Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Chapter 94. The Squeeze of the Hand

why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. . .
I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country. . .

Besides these values, Ishmael also tells us of other various whale products harvested from the whale and extracted in the blubber room. Mind your toes! I cannot help thinking that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would take one look at a working whale ship step back in horror, and mumble, "we need a bigger department!".

Chapter 95. The Cassock
First there was the fart joke, now we get the mincer in the grandissimus/pope joke.

Chapter 96. The Try-Works
Ishmael tells us of the try works, where the whale blubber is rendered. Once they were lit:

The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed.

As if, indeed!

After nodding off while at the wheel and looking at the fire in the try-works, waking just in time to realized he has "turned around", recovers and rights the ship. He concludes:

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

I take this to mean we need to acknowledge darker things, but we need to dwell in light. I wonder what Melville would think of the Goth subculture?

Chapter 97. The Lamp
A perk! All the fresh, prime whale oil for your lamp that you need is at your disposal. Unless of course you are on The Jungfrau.

Chapter 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up
You can keep your perks, I will pass. Was anybody else put in mind of Sisyphus by this chapter?

Chapter 99. The Doubloon
Stare at it yourself for a while and tell us what you see: Moby-Dick Coin
Ahab sees himself as the symbols of strength in the coin reflected in the world of woe. Starbuck sees the trinity, the valley of death, god, the sun, and hope surrounding all. Stubb sees the stages of a man's life, ending with Pisces; sleeping with the fishes. Flask sees in the gold coin how many cigars he could purchase. Manxman determines from the coin they will find Moby-Dick in a month and a day. Queequeg compares the symbols on the coin to his tattoos. Pip thinks people will discover the ship at the bottom of the sea and wonder how the coin got there. The results of meditating upon the coin seem to offer different results than meditating upon one's reflection in water, key to it all, from the first chapter, and what was that about being so eager to earn wages, also from the first chapter?

considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Chapter 100. Leg and Arm: The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Enderby, of London
Ahab meets the Captain of the Samuel Enderby who had to have his arm amputated after tangling with Moby-Dick and sports a whalebone arm to go with Ahab's whalebone leg but seems to be taking his unfortunate incident much better than Ahab. Fedallah is there to silence the criticism:

Is your Captain crazy?" whispering Fedallah. But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks. . .

Chapter 101. The Decanter
We are told, that even though Natucketers, had been whaling 50 years before the Enderby family, this British family helped open up the south seas and the pacific waters near Japan. We are also told the English were generous with their tough beef, rock-like dumplings, and maggoty bread. But the beer was good.

Chapter 102. A Bower in the Arsacides
Ishmael tells us he was able to study a few whale skeletons, a small whale brought on board once, one stranded on a Melanesian island, and one in a museum. He claims the measurements of the skeleton he has tattooed on his arm are not as precise as they are accurate.

Chapter 103. Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton
More on the whale skeleton. In remarking about how the smallest tail bones had been used by the children on the island to play marbles with and concludes

Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play.

I was not sure what Ishmael wants us to understand by that remark.

Chapter 104. The Fossil Whale
A brief history of ancient whales and their fossil remains and a building made of whalebone.

Chapter 105. Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish? - Will He Perish?
Saddest chapter in the book.

Chapter 106. Ahab's Leg
Despite appearances, Ahab's rough usage of his whalebone leg on the way back from the Samuel Enderby and wheeling around on it on deck made him suspicious of its integrity. The extra care Ahab now takes with his leg may be the result of a recent accident in which the displaced leg all but pierced his groin and is now given as a reason Ahab remained in his cabin so long at the start of the voyage. The carpenter and blacksmith are called upon to fashion a new leg.

Chapter 107. The Carpenter
The carpenter is unique among the mob of unnecessary duplicates of mankind and performs a myriad of various and never-ending duties aboard the ship. Despite this uniqueness he might not be that bright, for he talks to himself to make noise to keep himself awake more then to reason with himself.

Cphe wrote: Was Ahab previously a harpooner - when he lost his leg become a Captain?"

Those sound like safe assumptions. Although I think he was already a captain when he lost his leg. A captain has to start somewhere. (view spoiler)[Ahab reflects a bit on his career in Chapter 132. The Symphony (hide spoiler)]

Also remember way back in Chapter 50, there was some debate as to whether or not the captain should go out after whales.

Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase.

After 107 chapters, are we "whale-wise people" now? Should Ahab be going out on the boats. as a harpooner?

Cphe wrote: "Can't really understand the motivation for the Captain going after the whale."

Maybe that is a good thing?

This was a great week's reading.

My favorite sentence: "Stubb longs for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation." I can just see the oars of Stubb's whale boat, with their stars flashing in and out of the water.

But my favorite chapter was the Doubloon where we hear what each person sees in the same coin. Pip reminds me of the Fool in King Lear. There seems to be sense in his nonsense.

And we finish the process of trying out and storing the whale oil.

But Ishmael, falling asleep at the wheel of the ship, turning around, and almost capsizing the boat! I don't think I'd want him driving my car....

Re the role of captain in the whaleboat. As I recall, first the harpooner strikes the whale, and then the harpooner and the head of the boat rather awkwardly change places so the mate/captain can strike the whale with the lance. But I took the reference to “my irons” to mean the harpoon came from Ahab’s boat, not that he necessarily had thrown it himself.

We are getting a lot of examples of people experiencing/interpreting things and events differently in this section of the novel, with the captain of the English ship who lost his arm reacting very differently to Moby Dick than Ahab does.

“...he’s welcome to the arm he has, since I can’t help it, and didn’t know him then; but not to another one. No more White Whales for me; I’ve lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a shipload of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he’s best let alone; don’t you think so, Captain?” glancing at the ivory leg.”

And Ahab agrees (to a point). “He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He’s all a magnet.”

And then we get the doctor who diagnoses Ahab “this man’s blood—bring the thermometer!—it’s at the boiling point!—his pulse makes these planks beat!—sir!—taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab’s arm.” I’m no nineteenth century doctor, but I think it would take another kind of blood letting to cure Ahab’s obsession...

Unlike the other boats the Pequod has met so far, the Samuel Enderby was a real English whaling ship, although I assume the crew was fictional.

Chapter 102: another shift in point of view with the narrator directly addressing Ishmael:

But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael.

Or is this supposed to be Ishmael addressing himself?

David wrote: "Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play.

I was not sure what Ishmael wants us to understand by that remark..."

I take it to be a lesson in humility--that no matter how big or mighty or large we think we (or our accomplishments) are, ultimately, we can be reduced to minor insignificance.

Susan wrote: "This was a great week's reading.

My favorite sentence: "Stubb longs for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, the carpenter sym..."

Yes! There was some beautiful writing in these chapters.

Tamara wrote: "Chapter 102: another shift in point of view with the narrator directly addressing Ishmael:

But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know. . .

Or is this supposed to be Ishmael addressing himself? "

I read it one step further as Ishmael anticipating his audience's question of "how do you know all of this information you are telling us that you can't possibly know", by addressing himself in the first person on our behalf to answer the epistemological question. Its can be very sales-pitchy sounding at times and Ishmael is a talker who always seems to be either telling us something or trying to convince us of something that we either do not know or believe, or want to.

But David! How is it that you, a mere reader on goodreads, knows this to be the case? Well, I don't know for sure, I just have a sense that there is a good probably that is what is going on here and its still Ishmael doing the narrating. See what I did there? :)

David wrote: "But David! How is it that you, a mere reader on goodreads, knows this to be the case? Well, I don't know for sure, I just have a sense that there is a good probably that is what is going on here and its still Ishmael doing the narrating. See what I did there? :) ..."

I sure did see what you did there. Very impressive :)

Another possibility is that Melville continues to juggle between his point of view as the narrator and Ishmael's as the narrator. It's as if he (Melville) steps outside the novel and views the proceedings through a limited omniscient lens. This enables him to get inside the minds of other characters, describe events even though Ishmael never witnessed them directly, digress and/or educate on whales and whaling when he feels like it. And when he's ready, he swoops us back to Ishmael's point of view.

He seems to juggle point of view on a regular basis to suit his agenda. But who says he has to be consistent by sticking to one point of view? Certainly not moi!

Someone once said, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." I want to attribute the saying to the Englishman Samuel Johnson because i have a vague recollection of reading it during my 18thC Brit. lit class many life times ago. but it may not have been him.

I just googled it. According to Google, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said it. But google probably got it wrong. I'm pretty sure Johnson said it 100 years before him :)

Lots of pictures of sperm whale skeletons on the Internet, but I particularly like this video (with some people included for scale): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkgWL...

