Rob Vlock is driving new readers to an often-overlooked Melville title

After reading James Fenimore Cooper, I had some vague thoughts that I should look into Melville again. I didn't feel like committing to a re-read of Moby-Dick, so I thought…didn’t Melville also write some other books? Maybe I should read those.

I went on Audible and started listening to samples of his other books, and when I came to White-Jacket, what I heard was strikingly different not just from any of the other Melville books, but from anything else I’d ever heard on Audible.

The narration of this audiobook was so confident, so spritely, so playful—it really made me think of Melville in a profoundly different way. This voice seemed to be the voice of Melville in the same way Edoardo Ballerini has become the voice, for me, of both Knausgaard and of God.¹

Here’s a sample of the beginning of this book:

I had no idea what I was listening to. I had never heard of this book before. It’s not one of the more famous books in the Melville ouevre, but I was so captivated. White-Jacket is a non-fiction book about the year or so that Melville spent on a man o’war—a military vessel. In this book he sets himself the task of only writing about life at sea—he says he’s going to ignore everything that happens on land. He describes in playful and poetical detail the various aspects of a man o’war’s operation, with considerable commentary along the way. For instance, in his telling, the main draw for most of the sailors is the ready access to spirits:

In the American Navy, the law allows one gill of spirits per day to every seaman. In two portions, it is served out just previous to breakfast and dinner. At the roll of the drum, the sailors assemble round a large tub, or cask, filled with liquid; and, as their names are called off by a midshipman, they step up and regale themselves from a little tin measure called a "tot." No high-liver helping himself to Tokay off a well-polished sideboard, smacks his lips with more mighty satisfaction than the sailor does over this tot. To many of them, indeed, the thought of their daily tots forms a perpetual perspective of ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding in the distance. It is their great "prospect in life." Take away their grog, and life possesses no further charms for them. It is hardly to be doubted, that the controlling inducement which keeps many men in the Navy, is the unbounded confidence they have in the ability of the United States government to supply them, regularly and unfailingly, with their daily allowance of this beverage. I have known several forlorn individuals, shipping as landsmen, who have confessed to me, that having contracted a love for ardent spirits, which they could not renounce, and having by their foolish courses been brought into the most abject poverty—insomuch that they could no longer gratify their thirst ashore—they incontinently entered the Navy; regarding it as the asylum for all drunkards, who might there prolong their lives by regular hours and exercise, and twice every day quench their thirst by moderate and undeviating doses.

Here is the same passage in audio form:

I’m giving you this long quote so you can see how the book is written. It is so maximalist—just torrents of words, sly and playful, full of dependent clauses that are full of little details. The style is quite different from his first two books, Typee and Omoo, and it feels like something has been unleashed—he no longer feels any pressure to limit his loquacity or control the direction of his attention.

---

The book is also very contemptuous of authority.

He has four chapters for instance on why flogging is evil and must be abolished post-haste:

No matter, then, what may be the consequences of its abolition; no matter if we have to dismantle our fleets, and our unprotected commerce should fall a prey to the spoiler, the awful admonitions of justice and humanity demand that abolition without procrastination; in a voice that is not to be mistaken, demand that abolition today. It is not a dollar-and-cent question of expediency; it is a matter of right and wrong. And if any man can lay his hand on his heart, and solemnly say that this scourging is right, let that man but once feel the lash on his own back, and in his agony you will hear the apostate call the seventh heavens to witness that it is wrong.

---

Melville is especially hard on the captain of this ship. He depicts the Captain giving a disastrous order while they're in a storm off Cape Horn—his Lieutenant ignores the order and does the opposite action. Everyone in the crew sees what happens, but because the Lieutenant was clearly right, he's never subjected to punishment. Melville has heretofore implied that the Captain was an alcoholic, but now he states it outright.

