Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Fin

"The first man to spot the white whale gets his picture printed on every United States penny!"

 

And so I've reached the end of both Moby-Dick and the Penguin Essential Classics reading project.  I shall comment on the project as a whole anon.  I have a few thoughts upon completion of Moby-Dick.

 

My conclusion on Moby-Dick is that it is a great 200 page work of literature.  Unfortunately, it is 520 pages long.  I thought that the final 80 pages of the book were as astounding as I think they have always been hyped up to be.  There is a great book in there, it is just wrapped in a great deal of blubber.  I do not feel I am treading too heavily on the toes of audacity to offer my opinion that the book would be transcendent if it started with the narrative up to Queequeg and Ishamael beginning the Pequod voyage to the scenes of whaling in the middle of the book to the final 80 some pages of narrative.  I have not a doubt in my mind that the "informational" chapters are entirely superfluous, injure the book as a whole, and that the work would benefit infinitely from their excision.  Unfortunately, even I bristle at the thought of doing that now.  I just think it's unfortunate that Melville didn't have a friend to pull him aside and said "Look, Herman, you really don't need four chapters on whale skulls.  Save it for the posthumous Unpublished Journals of Herman Melville."

 

I imagine one might ask "So, do you think that people ought to read Moby-Dick at long last?"  To which I say this:

 

Given what in my experience is the capricious nature of Atropos, I feel that there are literally (as it were) hundreds of books you require in this lifetime before Moby-Dick were I given the task of assembling a curriculum vitae (or, rather, a curriculum legere.)  Sublime material is contained within, but there is far more nutritious fare on far lower shelves before one gets to hacking away at the white whale.  

The end is packed with excellent material.  The encounters with the other ships which range from the Biblical to the heart-breakingly ironic (the joyful ship returning home meeting the grim Pequod on their way into the hunt was one of my favorite sections of the book) to the prophecies in homage to the Scottish play ("Paul Mathers, you can be killed by nothing but the caverns within your breast growing hard and filling with debris!") to the Horatio style epilogue.  I will say I thought, for such an otherwise turgid work, that Ahab's final scene passed quickly and with very little exposition.

I will also leave the question which I shall answer in my next post, which is: was the project worthwhile as a whole?

More soon.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Week 12

In this week's reading two things happened in the text and one thing happened to the reader.  In the text, Ahab encountered a British vessel which had recently come across Moby-Dick.  Ahab throws social conventions to the wind in his haste to get to the hunt, tipping his hand of madness to the Captain and alcoholic doctor of the British ship. 

The rest of this week's reading was taken up by Ishmael's description of a very large whale skeleton he saw one time.  He then talks about whale skeletons, how big whales can get, what's inside a whale, what's outside a whale, and probably a lot of other things about whales I forgot mere seconds after I read them.

What happened to me was just this.  I was gripped by Ahab's obsessive, leg-breaking leap back to the ship and likewise overcome realizing I was within 90 pages of the end of the book.  Suddenly keenly aware that I am the last man standing in this series and therefore beholden to no one for the schedule, I think I've decided to muscle through and finish the book this week.  Next week I intend to post my concluding post on the book.  After which I will probably very soon post a sum up of the entire 10 essential classical series.  Also a forthcoming post about Sir Thomas Browne and a Christmas decoration post. 

Which I plan on doing in my copious free time.  I suppose 'tis the season when we feel keelhauled by our obligations, even the self imposed ones.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with three ghosts.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Week 11

Real ambergris from a whale. Photographed by Peter Kaminski. Used by some Wikimedia Commons general permission grant.

I think at long last I settle on my judgment on this book.  It is as follows: uneven.  There are passages of truly sublime writing.  This week I find myself wondering if I'd spoken too soon about self-reference in Moby-Dick.  I thought the ambergris chapters were well written and compelling in the midst of many very dull, bloated, unwieldy chapters about whaling.  The chapter in question is about finding a very valuable item in a whale corpse after going through a ridiculous and difficult rigmarole in order to get to it.  Again, this chapter could be a metaphor for the entire book. 

Exhibit B for uneven writing this week is the minor character of Pip.  Pip encompasses the theme of the seemingly capricious nature of the gods and the often horrible, crushing realities of existence.  However, Pip is a minor character in the middle of a long, hefty book filled with material I would call superfluous.  This serves to make a minor character all the more minor.

