme penalty. Weaver Lots Avenue, sunfl owers peek out through the Caudill says. “We want them to see the many called the novel “unmatched wire fence that encloses the community garden ways to farm sustainably and talk to the people among Melville’s works in of East New York Farms! (ENYF!). On this who are doing this work.” lucidity and inward peace” plot, local residents grow dozens of varieties of Caudill believes agroecology — agriculture and found in the tragedy produce — Swiss chard, bitter melon, cherry that works in harmony with the ecosystem to an unsuspected grace: “The tomatoes, to name a few — and learn about improve both — has implications for everyone. powers of evil and horror organic farming. “We all eat. We all make decisions about must be granted their fullest When the train noise subsides, Chan, an food every day, and those decisions infl uence scope; it is only thus we can ENYF! staff member, picks tomatoes off our food systems. And food systems infl uence triumph over them.” a vine and hands them to the fi ve college our decisions,” says Caudill. Weaver, who worked at students clustered around her. These students At the garden, students measure the tem- Columbia for thirty-two years, are in a six-week, six-credit Columbia course perature of the soil and the surrounding side- was a passionate teacher called SEE-U NYC — Summer Ecosystem walk. Cities are often hotter than rural areas, whose interests included Experiences for Undergraduates — led by because asphalt absorbs heat. But green spaces mask-making and astrology. conservation ecologist Amanda Caudill can help cool cities down, an eff ect students Lionel Trilling ’25CC, ’38GSAS ’03SEAS. The program, organized by the are tracking in their lab. called Weaver’s death in 1948 Earth Institute Center for Environmental Alongside the lab work, each student an “irreparable loss,” but today, Sustainability (EICES), brings the farm-to- develops an individual research project. Shaul Weaver’s legacy is stronger table journey to life with lectures, labs, and Armony, a junior at the School of General than ever. This year, Herman weekly fi eld trips to urban and rural farms Studies, is focusing on access to nutritious food. Melville’s bicentennial was around the tri-state area. He was a cook before coming to Columbia and honored worldwide. None of Interns from local middle schools push blue now majors in sustainable development. this could have been predicted wheelbarrows fi lled with soil as the college “If you’re at a grocery store, it’s hard to in 1919, but in his Nation students ask Chan questions. understand where your food comes from,” essay, Weaver, the amateur “How many kids help harvest vegetables?” says Armony. “That tomato we just ate was so astrologist, took a stab at “What’s the soil composition?” great because it was right off the vine. So if a divining Melville’s future. Last week, students explored a greenhouse kid goes home and asks his parents for more “The versatility and power perched on the roof of a Whole Foods in tomatoes like that — fresh from a farm, in of his genius was extraordi- Gowanus. Next week, they will head upstate season — then change can start to happen.” nary,” Weaver wrote. “If he to a Buddhist monastery that grows its own For Wooddell, change can also start with does not eventually rank as organic food. The week after, they’ll visit Rise programs like this one. a writer of overshadowing and Root Farm, a cooperative in Chester, “Maybe these undergraduates will be accomplishment, it will be New York, run by urban-farming activist our future activists, researchers, or policy- owing not to any lack of Karen Washington. Washington’s talk on makers helping with sustainability and food genius, but to the perversity “food apartheid” has made three students inequality,” says Wooddell. “You can’t improve of his rare and lofty gifts.” cry, says EICES assistant director Kelsey things without education. You just can’t.” RICHARD GRIFFIN / SHUTTERSTOCK — Paul Hond Wooddell ’18SIPA. According to the US — Rebecca Kelliher ’13BC COLUMBIA FALL 2019 17 3.19_CW_2.indd 17 8/19/19 10:51 AM.
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