I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense
A few random thoughts...
Why can't I forgive Starbuck? I'm sure it's because I'm afraid I'm him. I can't get over the irony that they named a suburban, strip-mall coffee shop after him. Although don't think I don't frequent Starbucks...and I think there is a lot libraries can learn from Starbucks...but we can learn from their mistakes, too...ok...back to the book...
the little lower layer according to Ahab...
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me."
What is M-D? Everything, nothing, etc, etc...
What M-D is not:
"So ignorant are most landsmen ofsome of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, thatwithout some hints touching the plain facts, historical andotherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as amonstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous andintolerable allegory."
I love that Melville wrote a book that has been perceived as an allegory for really almost everything, and even as he's writing, he's all prickly about how readers will perceive his book as a detestable, hideous, intolerable allegory...On one hand he's writing a script-like chapter like the Dubloon where everything is perception, and on the other, he's spewing cetological facts....It's a messy, messy book. Remember this? "A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough todrive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze youto it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find outwhat that marvellous painting meant." A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture indeed.
Who is the narrator, and is Ishmael a character or just a thin front for Melville, or all that and probably more? On page 280, in The Affidavit, the narrator (Ishmael?), speaking of Capt. D'Wolf, says, "I have the honor of being a nephew of his." In my edition, the footnote says that "Capt. John De Wolf married a sister of Melville's father." Wait...was that Melville speaking directly to the reader?
I love this line...
"yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable--they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness" (Surmises)
I'm pretty sure that in all my previous lives my heart has been broken by sailors of various sorts...I think the only reason I'm happy now is that Larry couldn't be a navy pilot because of his poor eye-sight... oh, and I have to think that there is some significance in the fact that although I love the ocean, I get horribly motion-sick...and everyone who I've ever dated, or you know, married, has never been motion-sick for even a moment. Surely all this is not without meaning...
"aye, chance, free will, and necessity--nowiseincompatible--all interweavingly working together."
Moby-Dick06 (technorati tag)
Why can't I forgive Starbuck? I'm sure it's because I'm afraid I'm him. I can't get over the irony that they named a suburban, strip-mall coffee shop after him. Although don't think I don't frequent Starbucks...and I think there is a lot libraries can learn from Starbucks...but we can learn from their mistakes, too...ok...back to the book...
the little lower layer according to Ahab...
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me."
What is M-D? Everything, nothing, etc, etc...
What M-D is not:
"So ignorant are most landsmen ofsome of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, thatwithout some hints touching the plain facts, historical andotherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as amonstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous andintolerable allegory."
I love that Melville wrote a book that has been perceived as an allegory for really almost everything, and even as he's writing, he's all prickly about how readers will perceive his book as a detestable, hideous, intolerable allegory...On one hand he's writing a script-like chapter like the Dubloon where everything is perception, and on the other, he's spewing cetological facts....It's a messy, messy book. Remember this? "A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough todrive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze youto it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find outwhat that marvellous painting meant." A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture indeed.
Who is the narrator, and is Ishmael a character or just a thin front for Melville, or all that and probably more? On page 280, in The Affidavit, the narrator (Ishmael?), speaking of Capt. D'Wolf, says, "I have the honor of being a nephew of his." In my edition, the footnote says that "Capt. John De Wolf married a sister of Melville's father." Wait...was that Melville speaking directly to the reader?
I love this line...
"yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable--they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness" (Surmises)
I'm pretty sure that in all my previous lives my heart has been broken by sailors of various sorts...I think the only reason I'm happy now is that Larry couldn't be a navy pilot because of his poor eye-sight... oh, and I have to think that there is some significance in the fact that although I love the ocean, I get horribly motion-sick...and everyone who I've ever dated, or you know, married, has never been motion-sick for even a moment. Surely all this is not without meaning...
"aye, chance, free will, and necessity--nowiseincompatible--all interweavingly working together."
Moby-Dick06 (technorati tag)
posted by Erica at 7:27 PM
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