I've also been thinking about a discussion Rob and I had over the years about The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe.  Rob thought that was an uneven piece of writing because the tone and style of the very end of the book shifts so quickly that he felt the transmission go out.  I, on the other hand, thought it was an excellent book.  Putting on my comparative literature glasses, I think it is by far the superior Victorian American nautical proto-Existentialist work of fiction.

This next week we read through chapter CVII which, in my text, brings us to page 430.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Week 10

I really don't think I have a lot to talk about this week as this week's reading remarkably resembled last week's reading.  A couple of chapters on whaling, specifically on whale anatomy, followed by a whaling account.  This week's whaling account featured being chased by native islanders (who I was secretly rooting for) and a pod of many whales.

The week's reading ended with a chapter about the British practice of the whole, if not all, of any whale captured in British seas belonging to the royal family.  An account is given of some poor sailors whose whale is appropriated by a government official.  The story is rather blatantly manipulative in its anti-Crown attitude and while there may be truth in the observation, one of the more difficult struggles with Melville and I has been than I don't find Melville to be a particularly interesting thinker.  Or an original one by any means.  He's a man of his time and he is, in my estimation, inelegant in presenting his thoughts.  His metaphors are so close to the surface that you can see their blowhole a mile away.  Which I think I find even more discouraging than the repetitiveness.

I read Moby-Dick when I was in college for Professor James "Killer" Miller's American Literature class (the nickname was given him by other students on account of his difficult tests.  I never really understood the epithet as I excelled in his classes.)  The advent of the internet has been a boon to civilization and here I remark on an extremely micro-level.  Try as I might, I have no memory of my reaction from that earlier reading by that earlier Paul.  I really wish I did.  I am very glad that now I will have a record I can look back on and see how I felt now in times to come.  So, I thought I would take a moment and make a brief argument in favor of journaling on what you are reading.  Not only may it help others but at the very least it will be there for you fifteen years from now when you think "You know, maybe I should try to read Moby-Dick again."

What I do recall from my earlier reading is the impression that there was a great density of chapters on whaling information.  I also remember a few plot points to come which I find myself encouraged to know are still coming.  I haven't lost hope that exciting passages may be in my near future.

Next week we shall read through Chapter XCIX which, in my text, brings us up to page 401.  If I'm counting correctly, we have four weeks left in this series.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Week 9

I knew, back when I was arbitrarily picking the week's reading schedule for this book, that there would most likely end up being weeks entirely comprised of Melville's sprawling chapters of dated encyclopedic material.  This was very nearly that week, but we were rescued at the last moment by a depressing whaling account (is there any other kind?)

I am not sure I could exposit on the chapters about the heads of sperm whales and right whales, even if I felt the desire to try.  You know, there was one Melvillian apologist I read recently who was trying to make the argument that these informational chapters are Melville attempting to create in the reader the sense of a long ocean voyage.  Not only does one get the information associated with the world of whaling, but one also gets the feel of being in a very boring, long boat ride (the apologist would not have used the word "boring" but that is, in essence, what he was attempting to communicate.)  I'm afraid I reject this hypothesis entirely.  I see no evidence to convict Melville of that level of sophistication.  Which is not a dig at Melville per se.  Art doesn't seem to have evolved to that point of self-awareness or infinite regress of self-commentary in the Pre-Joyce, Pre-Dadaist/Cubist, Pre-Stravinsky world.  It is a danger of the Modern that one can misuse it to interpret the past in ways that the past may not have even been able to understand.  I don't know about you, but this sort of hypothesis always feels a bit like someone walking over my grave.  In my own Modernist, excruciatingly self-aware brain, I catch myself wondering through what kind of filter the people 300 years in the future are going to use to mis-interpret our contemporary works.

What Melville is fairly consistently guilty of is finding the highest point of metaphorical saturation.  I feel we definitely have another example of this in the sinking whale corpse chapter. 

As a brief aside, I would point out another aspect of our narrative that strikes me as being a bit clunky.  Melville has chopped up the through line of the narrative so much that, at this long, middle section, it almost reads more like "The Pequod Tales," a collection of short stories about an established set of characters.  We are that far afloat at this point.  I think the apologist above may have had it in mind to salvage these sections with an argument along the lines of "there is no superfluous material in Moby-Dick."  Which is almost the polar opposite of the Moby-Dick I am reading.