And though this is only a surmise, nevertheless, as having some knowledge of brandy and mankind, White-Jacket will venture to state that, had Captain Claret been an out-and-out temperance man, he would never have given that most imprudent order to hard up the helm. He would either have held his peace, and stayed in his cabin, like his gracious majesty the Commodore, or else have anticipated Mad Jack’s order, and thundered forth ‘Hard down the helm!’

---

What's fascinating is that I've read a lot of naval fiction, and almost invariably these books believe in naval discipline. For instance, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny reads like a direct response to White-Jacket. In Wouk's book, there is an incompetent captain (Queeg) who mishandles his ship in a storm and is relieved of his command by a Lieutenant, who is later court-martialed for his actions. At the end of the book, the Lieutenant's lawyer gets him acquitted, but states privately that he does not believe the Lieutenant's actions were merited, because Queeg's seeming instability was just a result of the strain of command, and this command was a burden that nobody but the Queegs of the world were willing to take. And the attorney, Greenwald (who is Jewish) states that it's basically people like Queeg who saved the Jews from Hitler, and that everyone should cut him some slack.

Another example of this genre is the "You're damn right I did" speech by Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

Melville has no respect for that! He sees no need for officers, military discipline, the articles of war, or any of it!

I would say that it's a bit of a dishonest performance (because how can a military vessel run except with strict discipline?), except it's clear that Melville whole-heartedly believes it: he just hates, absolutely detests, any form of authority.

---

After finishing White-Jacket, I thought, “What is the deal with this audiobook? How is it so good?” I have listened now to a lot of audiobooks of public domain works, and usually these kind of titles, from deep in an author’s oeuvre, are not done well. There is almost always poor sound quality and an inexperienced narrator, because quite frequently it’s an amateur attempt, by a volunteer recording for free in their own home.²

In this case, there’s not even a Penguin Classics edition of White-Jacket. That’s how obscure this book is! The only print version I could find was the Library of America edition, which collates the book with Redburn and Moby-Dick. How was it possible that such an obscure book could be done so well! Moreover, how was it possible that this narrator, Rob Vlock, could be so good, when….he didn’t really have a lot of other books released. And who were these people, Spoken Realms, who’d published this book? Everything about this audiobook seemed so mysterious to me.

So I sent an email to Rob Vlock and asked him to chat.

As we spoke, I typed out notes, and I’ve edited the result together into a Studs Terkel-like oral interview, so what you’re seeing after this point (aside from what’s in italics) will mostly be Rob’s own words.

---

The Interview

Rob is primarily an author. He’s written one book for adults and several middle-grade novels. When school visits to promote his books, people kept telling him that his voice was so great, he ought to get into narrating audiobooks. So several years ago he started taking classes and getting some coaching. He built a recording studio in his house. And then he went looking for a book that he could use as his calling-card: his entrypoint into the industry.

I've always been a Melville fan. I love Moby Dick. I read it every couple years. I love contemporary stuff. I love all kinds of literature. But I have a soft spot for Melville.

I wanted to find something in the public domain that I could bring to a publisher that I could record for my debut audiobook, and that was White-Jacket. I was looking for classic novels in the public domain that maybe didn't have great performances associated with them. There was one recording of White-Jacket that wasn't very good. Not sure if it's on Audible anymore. The narrator didn't understand how to pronunce nautical terms. They pronounced boatswain as it’s written, instead of as ‘bosun’ for instance.

I brought White-Jacket to Spoken Realms, which is a publisher—they work with narrators who will bring them public domain books to produce. Often the narrator will handle the production part of it all on their own, and Spoken Realms will just distribute it.

So White-Jacket was the very first book you ever recorded and released?

Yes, White-Jacket is also the only book of mine that's been reviewed by AudioFile magazine, the industry standard. My very first book was reviewed, some people have been publishing for years and haven't been reviewed.

The way this process works, it takes two or three times as long to record something as the finished length is. So White-Jacket’s finished length is around 15 hours, which means it probably took me 40 or 50 hours to record. So it was a long process.