Tamara wrote: "David wrote: "But David! How is it that you, a mere reader on goodreads, knows this to be the case? Well, I don't know for sure, I just have a sense that there is a good probably that is what is go..."

A very timely quote indeed!

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-Reliance (Kindle Locations 230-233). AmazonEncore. Kindle Edition.

Melville was sympathetic towards the transcendentalist movement going on at this time in this life. At least, from what I understand of him, he would have been solidly behind this quote deeming foolish consistency an intellectual prison. So what is foolish consistency and what is not foolish consistency? Every consistency can't be a foolish one, that would be foolishly consistent.

Tamara wrote: ""Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.""

Now I want to know the context of that quote...
Anyway, it seems to me in an either/or situation, but what if it is both/and? :)

David wrote: "Tamara wrote: "David wrote: "But David! How is it that you, a mere reader on goodreads, knows this to be the case? Well, I don't know for sure, I just have a sense that there is a good probably tha..."

Thank you for finding the full quote from Emerson, David.

I wrote down that there are 30 people in the crew, but I can’t remember where the author says that. And I don’t know if that includes the captain and mates.

Right you are, Susan! 30-ish men. Last page of "The Decanter."(Lol, it's the chapter I read last night, so still fresh-like in my mind. )

[The] Essex had recently been totally refitted, but at only 88 feet (27 m) long, and measuring about 239 tons burthen,[2][4] she was small for a whaleship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(...

Mature males [sperm whales]average 16 metres (52 ft) in length but some may reach 20.5 metres (67 ft.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_w...

Ishmael tells us in Chapter 103:

I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length

David wrote: "Chapter 94. The Squeeze of the Hand

Mind your toes! I cannot help thinking that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would take one look at a working whale ship step back in horror..."

Quite. The shop teacher in my junior high was missing three fingers.

Chapter 96. The Try-Works

JUST because it's wonderfully descriptive:

"...as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived......then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul" (463).

And a paragraph later... Ishmael seems to have become drowsy... but whilst in this semi-conscious state, mayhap he is coming to his senses and moving away from his endorsement of Ahab's mad pursuit of Moby Dick:

"I was horribly conscious {while half asleep] of something fatally wrong." {Ahab?} "My God! what is the matter with me?" {For endorsing Ahab's pact?) Ishmael had been subject to that dangerous lee side.

"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! …. Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for a time it did me." And... perhaps Ahab? Something had burned out his rational humanity and subsumed it with an unnatural fixation??? "He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs..." (134). Ahab can't look away.

Anyway... good chapter.

Chapter 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up

"the watery moors" :-)

Chapter 99. The Doubloon

Well, we're back to meaning and significance, it seems. "And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth."
Chapter 1: "Surely all this is not without meaning." Chapter 8: "What could me more full of meaning?" Etc, throughout.

Here's a seemingly straightforward Spanish doubloon...and everyone "sees" its meaning differently! So, the meaning isn't in the doubloon...but in the persons with their individual pasts and personalities.

Ahab. A la George Harrison, "I Me Mine." "All are Ahab." His Ego has taken over. He sees, too, and accepts the place of woe in his life....the lives of all men... "Born in throes, 'tis fit that man should in in pains and die in pangs!"

Starbuck. He sees with religiosity, The Trinity. He speaks of hope and the Sun of Righteousness in the world...but then... "Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture, and if, at midnight... we gaze for him in vain!" Starbuck, I think, doesn't have a sure faith. "I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely." ??? Foreshadowing of events ahead? Does bring us back to Chapter 26 regarding Starbuck, "for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul."

Stubb … straightforward... "spending it".... He doesn't seem to have the inner resources to "read" it for himself on another level... he goes below to find an almanac.

Flask... $16... an opportunity to portray himself as better than Stubb who likes "dirty pipes." 960 cigars. (But, no... 800)

Queegqueg... I'm not certain... I'd guess that has the assurance to look to himself for meaning... yet... the tattoos are the marks of his people... so he may be searching his own culture for meaning, too.

Pip. LOL. "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."/// Stubb: "Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar!" I laugh!!!

Pip's mind is different after his ordeal... I can't make heads or tails out of his remarks. Did wonder though about the "Ain't I a crow?" It reminded me of Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" She gave the speech in May 1851. Moby Dick was published October 1851.

