No, You Don’t Have to Read 600 Pages of Whale Facts…

I never imagined myself writing retellings, but if I only retold one story in my writing career, it would be Moby Dick. Even if you’ve never so much as cracked the spine of what I would consider the greatest (if not the only) American Epic, you probably know plenty about it: mad Captain Ahab, the pursuit across the Pacific, and of course, the legend himself, the elusive white whale. Melville himself called it a “mighty book,” and I’m honored to be able to bring my own perspective to one of my favorite books through A Classic Retold.

If you’re planning to read Chase the Legend, you’re probably approaching the retelling from one of three starting points, and I’d love to spend this post addressing each of these starting points in turn, and hopefully answering some of the most frequent questions I’ve gotten about Chase the Legend.

(And always, if you have more questions, you know where to find me. I’m always happy to nerd out about my books, or Melville’s books, or books in general, or whales…) Anywho, let’s get to it.

Starting Point 1: You’ve Never Read Moby Dick

I would venture to guess that the majority of my readers will fall into this category.

Moby Dick is famous (infamous?) for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is its difficulty to read. My sweet husband, when we were first married, wanted to read it because he knew it was important to me, and I’m pretty sure he was asleep before the end of chapter one. Melville, you were a genius, but not everyone shares your enthusiasm for the whaling industry. I do, and know at least one other person who does, but I get it, not everyone does. Just in the last month, in fact, I’ve encountered notes in no less than three separate books pointing fingers at Melville for overburdening his readers with too much information. Two of them were editing books urging writers to be concise, so that’s fair I guess, but one of them was—no joke—The Princess Bride. I signed up for a swashbuckling adventure and got slapped out of nowhere with Melville slander.

^^me reading The Princess Bride

My advice about Chase the Legend for those of you who have not read Moby Dick: Don’t panic. My book is less than a third the length of Melville’s, and it contains considerably less eloquent prose detailing the specifics of whale anatomy. My poor Grammie was very concerned about what may or may not be required in order to read my book, but I’ll give you the same answer I gave her—no, you certainly do not have to have read Moby Dick to enjoy Chase the Legend. In fact, I beg you, PLEASE DO NOT attempt to read Moby Dick if you’re only doing it so you can better appreciate my book. My guess is that you have at least a general familiarity with the story and its characters just because of its cultural saturation, but if you truly don’t know ANYTHING about Moby Dick, there’s a well-done miniseries on YouTube that might be worth a watch. (Never thought you’d hear that hot take from Hannah The-Book-Was-Better Tindle, did’ya?)

But even that is totally optional. My intent is that Chase the Legend, though it draws heavily from its source material, will also be a book that can stand on its own two feet.

Or, one foot and one peg leg, as the case may be.

Starting Point 2: You’ve read Moby Dick, and you hated it

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. A few days after the Classic Retold announcement went live, a friend stopped me in the hall at church and said “Boy, I sure hope you’re going to improve on that awful book.” While I don’t share the sentiment, I definitely understand. Moby Dick is widely disliked, probably because high school literature teachers force-feed it to tenth graders against their will and then threaten them with flunking grades if they don’t write up a twelve-page paper on its themes and import, which is a terrible way to interact with any piece of literature. If that’s how you first met Melville, I’m sorry. And even if you didn’t have a bad experience with Moby Dick in school, you’re entitled to your own opinions about it.

My word to this group of readers: Keep an open mind. Give me a chance to show you another side of this masterpiece of a story.

My question for you would be, what was it about the book that made you dislike it? If it’s Melville’s style you can’t abide, then you have nothing to worry about with Chase the Legend. I write in my own voice, with no attempt to capture a more archaic prose. If you’ve read my other books, you know I can’t take myself too seriously. While Chase the Legend lacks the lighthearted—and occasionally downright slapstick—tone that undergirds all of Clyde’s narration in the Sadie and Clyde books, it’s still my writing style. I can’t help the occasional quip, even in a book with a more serious tone.

But if it’s seagoing adventure, monster hunting, complex characters, and internal struggle that you don’t like about Moby Dick… well, I’m afraid I can’t help you there.

Starting Point 3: You’ve read Moby Dick, and you love it

If I’m being perfectly transparent, you are the group that scares me the most. I just really don’t want to let you down. You and I both love this book, and I would ask you—humbly—to trust me with this story.

During early drafting, I was discussing the concept of Chase the Legend with my uncle, who loves Moby Dick, and he asked how I was planning to incorporate Melville’s commentary on the whaling industry’s waning importance in my story. The short—and hopefully not disappointing—answer is, I’m not. Melville had nearly six hundred pages to explore as many themes as he liked. I’m telling a story with a much narrower focus and must by necessity pare down the elements I’m able to include. Every retelling, adaptation, or abridgement has to make choices of what to change, what to omit, and what to add (including movies; that miniseries I mentioned earlier completely erases someone I would consider to be a pivotal character, but I digress.)

I’m approaching the retelling with a posture of respect for the original, but I’m seeking to reimagine, not replicate.

If you know Moby well, you’ll have the pleasure of picking up my easter eggs, illusions, and tributes to the original. You’ll see the inspirations for my characters and events, be able to pick out which roles I blended or fused, and you’ll catch all of my references. (Hopefully you’ll appreciate some of the resolution of my own personal beef with Melville #JusticeForMrStarbuck).

On the flipside, if you know Moby well, you’ll also probably be able to pick up on what I changed, left out, or tweaked to fit my own agenda. And I’m aware that (as any page-to-screen viewer well knows) sometimes that will frustrate you. “Why did she change THAT? THAT wasn’t in the book!”

I’m gonna warn you right now, there are big differences in Chase the Legend. Like, major plot, character, and motivation differences. Not the least of which is, ya know, taking away the whales. MOBY DICK WITHOUT WHALES?! BLASPHEMY.

May I offer you a sea dragon in this trying time?

All joking aside, I would ask you to approach this book with the knowledge that Chase the Legend is “based on the timeless classic” in the same way that Melville’s original was “based on true events.” He took the true account of the sinking of the whale ship Essex, and merged it with his own sailing and whaling experience, his personal worldview, biases, messages, and a hearty dose of wild imagination, mashed it all together, and created Moby Dick. In turn, I took Moby Dick, mixed in my Christian worldview, my own experiences, and messages and themes that I felt were important to write about, and the result is Chase the Legend. If you can go in with that mindset, I think you’ll be able to enjoy the retelling, even though it doesn’t mirror the original in every aspect.

So there you have it. No matter where you’re starting from with Moby Dick, I’m so excited to take you on this voyage with me. The cover reveal and e-book preorders are both scheduled to go live on August 2, and we set sail on October 27th. I would love to see you aboard.

Be sure to follow along here or on my socials (@hkayewrites on Instagram, Hannah Kaye Writes on Facebook) to keep in the loop for all the exciting things coming up with Chase the Legend and A Classic Retold.

Questions? Comments? Whale jokes? Drop me a line or shoot me an email! I’m always around.