My grandmother was a tireless Moby-Dick reader, but I interrupted her, I asked a hundred questions, I was interested in all the wrong things—such as whale vomit, or what makes whales sick in the first place. Chapter 92, the “Ambergris” chapter, raises a lot of gastrointestinal questions. Highly valued by perfumers, ambergris is (in Melville’s words) “an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale!” It is produced only by sperm whales. I made my grandmother explain what would happen to a mass of ambergris that was too large to pass through the whale’s intestines. Nana took pains to tell me that such a large mass of ambergris would have to be vomited by the whale. Ambergris can float for years, before washing ashore. Lumps have been found weighing as much as fifty kilograms—imagine 110 pounds of whale vomit! This is the kind of thing that distracted me from what was important in Moby-Dick. My interest in whale puke drove my grandmother crazy.

But Nana and I understood one thing. We loved Queequeg, the cannibal harpooner. We were thrilled that he was heavily tattooed, and that he traveled with a shrunken head. We were excited that Queequeg wasn’t a Christian, because this meant he was capable of doing anything. Whatever came into Queequeg’s head, he might do it. He might even eat you. The savage from the South Seas was the opposite of an uptight, white New Englander. Nana and I knew what they were like.

Years later, when I read Moby-Dick to myself, I kept a close eye on Queequeg. My grandmother was right. If you pay attention to Queequeg, the cannibal harpooner, you will appreciate Moby-Dick. No amount of whale vomit will turn you against what D. H. Lawrence called “one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world.”

Not being a Christian has a marvelous effect on Queequeg. One day, Queequeg has a fever. He decides he’s going to die. Queequeg is right, but it’s not the fever that’s going to kill him, and he’s not the only one onboard the Pequod who’s going to die. Queequeg asks the ship’s carpenter to make a coffin. Queequeg even lies down in his coffin, to be sure he fits. But Queequeg’s fever goes away, and he uses the coffin for his clothes. This is not extraneous detail! Not long later, a life buoy is lost overboard. Queequeg hints that his coffin would work as a life buoy—he is a practical cannibal. The ship’s carpenter goes to work on the coffin, nailing down the lid, caulking the seams.

“Queequeg sees the world differently than his shipmates aboard the Pequod,” my grandmother explained. “Only someone like Queequeg would ask the ship’s carpenter for a coffin.”