But we were talking about a sinking whale corpse or, rather, a more literal one.  Melville sets the scene of meeting another, decidedly lesser vessel of whalers.  Stubb makes sure to include the slap-stick convention of putting a fine point of the high value of the thing about to be lost.  In a sort of Pre-Darwinian Darwinistic scene, the more intrepid Pequod team bags the whale.  However, the corpse sinks to the bottom of the sea.  Much like life or our dreams or something like that.  An exercise in futility, a great risk taken and lost, leaving me with the rather difficult task of maintaining my position that the book lacks self-awareness.

Next week, we read through Chapter XC which, in my text, brings us to page 370, rather magically 30 pages on the nose.  Which makes me very happy as that is do-able in a single afternoon and let's be get back to things I would much rather be reading at this point.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Week 8

I found this to be one of the more interesting weeks of reading thus far.  We start with the grotesque scene of the whale steak.  The comparison of the ravaging sharks on the whale carcass and Stubb eating the steak on-board seemed a fairly concise argument for vegetarianism.  Once again, I question if Melville is horribly archaic in his views on race or if he is offering subtle commentary on views of race in his day.  Although in my less generous moments I would be tempted to remind you that Melville's track record on subtlety tends toward the scanty fare.  Ah, I'm mixing metaphors again.  Oh well.  I've buttered my bread and now I must lie in it.

Still, there is something horribly lonely and desperate behind the jocularity of the scene.  Perhaps I'm bringing my own baggage to the table (let's just do away with metaphorical consistency, shall we?)  but there was, for me, a dark, existential absurdity to the scene of the disgusting, carnivorous Stubb commanding the ancient black cook to "preach" to the sharks who were eating the whale, each other, themselves, their own innards eaten by them and coming back out of their gaping wounds upon swallowing.  It struck me as a ferocious microcosm of the human experience beyond anything I've read in more contemporary dark writers (and if there's one thing I know, it's dark writers).  This was one of the more excellent scenes in the book so far in my opinion.

We encounter the Jeroboam, a ship with a bizarre power dynamic at work.  I thought this was a fairly overt commentary on the sort of fiery "gifts" one like Melville would no doubt have encountered in the Second Great Awakening, which would have been going on in New England around the time of the composition of this book.  In essence, you have a group entirely perverted by and at the whim of a religious charlatan who gets people to do as he wishes by adding divine authority to his speech.  It's a dark view of religion... and, in my experience, not an inaccurate one.

We end this week with the acting out of the repulsive superstition of lashing the head of a sperm whale to one side of the ship and the head of a right whale to the other side (I'm sure there are nautical terms for each side.  I find myself blocking out nautical terms by this point in our reading) to prevent them from capsizing literally, if not morally.  If there were a theme to this week's arbitrary section of the book, I think it would be along the lines of the horrible things that human beings do, most of which are entirely unnecessary, much of which cause great suffering, all of which reveal our fragility and inherent madness in the face of an irrational, rudderless universe.

In short, I loved it this week!

In this next week, we shall read through Chapter LXXXIII which, in my text, will take us up to page 340.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Part 7

The chief bypath of this week's reading was a survey of whales in art history.  More specifically, Ishmael spends several chapters comparing the appearance of whales in famous paintings and then stating that the paintings do not capture the appearance of whales as they appear in consensus reality to sailors a-hunting them.  Rather an archaic, Philistine's view of art if he were really suggesting that art need "look like stuff looks," but I'm sure the point he was driving at was to lead people away from fantastic representations toward a more accurate mind's eye view, especially as we're about to get to some whale killing in our story.  Let's take a moment and appreciate a novel instance of relevance in transitions from informational chapters to narrative.

Ah.  Sweet relevance.

The painting above is Pêche de la Baleine by Ambrose Louis Garneray.  Garneray was a contemporary of Melville's although it's doubtful they ever crossed paths.  The painting above is what Ishmael finally arrives at as a good representational example of whaling in art.  Note the "stripping" of the other whale in the background by the ship.

So much of this book would have demanded a tremendous amount of research (or apathy) from the reader in days before the advent of Google Image Search.  Having the ability to readily see the images he's referring to proved quite helpful to me this time and far more engaging.  Still, this was a bit of an exception to the text which, at this point in our reading, seems to be entirely side-trails.  I'm not sure the chapter about whaling lines was necessary.  I'm also not sure the chapter about the squid was necessary, although that one at least had the feature of idiosyncrasy to shake the reader awake.