Adelle wrote: "Chapter 99. The Doubloon

Well, we're back to meaning and significance, it seems. "And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth."
Chapter 1: "Surely all this ..."

*****
Yes, isn’t it fascinating how different (and appropriate) each person’s take is?

Stubb’s comnent on Pip’s remark is funny, but Pip really summed up the action in this chapter with all the characters looking at the doubloon (and seeing such different things)-_I look, you look [I guess this is Stubb], they look [the other characters].

Some of what Pip says makes no sense to me (the part about the scarecrow) but some does as when he says if the doubloon is unscrewed (I.e. if they find MD), “what’s the consequence?” But if it stays nailed to the mast (I.e., they don’t find MD), “that’s ugly, too, for when aught’s nailed to the mast it’s a sign things grow desperate.” And he’s imagining the pine mast of the Pequod found at some later date in the ocean with the doubloon still in it, similar to the unexpected find of a ring in the tree his father found in Tolland, CT. And I think the “green miser” is the sea...

I was very moved by Stubb’s words about his responsibility for Pip’s plight, “would he had died, or I”. That “or I” says a lot.

Or maybe Pip’s remark “I’m a crow” relates to “Jim Crow”? The time period would work per Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_C...

I thought it was kind of interesting that when Ishmael was squeezing the spermaceti that he had such a wonderful fellow feeling, but then just a couple chapters later, he's seeing almost a visual representation of Hell. I don't know exactly if it's supposed to mean anything, but I thought it was strange how close those two chapters were to one another.

Susan wrote: "Stubb’s comnent on Pip’s remark is funny, but Pip really summed up the action in this chapter with all the characters looking at the doubloon (and seeing such different things)-_I look, you look [I guess this is Stubb], they look [the other characters]. .."

LOL, Susan! Great observation. I never even SAW that!!! But perfect!


And yes on Stubb regarding Pip… “would he had died, or I”. That “or I” says a lot. /// Very sad. To see him every day so altered.

At #31 Susan wrote: "Or maybe Pip’s remark “I’m a crow” relates to “Jim Crow”? The time period would work per Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_C..."

Could well relate to that, too. Another possibility? Maybe Pip is saying that they're all blind like bats? But that Pip is also a crow up high...and maybe he sees things the others don't?

Adelle wrote: "Could well relate to that, too. Another possibility? Maybe Pip is saying that they're all blind like bats? But that Pip is also a crow up high...and maybe he sees things the others don't? ..."

Anything to do with the 'crow's nest', maybe?

At #32 Bryan wrote: "I thought it was kind of interesting that when Ishmael was squeezing the spermaceti that he had such a wonderful fellow feeling, but then just a couple chapters later, he's seeing almost a visual r..."

Your observation prompted me to go back and re-read "A Squeeze of the Hand." Such loving sentiments. Earlier, at the inn, in bed with Queegueg, Ishmael had felt at peace with QQ.

Here he is at peace with all fellow men. I liked how he wrote that he had washed his heart. I liked how he wrote that good will towards one's fellows isn't an intellectual experience, "but in the wife, the heart...the table...the country." (I'm going to go back downstairs and sit with the husband for a while.)

With the tensions rising pre-Civil War... he appeals to everyone... That squeeze paragraph was rather beautiful.

: "Adelle wrote: "Could well relate to that, too. Another possibility? Maybe Pip is saying that they're all blind like bats? But that Pip is also a crow up high...and maybe he sees things the others d..."

The blind as bats makes a lot of sense, as does the high up crow seeing what others don’t. Bryan’s suggestion of the crow’s nest fits, too. Maybe Ahab is the scarecrow with two bone legs — one his own and one of whale bone?

David wrote: "Chapter 94. The Squeeze of the Hand
why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. . .
I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country. . .
Besides these values, Ishmael also tells us of other various whale products harvested from the whale and extracted in the blubber room. Mind your toes! I cannot help thinking that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would take one look at a working whale ship step back in horror, and mumble, "we need a bigger department!"."

What a bad work place this is. probably one of the worst ones.

Tamara wrote: "David wrote: "Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play.

I was not sure what Ishmael wants us to understand by that remark..."
..."

I see it as Tamara stated, also that to children everything can be turned into a play, even the biggest animal in the world, and maybe the biggest animal ever. But Tamara's reading is the more probable.

