Nearly as old as Ahab (one more birthday and I'll be 58: his age), I drive south from Boston on a recent Saturday morning. Through a raging drabness of Massachusetts wintertime, I drive and drive: leaky light without a source; seething, decaying snow. I'm on a mission here. A collision with immensity awaits: the 2026 Moby-Dick Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Programming, scholarship, and'the event's steadily droning core'a 25-hour cover-to-cover reading of the great book itself. Hundreds of volunteer readers, in five-minute increments, from noon on Saturday to 1 p.m. on Sunday. A test of my fortitude as a listener, of my ability to keep my behind in a seat. But I am faint. Succor is required. I pull over at the Bridgewater Service Plaza because sometimes what you need is to quietly conform yourself to the will of God, and sometimes what you need is a cup of stinking black coffee and a Dunkin' glazed doughnut. Into snowy New Bedford, into the Whaling Museum, into the room...
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