When it comes to post-production, Spoken Realms can handle it, and they basically outsource it to vendors who can do it. Post-production consists of proofing. You need to make sure the post-production version conforms to the written-text, because audible uses Whisper-Sync—a feature that allows you to synchronize positions between ebook and audio versions of a book so you can switch between both.³ They'll also fix long pauses, they'll take out clicks or pops. And then mastering, getting it to spec, appropriate decibel levels.

---

I'm an author first and foremost. I write mainly middle-grade novels, for kids eight to thirteen. I have a two-book series from Simon and Schuster that came out some time ago. I did lots of school visits to support my books, and I'd have kids say you should really read books, you should do audiobooks, because we love the way you read books.

My sister forwarded me a notice from a casting company that was partnering with an audiobook coach. I did a lot of coaching, bunch of workshops, practiced a lot, had to build a studio, get the equipment, so there's a bit of an investment at first. Then you need to get producers interested in hiring you to narrate their books.

The audiobook business is a bit of a complicated business model, it's more complicated than publishing. There are the Big Five publishers—they have their own audio production capabilities. They have studios, engineers, producers who set up and do casting and do the timelines. Then you have some second-tier publishers, like Podium, Tantor, Leonardo Audio.

Finally, you have production companies that don't publish anything, they just produce things: Deyan Audio; John Marshall Media. They work with the other publishers out there to produce stuff and get it into the world.

Part of getting your foot into the door means getting yourself discovered by these producers, whether they're at the big five or the smaller publishers or the independent production companies.

And how do you do that?

Well, you email a lot. There are events you can do. In the winter, spring, the big audiobook conference happens in New York. APAC. Lots of producers are there. Tons of narrators are there. There are events where you can meet producers and perform for them. Otherwise it's sending emails. Oftentimes no response, sometimes three or five months later someone will reach out. It's a long game. It takes a long time for most people to really get momentum in this business.

For me, I have a voice that's a little different from most audiobook narrators. You know, I have a good friend he lives in Florida, he gets cast all the time, because he has that stereotypical audiobook narrator's voices. But I do get surprised—I get cast in romances sometimes—I wouldn't think of myself having a romance voice, but they seem to like me for it.

How do you prepare to record a book?

When you get a script—before you record it, you need to go through it and mark it up extensively, where, if there are questionable pronunciations you're not sure of, you need to look it up. And of course there's gonna be characters who have accents. There's a ton of research, you have to decide on different character voices. What do you want to do with the voices. Captain Claret, I started recording him pretty straight. You know he's called Captain Claret, and the subtext is he's drunk all the time. So I recorded him as having a slightly drunken affect.

You mentioned having a different sort of voice. I noticed that immediately! Your voice is strikingly unlike many audio narrator’s voices, particularly male ones, who often have deep, gravelly voices. How exactly is your voice different? Can you put your finger on that?

It's a tenor with texture. It's not the deepest voice in the world, but it's got a bit of a raspiness.

So White-Jacket was a self-initiated book. You were really the driving force behind getting this audiobook published. Do you have other books where that’s the case?

I've done several Edgar Rice Burroughs. Those fell into this weird gap in copyright law. Just the first two books in the Venus series: the publisher neglected to renew the copyright. There was a time when you had to actively renew after twenty-seven years, and they didn't do it for two of the books in the series, and I did it for those two.

I started to record Mardi, Melville’s third book, and I’m having difficulty. I think it's just not a very good book. I'd say it's Melville's worst book. It's weird, it's a romance in places and creepy in places—I felt like what I was doing was not terribly good. And I thought I need to re-record the whole thing. So I kept pushing it off.

Do you have a day job?

I've been in advertising as a copywriter for twenty years. The pandemic came, and I wasn’t working much—So I was making a really meager living doing school visits and audiobooks for the last few years, and I literally just picked up a new day job—I am writing, I am a copy-writer again. It is nice to make a living with words.