David wrote: "Chapter 105. Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish? - Will He Perish?
Saddest chapter in the book."

I thought really interesting Melville asking us (and himself) about the sustentatbility of the whale hunting. Although the conclusion of his thoughts is kind of problematic. Elephants and his ancestors existed all world, but they only survived in Africa and India. Our species exterminated them in the other places, but Melville did not know that.

Chapter 100. Leg and Arm: The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Enderby, of London

Couple of interesting points. The English Captain regarding Moby Dick: "...he's best let alone; don't you think so, Captain?"

And Ahab agrees: "He is. But he will be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accused thing is not always what least allures. He is a magnet!"


Ahab, too, has been described as a magnet.

Chapter 102. A Bower in the Arsacides

I found the paragraph "It was a wondrous sight..." on the weaver's loom "through the lacings of the leaves..." beautiful. I thought that as in an earlier chapter that spoke of weaving, the this paragraph is perhaps referring to Fate.


I wondered whether Ishmael's addressing the "busy weaver," "the weaver-god" referred to the God of the Bible or the God of Nature or whether Ishmael himself was perhaps unsure.


The weaver.... deafened... hearing "no mortal voice"...


And we mortals, too, are deafened... "and only when we escape it [the loom] shall we hear …"


Does understanding come only with death?

Chapter 107. The Carpenter


I don't see the carpenter as a Christ-like figure; yet I think it must be noted that in a book as heavily freighted with Biblical background as this, a chapter titled "The Carpenter" must bring briefly to mind, Jesus.


I don't find a Christ-like meaning... but there ARE little bits that bolster that perspective: "the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate," "an unfractioned integral, uncompromised as a new-born babe," "uncompromisedness in him."

I was at Lake Superior reading Moby Dick this past week..a perfect place to read this book...ala the Lakeman Steelkit in earlier chapters (..."wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any"). (Ch. 54). Now I am looking at Chapter 100 and take note of the turn of phrase used by the ever obsessed Ahab states to the Englishman with the ivory arm, "Spin me the yarn..how was it?". The Englishman proceeds to call Moby Dick (the White Whale) as "this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump". One wonders how old is Moby Dick and having read about aging makes such whales more white, if indeed he is quite old indeed....but strong and ready to rid the world of pesky whalers!

Chapter 105, Bernard Germain de Lacépede, the French naturalist, is mentioned and I was reminded of when I was at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and first learned of him: that he was appointed to work there and later there (after the French Revolution), he was allocated to the study of reptiles and fish, writing the 'Histoire Naturelle des Poissons' and in 1804, "Histoire des Cétacées" (i.e. cetaceans/et: from Latin 'cetus' whale, itself from Greek 'ketos' (big fish)). Lacepede was an early believer in evolution. Thinking on that, it is interesting to think how the whale may have evolved over time...and in the above post of the skeleton of the whale, I was surprised to see finger like bones in the side fins (pectoral fins).

(Thanks for the insights, everyone. I'm enjoying catching up, as always.)

Chapter 96- The Try-Works:

"Like a . . . burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body."

This bit reminded me both of Ishmael, who began his career as a whaler in answer to a state of misanthropy, and of Ahab, who has an all-consuming (self/ego) obsession.

Chapter 99- The Doubloon

I got a kick out of the line:
"...you books must know places."

It is true, personal experience that seems to be so prized in this story. And yet, here is Ishmael creating the great written anthology of all things whale...

Chapter 102: A Bower in the Aesacides
Ishmael wants parts of his body to remain a blank page for a poem he was then composing-- "at least, whatever untattooed parts might remain--"
The tattoos symbolize experience?
The blankness, creative potential?

Sue wrote: " I was surprised to see finger like bones in the side fins (pectoral fins). ..."

You may find this book interesting.

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body Neil Shubin

As Ishmael goes on to explain in Chapter 103: Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton, while the skeleton itself is supplied at birth, the true identity of the whale exists in what is added to the whale's skeleton. The humongous uniqueness, as well as the whale's scars/war wounds (tattoos/experience)

At 46 Ashley wrote: "Chapter 96- The Try-Works:

"Like a . . . burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies…
This bit reminded me both of Ishmael, who began his career as a whaler in answer to a state of misanthropy, and of Ahab, who has an all-consuming (self/ego) obsession "

NICE observation. So apt.