Bristol BookFest returns April 5-6 for its fourth 12 months of enriching the East Bay neighborhood with traditional literature. This 12 months, the pageant celebrates the nice American novel “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville.
“Moby Dick,” like all of the classics, has develop into synonymous with “required studying;” most individuals realize it to be lengthy, troublesome, all a couple of whale, and solely learn at school. This guide, like the opposite classics the BookFest committee members have chosen up to now (together with “The Odyssey” and “Frankenstein”), represents “books you simply must have learn to grasp the world and make sense of your life,” insists Charles Calhoun, one of many co-founders of the pageant.
That line of rationale is most probably one which many unwilling college students heard once they complained about studying a guide for varsity, however the BookFest’s mission is to transcend literary appreciation. Not only for English majors, the Bristol BookFest works with town-wide neighborhood establishments – particularly Rogers Free Library – to create a wealthy program of multidisciplinary occasions associated to the chosen novel “that reaches all ages, all curiosity ranges, and all studying ranges.”
This 12 months, the auxiliary programming began in January and included a crafts evening to make sailor’s valentines, a category to study sailor’s knots, a scrimshaw present, and even a 65 foot inflatable whale at Colt Andrews Elementary Faculty that youngsters may climb inside. Upcoming programming features a live performance of sea shanties with The Whale Guitar Mission on March 25, and a retelling of epic voyages of Herman Melville’s seagoing uncle, Captain John D’Wolf on March 28. No matter angle a reader approaches “Moby Dick” – from literature, science, historical past, or artwork – the Bristol BookFest provides individuals “an incentive” to learn the whale story, says Calhoun. Individuals “have found it’s a unbelievable guide.”
“This guide pageant is about making connections,” Calhoun asserts, referencing not simply the big selection of programming that connects to the guide, but additionally to the neighborhood as an entire. The pageant is a method to meet your neighbors, and “Moby Dick” is, in a roundabout method, a really previous resident of the city of Bristol. “Bristol, within the nineteenth century, did have a really small whaling business – nothing to match to New Bedford, Nantucket, or Newport – and when Melville was a really younger man, possibly 9 or ten years previous, he got here right here to Bristol to go to his maternal uncle who was an area sea captain,” explains Calhoun. “[Captain D’Wolf] had been in a ship within the North Pacific off the Alaskan coast, and he had been rammed by a whale. Perhaps the germ had been planted in younger Herman’s thoughts {that a} whale could possibly be fairly the power.”
Whereas the pageant’s predominant occasions in April are all concerning the guide, Calhoun encourages readers and non-readers alike to go to. The April 5 programming on Friday night is free to the general public, that includes keynote speaker Declan Kiely from the New York Public Library. The April 6 program could be very educational, showcasing a sequence of audio system to debate the guide and associated matters. Audio system and their matters embrace: Richard H. Brodhead from Yale will speak about Hawthorne’s affect on Melville; Mary Okay. Bercaw Edwards of the College of Connecticut will describe the lifetime of a nineteenth century sailor; Cyrus R.Okay. Patell from New York College (NYU) and NYU Abu Dhabi will talk about Shakespearian affect on Melville; and Robert Rocha from the New Bedford Whaling Museum will communicate on whales, previous, current, and future. Calhoun hopes the lectures will likely be inspiring for non-readers, encouraging them to select up “Moby Dick,” and the talks will likely be fascinating on their very own, he insists.
The 2-day surge of academia isn’t made to scare individuals away from the pageant or from studying the guide. Fairly the other. Calhoun is making it his mission by the guide pageant to interrupt down the ivory tower of excessive teachers and fill the hole between universities and most of the people: “individuals within the educational world and folks within the common studying world want to come back collectively, and there aren’t that many alternatives.” The Bristol BookFest is supposed to make information and conventional academia accessible.
Calhoun had run the same program in Maine for about 25 years with the Maine Humanities Council. When he moved to Bristol 5 years in the past, he wished to begin up the same program for his new neighborhood. Now, in its fourth 12 months, the Bristol BookFest has been acknowledged by The Boston Globe as one of many 30 must-see cultural occasions this spring, a testomony to Calhoun’s ambition and the pageant’s success.