Here is an example that Ishmael sites as a bad example, although more in step with the bulk of whales in paintings (albeit this one is an illustration rather than a painting.  One imagines mainly from the artistic problem of depicting something that dwells beneath the surface of the ocean.)  It's William Hogarth's depiction of Perseus and the whale:

Just for the sake of fun, compare with modern illustrator Tony Millionaire's whale:

The whale in art, as far as my own quick overview has revealed, seems to be more of a source to communicate unbridled, natural power beyond the means or comprehension of humankind.  Which is rather in keeping with what Melville seems to be trying with this book.  Again, his time spent poo-pooing whales in art history here seemed to me more a means to direct the mind's eye in viewing the coming chapter of whale hunting with a modicum of realism.  I found it to be a successful technique, although, again, only with the benefit of the visual examples to which he refers. 

We then have a chapter about the line used in whaling, a chapter where a giant squid shows up and spooks the easily spooked crew.  Then we finally get a good, full description of a successful whale hunt.  Stubb bags himself a whale through the efforts of his subordinates.  I guess the commanding officer gets the distinction of the successful whale hunt just for showing up.

I don't have a lot to add at this point.  Merrily we roll along.  Something's bound to happen sooner or later.

In the coming week, we shall read through Chapter LXXIII which, in my text, takes us up to page 306.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- week 6

The bulk of this week's reading comprised a story which sort of serves as our "we're going to need a bigger boat" scene.  In this story within-the-story, we finally see Moby-Dick in action.  In all fairness to Ahab, at this point one might mention that the number of whales eaten by people remains at 0 so far, while the number of people eaten by the white whale is now at 1.25.  The rather violent tale serves to further illustrate not only the dangers of the whaling trade (which I can't believe is even still a thing!) but especially the dangers of this particular whale.  If Ishmael's meditation on the unbearable whiteness of being didn't do it for you, now you have a dead guy in the whale's belly.

I don't have a lot to add this week.  The story was long and rambling although I was engaged at the parts where the narrator stuck to the story.  I was confused, to the point of flipping back a page to see if I'd missed something, at the breaks in the narrative to talk to the people listening to the story.  And the priest part at the end struck me as a bit maudlin, although, again, in such a way that raised fears that I may be too modern and cynical to appreciate this book.

Although, I thought the fight, with the guy's jaw gushing blood on the deck much like the whales they cut up, was well described and kind of exciting.  As was the account of the insubordinate sailors hiding in the forecastle (although they were being drama queens, didn't you think?)  This served to further my contention that Melville was a decent adventure story author.  As I understand it, in his lifetime, that's largely what he was known as.  I feel it's telling that no one reads his other works today.  I haven't and I have no intention of ever doing so.  The strangeness of this book, and I'm not sure I've ever had this experience reading before, is that it does occasionally hit transcendence, but it's so clunky, so few and far between, so buried in notes on knot tying and what-not, that I find myself constantly hyper-aware of this fact the whole time I'm reading.  I've jokingly suggested to friends that this might be very early meta-fiction, that the greatness of the book is like the white whale itself, unseen and constantly looming below the surface.  You are pretty sure that it's going to emerge from the deeps sometime in the process of reading it, you just don't know when.  If someone posited that hypothesis in seriousness, I would refuse to take it as such.

On the other hand, we are in the middle of Moby-Dick where nothing happens.  That was my recollection from having read it a decade ago.  I came to this reading assuming my brain was indulging in its usual propensity for exaggeration.  I found that I was right on the money.  We're driving around in an ocean looking for one particular whale.  Get comfy.

That's all I have for this week.  Next week, we'll read through Chapter LXIII which, in my book, takes us up to 273 (and we're past the halfway mark, people.)

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Part 5

Above: Things from around my house that would unnerve Melville.

Kids! Can you find nouns around your house that would drive Melville to write three chapters on the unseen dread that invisibly infuses all of observable reality?

In this week's reading, Ishmael talked for a very long time about the whale and its whiteness.  He forged a mad, teetering link between the appearance of the whale and all that inspires fear in... well, him, but him projected on all of humankind.  In short, he decidedly casts in his lot with Ahab's obsessive mission.  Chapter 42 "The Whiteness of the Whale" is one of the key chapters to understanding the entire book.  Not that we were really having much difficulty with that in the first place. 

