Moby-Dick discussion

Happy Friday, mateys. This week our sked took us from 68 to 80, if you kept up!

Ch. 68 The Blanket
Ch. 69 The Funeral
Ch. 70 The Sphynx
Ch. 71 The Jeroboam's Story
Ch. 72 The Monkey Rope
Ch. 73 Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale
Ch. 74 The Sperm Whale's Head
Ch. 75 The Right Whale's Head
Ch. 76 The Battering-Ram
Ch. 77 The Great Heidelburgh Tun
Ch. 78 Cistern and Buckets
Ch. 79 The Prairie
Ch. 80 The Nut

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, eh lads and lassies? We're now headed for a great stretch of discussion of whaling and more of the whale.

This I think is the heart of the book to be read slowly because otherwise it's hard to enjoy.

I'm glad you said that Bill. I'm finding this slow going this week (and haven't actually finished yet). Trying to visualize the monkey rope -- well I could and I couldn't, if you know what I mean. There always seems to be too many ropes!

It was at the discussion of the head that I got to have a sense of what Melville was up to, pure marvel at the whale.

Well, it's infectious. I've never wanted to see a whale so much before. I'm trying to think if I ever saw one and, no, I definitely haven't. They're a bit too big for the Camden Aquarium.

I've been on a whale watch and seen some at a distance but never up close.

I just read the chapters on the heads. Those really are amazing chapters and it is obvious that he does marvel at the whale as a creature (and as a creation well suited to it's life?).

You need to come to Kaikoura then!

Whales in captivity are very different then in real life. Those in captivity are like trained monkeys. It does show you that whales do think, and can plan plot courses. But in the wild they are far more beautiful living in their natural surroundings. They are more playful then I realized.

They are wild whales at Kaikoura! No whales in captivity in this country!

http://www.whalewatch.co.nz/

Isn't that gorgeous Debbie? I presume you have been on the tour. We have the tours in Dana Point for watching the humpback whales. They are spectacular ,but a sperm whale would be beyond words.

Not yet Kitty, but I aim to sometime......this is one of the reasons we get so upset about commercial whalers venturing into our part of the world, and the Japanese are the worst offenders.

How far is this place from where you live? I know some schools arrange for a day outing for students around here. The whales are such amazing creatures, it is hard to understand them being hunted to almost extinction.

Bill please explain your message in post 3. I am not understanding what you mean by the heart of the book.

Wow Debbie! I'd love to see such a thing! In our tame mediterranean sea as a big encounter you can meet dolphins alond the boats! But they're nice; they jump aheadof you and they seems yo be playing with you!

I'm sure they are. I've been thinking about literary modernism lately (i.e., "The Waste Land", Ulysses, etc.) and one of its difficulties is that it doesn't give you what you expect, what your entire reading life has led you to expect.

Moby-Dick has the same problem, but in a way it's similar. You can read 20 lines of The Waste Land and be quite confident you don't know what's going on. Melville in this books sets you up to expect a conventional narrative -- a yarn -- but "interrupts" it with long chapters on whales and whaling. What's worse is that Melville is more than capable of writing an entertaining adventure story.

But I think these chapters are central to the book, or as central as as the chase for Moby-Dick.

I think this appreciation of the whale -- both scientific and poetic -- the transformation of the whale into something as fully worthy of attention as mere "money-making animals" is essential to the book seems to strive to do -- which is place man in context, to not see everything through his eyes.

Melville tried to show Joe Public there was more to whales then oil. Is that what you mean by the heart of the book. You are correct probably in saying Melville could have written just an adventure yarn. Plus it would have been a few hundred pages shorter.

I liked the information about the whales, even if some was not quite accurate. I think this made the book far more interesting to me.

Kitty, No. :-) I mean it's at the core of the book as a work of art, of Melville's vision which puts Western Civilization and "man as a money making animal" in the context of something richer and finer, more glorious, less full of murder, and as something divine.

And Melville's achievement is to show this by approaching this great, wild mystery as intimately as possible, by resisting simple mythologizing or simplifying, by insisting on science and making a poetry out of it.