What is your orientation to the classics?

I'm a really omnivorous reader. I've always loved the classics. I think because my father, when I was just a little guy, my father would read Dickens to me. I think he may have even read Moby-Dick to me, when I was way too young to understand it. He really got us to love literature. My sister went on to become a Dickens scholar—she was a professor for a while. I was going to go into literature: after college, I was getting a PhD in English and American literature and I left to go into advertising.

I really got into the classics because of my dad. In college I got more into modern literature: I did my senior thesis in college on Joyce, Kafka, and Proust. I still love Joyce—I listened to Ulysses in audiobook by an Irish narrator. He makes that book so accessible. He understands that book so he performs it in a way that makes that stream of consciousness make sense.⁴

What’s it been like working as a narrator? Did White-Jacket get you the kind of work you wanted?

White-Jacket came out in 2022, and after three years I’ve done about twenty books—I don't have a ton, but I also prioritize my own writing, so I can't pour as much time into marketing myself and going to all the events. Right now, frankly, I wouldn't want to be narrating full-time, because I wouldn't have time to write. So it ends up being a comfortable level.⁵

It is a lot of work. Even tomorrow I have to record a romance—a paranormal romance, multi-cast with other narrators. And regardless of the job, I always prep very thoroughly, and doing my very best to honor the text and do justice to what the author wanted.

Narration is quite hard. You have to really focus in a way that you don't when you're just reading a book. You have to really embody the book. It's tiring. Sometimes physically tiring. If it's a tense scene, you find yourself tensing up, and you can use that sometime. Other times it makes your back hurt. But it's a lot of fun. It's a great experience.

Are there classics audiobooks that you really recommend?

William Huytkins did a Moby-Dick that I thought was really good. He gets the humor, and he really embodies the characters so well. I did listen to Simon Vance doing Bleak House not long ago, which I thought was really great.⁶

Afterword

What struck me the most after this interview was that here you have a man with a deep knowledge of Melville and a love for the material. And he has a voice that is different from what the industry thinks it wants. But it was precisely that voice that made his version of White-Jacket so good. His voice brings out the humor and playfulness of Melville in a way that a traditional audiobook narrator can’t necessarily do. Melville isn’t an old salt. He’s not grizzled and hoary. He’s a kid who’s on an adventure, getting into scrapes, questioning everything around him. Vlock’s narration really embodies that quality in such a fresh, fascinating way.

And because of that, he’s able to drive interest to a book that is generally underappreciated. Surely there are hundreds of people who, like me, have only read White-Jacket because his narration is so different and compelling. To me, that really summarizes the philosophy of Woman of Letters. All the traditional ways of ‘doing’ the classics have become a bit tedious, and now it’s time to explore some new ways of doing them. And one of those new ways is to start stripping away some of this gravitas and reverence, and to start treating these texts like what they are: good books that are enjoyable to read. The classics shouldn’t be an opportunity to feel stupid because you don't understand every word, or to feel insecure about your lack of an English degree. Instead, they should be, first and foremost, a pleasurable way to spend an afternoon. Because if they’re not at least that, then they can’t ever be anything more.

P.S. My daughter’s school is off next week for silly and difficult-to-explain reasons. Originally, I thought I could keep up posting, but I’m just gonna call it and take the week off. So I’ll see you all again on February 25th!

1. Ballerini is a well-known audiobook narrator who has a very deep, gravelly voice and who narrated both the Knausgaard books and the version of the Hebrew Bible that I listened to.

2. Here’s a sample of the best of the two audiobook versions of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers, for instance.

3. This is quite a useful feature for me, because I frequently switch back and forth between text and audio versions.

4. This is the book that Vlock is referring to. The narrator is Jim Norton.

5. Some of Vlock’s narration gigs were for romances that he recorded under a pseudonym.

6. The Hootkins Moby-Dick is here; and Vance Bleak House is here.