As a quick side note, this week I was struck by how American the book is in its obsessiveness.  That sort of behavior is the fulcrum of our society and, indeed, the impetus which keeps our economy from completely tumbling over.  It also struck me that Ishmael was the character bringing meaning to the table like the poor dupe that he is.  Ishmael goes on and on about the meaning of the whale hunt.  I get the impression that Ahab's "meaning" is much more simplistic and visceral.  He wants to kill the thing that bit his leg off.  Which rather puts me at a difficult impasse for the remainder of the reading.  This epiphany paints Ahab in my mind as a brute, much like Starbuck's accusation against him after his rabble rousing speech, who seeks human revenge on a dumb beast.  Ishmael, on the other hand, seems to see something which I'm not sure is really there.  Although the link between Ahab and the whale is physical.  Part of the man himself is literally part of the whale now and the ivory leg seems to indicate that part of a whale is part of Ahab himself as well.  Much like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner wearing the albatross (literally.  "Wearing the albatross" sure does sound like a euphemism, though, doesn't it?)

That plays neatly into my own judgement of the book itself thus far: that it is like taking a vacation to a place you've always wanted to visit and having a tour guide who you dislike personally.  Ishmael increasingly strikes me as what I would call "a borderline case."

Christopher pointed out the flipped Gnostic line, "Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright."  Sort of a Proto-Lovecraftian view of the universe.  Indeed, I think Lovecraft did it better and, to seize one of the very rare instances in life one gets to employ a phrase like this, I think Lovecraft was not nearly as heavy-handed.  

Of course, one of the points being set up on stage in this portion of our reading is one of the major themes of the work: To really know what's in the abyss, it is necessary to actually fall in.

We finish out this week's reading with an account of an actual whale hunt.  It is quite tense and riveting.  Ahab, we find, has hidden ringers on the ship who he trots out when the mast-sitter sings out.  I enjoyed this chapter quite a bit.  I felt Melville really captured the rush of hunting giant unseen things beneath you which could surface and kill you at any moment.

I made a decision next week to extend the reading an extra week for a number of reasons.  Foremost was the fact that the brisk schedule I'd married myself to was precluding any other reading from my life, which is unacceptable.  Second, the new schedule will have me finish in time for Christmas.  This appealed to me on a number of levels. 

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick part 4

If you would do me the kindness of forgiving the obviousness of the statement, we've hit choppier waters.  We begin this week's reading with Cetology, a chapter which I expected to dislike immensely.  However, largely thanks to Christopher's recommendation of the online annotation Power Moby-Dick as a very helpful tool in these chapters of encyclopedic information on whaling, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit.  I do feel that one needs visual aids in this chapter.  Ishmael inexplicably lapses into some strange "Folio" format in relaying the information he has to dispense on the topic of whales, but laying that aside, yes, I found it engaging to hear what passed for Cetological knowledge over 150 years ago.

We then have a series of chapters which go something like this:

A job description of a member of the crew, an account of a meal that the officers take together, an account of pole sitting and how Ishmael gets a bit moony up there, Ahab's inciting incident (150 pages in) of his impassioned speech, his nailing of a plot device to the mast, Starbuck's minor rebellion, a series of internal monologues where we seem to have dashed the established narrator altogether, and we finish with a script of what I think was a dance that turned into a brawl.  My uncertainty stems from Melville's insistence on slopping the 1840s sailor slang on as thick as possible.  It was difficult to follow and, I'm afraid, I wasn't terribly inspired to do the mental gymnastics that Melville was demanding over what I opined was superfluous material.  I seem to lack the capacity to muster the required interest in working out what he means by phrases like: "What hey there, lad!  Tear aside!  Hoist ye knickers!  'Gains the mizzen with the gargamel!"  And colloquialisms of that ilk in the parlance of either the Terpsichorean or the pugilistic.

I am told there is a very important and great chapter on the way.  I am looking forward to the celebrated Chapter 42.  Over the past few weeks I've read a great deal about how this book went from relative obscurity to a fair bet on a good deal of lists of great literature.  I am still not entirely certain I'm convinced.  In retrospect, I wonder if some of my brain didn't realize, back when I was laying out the schedule for this reading group, that I ought to save this book for the end of our list.  Because the inclination to jump ship at this point is fairly strong.  The last time I read this book was over a decade ago.  I have no memory of my reaction at that time, but I think I've decided that this will likely be my final journey through Melville.  The "hit" in his "hit-and-miss" record thus far strikes me as too few and far between.  I feel anxious to delve into my next reading project where thus far I've struck gold consistently with every title.  It's a bit like I'm sorting through mud in which I am told there are many diamonds, but within plain sight of the mud pile in which I root is a big pile of visible, clean, cut diamonds free for the taking. 

