Moby Dick and the Name Ishmael

The first three words of Moby Dick which is call me Ishmael. If you don't know the stories of the Bible and its main characters you are cutting yourself off from the most powerful source of illusion in western culture with Shakespeare a distant second. Another thing he talks about is people's names, always be interested in that and what the name is of the character because the author has spent a lot of time thinking about that.