So... I'm sort of grumpy about Melville this week.  You?

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Part 3

The photograph above is of a statue of Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini.  Melville references it in regards to the appearance of Captain Ahab. He does not say that Ahab looks like Perseus (or even Medusa.)  He says that Ahab is "shaped in an unalterable mold" like the statue.  Although I think we all know enough about the character described to understand the parallels with the subject matter. Ahab has his own Medusa in his sights. As with everything with Melville, there is a distinct thematic reason why he chose this statue. Aside from the timeline discrepancy, something like Oldenburg's Spoonbridge and Cherry would not be appropriate in this instance. "Ahab was one shaped in an unalterable mold like Oldenburg's Spoonbridge and Cherry."  Somewhat wanting in gravitas, eh what?

As a quick side note, one of the benefits of signing on to a reading project like the one I am doing with the Harvard Classics is that, along with leading one to read things one would not have otherwise read, it also leads one to finally read a good deal of "I've always meant to read that" books. Cellini's autobiography is one of those books that I've thought that about for years, but then walked out of the library with some flashy McSweeney's nonsense or something instead.

So, we're three paragraphs in to this week's Moby-Dick post and I've yet to talk about this week's reading.  There is a reason for that. A little frustration has crept in. It's not that I dislike the book. I'm actually enjoying it tremendously. But I have two examples to present to you of what I'm talking about. One is the name of the prophet, which when it was announced, I audibly snorted derisively at the stark obviousness of it, upsetting the dog on my lap. Melville has a heavy, heavy hand. He loves loomings and foreshadowings. In fact, so far, anything else in the book has been a very slow train coming.

The other illustration I have to submit to you is the chapter "The Lee Shore," which talks for a length about Bulkington and has absolutely nothing to add to the narrative aside from tone. Melville is painting a very broad and baroque picture. At first I worried that perhaps my slick, modern sensibilities were preventing me from really appreciating what Melville was doing here. Perhaps the post-television world speed of the culture in which I find myself prevents me from appreciating very fine points being put upon things. But Christopher pointed out, and rightly so I think, that Moby-Dick may not be the best example of the wide, sweeping world of an epic 19th century novel. Tolstoy did it so much better. In other words, I don't think it's me.

I did like the description of Starbuck. I like him. I'm supposed to like him I gather. And the other crewmates: Tubbs and Bud and Spanky and Bruce and Marvin and Leon and Cletus and George and Bill and Slick and Do-right and Clyde and Ace and Blackie and Queenie and Prince and Spot and Rover. And Rudolph, he who is marked by rosacea. I'm just making things up at this point to throw students who use my blog to plagiarize for school papers. Actually, I stole that list of names from a Ray Stevens song.  But there is a series of character studies of fellow shipmates, all of whom are compelling and humanizing, to make us care about their problems. This is in order to make us be sad when the guy who smokes the pipes dies. It's like the cop in the action film whose character development comprises his few days until retirement and seeing his beloved daughter graduate college.

So.... strike that earlier comment absolving myself from modern cynicism.

And we finally meet Ahab who comes out of his cabin and sees his shadow, which portends eight more weeks of winter. We end this week with a dream in a chapter whose title brings Mercutio to mind, which seems an appropriate character, one who might actually fit in this story. There is something of The Bard about the scene in this chapter. I smell whiffs of Hamlet's gravediggers and Clarence's drowning dream from Richard III as well. Melville infused his brain with Scripture and Shakespeare. It shows in what comes spilling out of his mind. It's a quality of his that I would like to emulate. Stubb dreams of a merman who tells him to count a "kick" from Ahab as an honor.

I feel like a high school English teacher even mentioning Ahab's dropping the pipe into the sea symbolizing his abandonment of all Earthly pleasure in deference to his cetacean vendetta.

I am so torn over this text. I think I like it a lot, but I also feel a sort of perpetual impatience. On the other hand, I do like the story he's telling and the picture he is painting. It is a bit like the long waiting periods in hunting or fishing though. Like Persian sherbet in crystal goblets flaked up with rose-water snow.

Next week, we read up through Chapter XL which, in my text, takes us up to page 169 and spits us out before a chapter enticingly called Moby-Dick, threatening headway in the narrative.

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Part 2

Well, it was an eventful week in our reading.  We started with Father Mapple's sermon which I thought was very well written.  Full of blatant, unapologetic speculation on the part of the preacher in  a way that would probably grind on me if I were actually in the pew, but in the context of this novel I thought it was well done.  It also serves the function (I would argue the sole function.  There wasn't a huge call in the narrative for a sermon at this point) of indicating what kind of a story we are to have.  It's to brim with symbolism and have spiritual significance.

Queequeg and Ishmael enter into the service of a ship in a rather raucous manner.  In Nantucket, they eat a good deal of chowder.  They also cuddle.

Queequeg's ethnicity is to actual South Pacific Islanders what Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado is to actual Japanese culture.  Queequeg has a little idol (which, to illustrate how my brain works, was immediately cast in my brain as the Trilogy of Terror doll.  See photo above) who tells Queequeg (off camera) that Ishmael should choose the ship they are to voyage on.  Ishmael happens upon the Pequod and a plurality of captains.  Ahab looms in the narrative to come like the whale and the voyage.  Melville was fond of looming in ways our modern, cynical society would probably not be as forgiving toward.

As my friend Christopher pointed out, there seems to be an anti-western religious hypocrisy message when Bildad "concerns" himself over the welfare of Ishmael's soul and attempts to insure that the man doesn't become to worldly minded.  They hire Ishmael and seem open to his companion while still unseen (who, for them, is looming in the coming narrative.)  We hear about Ahab, his missing leg, peripherally about the whale, and that Ahab is a family man.

Ishmael returns to the Inn where Queequeg is observing Ramadan (see first sentence of the previous paragraph) by sitting on the floor with his idol, not eating, speaking, and presumably "holding it."  Ishmael gives further example of his concern for a pagan over "his own people" (as I mentioned last week, there seems to be a well meaning message from a very much less enlightened age here) by breaking down the door.  Our two captains have misgivings about hiring Queequeg until he exercises his skill and we now seem primed for our voyage. 

Next week, we shall read through the chapter titled Queen Mab, which, in my text, takes us up to page 126. 

Reading the Classics with Paul- Moby-Dick- Part 1

R

Reportedly, this is the real life Spouter-Inn painting.

Our reading begins with a long, strange list of quotations from great, pre-Melville works of human writing having to do with whales.  Or sentences that at least mention whales in passing.  They don't seem to need to be relevant (note the one from Hamlet is simply Polonius agreeing with Hamlet that a cloud is shaped like a whale.)  I assume the purpose of the list is not simply a overzealous devotion to the custom of epigrams.  I'm fairly certain it's there to gather the dark clouds that loom over the first chapter, to foreshadow the behemoth lurking below in the deeps.

I really liked the first chapter.  In fact, I made Laurie listen to me read a lot of it out loud.  Melville was a tremendous wordsmith.  He makes me feel ashamed to ever write again in his looming shadow.  He makes me want to crawl in an ice cave and drink the tepid tears of orphans.  

Anyway, on to the fruit of the looming: Ishmael seemed very dark and edgy as well as, as my friend Christopher pointed out, surprisingly well-read.  He lays out the dark time of the soul leading him to sea.  With but a few spare coins in his pocket, he finds his way to The Spouter-Inn where Melville sits down and flexes his descriptive powers for a while.

Ishmael either undergoes a sudden shift in character or the writing is a bit uneven here or I mistook his character from the earlier chapters.  Or I am way off base with my reaction.  He complains and becomes quite fussy over having to share a bunk with an unseen harpooner.  He even makes the inn-keeper shave his bench and then doesn't sleep on it after all (although I doubt anyone was upset over the bits of extra fuel on the fire.)  Granted, the cryptic bits of information dropped by the inn-keeper serve to inflame the situation.  It would seem that Melville is aiming toward a "judge not by appearances" message with manner of the introduction of Queequeg.  Still, I catch whiffs of a less enlightened age in this section.  However, Melville also makes sure to include, in The Street chapter, that New England born sailors are as strange in foreign ports as Queequeg is in New England.  Which was nice and showed at least an effort toward breaking from the ethnocentric shackles of his day. 

We end with a description of the church, the pulpit (oh, that pulpit!), and Father Mapple clears his throat to begin his famous sermon, which we will cover next week.

Next week, we will read through the His Mark chapter which, in my text, takes me up to page 92.  As I mentioned, we are going at a very leisurely pace.