But it's very disconcerting. And I think it means slowing down in our reading when we typically speed up -- wanting to get on with "the story". This is very demanding on the reader, much like modernist literature. It doesn't meet our expectations of what a novel is. Neither did "Ulysses."

Thank you for explaining your thought.

Bill wrote: "Kitty, No. :-) I mean it's at the core of the book as a work of art, of Melville's vision which puts Western Civilization and "man as a money making animal" in the context of something richer and finer, more glorious, less full of murder, and as something divine."

What? I think I understand what you are saying, but that sentence is wonky and I may be misinterpreting your comment? do you mind clarifying your clarification?? LOL!!! :)

To check on one more thing, didn't you comment much earlier during this read that an author's intent or vision was irrelevant to the story? (Or was that Stephen? Sorry to not recall exactly.) Seeing the "Melville's vision" brought that back up for me.

Hear! Hear! Judy

Judy wrote: "I'm happy with Moby Dick as it is. Hey, where else could you get a non-fiction account of whaling as well as a story in one volume? Two for the price of one!"

Right?? He really pulled off a remarkable thing with this novel.

I want to comment on a few of the items on this thread. Firstly, whale spottings. Anyone know what the situation is off the New Jersey coast? (On the Ferry from Cape May, NJ to Leeds, DE I saw some porpoises, but no whales.) I seemed to remember there being whales at the Phila. Aquarium that I went to as a boy. (S. you mentioned there NOT being whales at Camden's.)

As to Jesus and the two thieves - Melville is an allusive writer, so any allusion from the Bible, Milton or Shakespeare, I would consider as deliberate.

As to the encyclopedic way Melville treats the whale: I think Melville's intent in MB is to create a Bible for the castaways, the wildman, the descendants of Ishmael. 3 of the world's popular religions came through Abraham/Isaac. What if, one considered a religion coming through Abraham/Ishmael.

I don't think that religion is very popular at the moment Donald. In fact you say the I word and people run for the hills.

Kitty, not certain I understand what you mean by the "I" word. We're discussing a book written in 1850-51, where religion played a quite different part in the lives of most readers. Certainly, in 2011, religion deserves to be unpopular - if indeed it is!

Islam

Jennifer wrote: "Bill wrote: "Kitty, No. :-) I mean it's at the core of the book as a work of art, of Melville's vision which puts Western Civilization and "man as a money making animal" in the context of something..."

The VISION presented in the novel is certainly Melville's, he wrote the book. Whose else could it possibly be? Whether or not it was his INTENT to express that VISION is something else entirely.

Writers don't always wind up writing exactly what they mean too. Sometimes they even undercut themselves.

That doesn't mean an author never DOES express his intent. It doesn't even mean he does it most of the time. It only means one can't bring in, say, an author's diary or letters or interviews as arguments against someone else's interpretation. The refutation has to come from the text itself, not what the author said it meant. He has no more authority than anyone else.

OF COURSE, he has far more authority on his intentions. It's just that he doesn't have anymore authority than anyone else with regard to whether they have been carried out.

It also doesn't mean that an author's diaries might not be interesting in themselves or provide insight or lead you to an interpretation.

It is as conventional a position as one could take -- at least in the last 60-70 years, and, in my experience, an extremely conventional usage of the words. People speak of an author's vision to mean "as expressed in a particular work of art under discussion." Period -- not as expressed in a letter about it.

When I studied, people who made the mistake of referring to an author's intent as justification for an interpretation were taken out of the classroom and beaten severely. We'd hear the screams so loudly that the we would have to shut the door so as not to hear the screams. :-)

So perhaps you're just teasing me because under that intelligent, charming and pretty exterior (I know, I'm imagining it), you're a truly evil woman. :-)

Beyond that, is this clearer?

Moby-Dick contrasts man, the product of 19th century civilization -- the "money-making animal" -- with more primitive cultures and whales. Cannibals fare better than the Christians, the whales perhaps fare best of all.

In this regard, the long chapters on whaling and whales, in which the scientific detail and high literary style often merge creates a richer, more unusual, more vivid image than a more conventional approach might have produced. Ultimately, it's a more powerful symbol. And it's a symbol of, I think, of something richer and finer, more glorious, less full of murder, and as something divine than contemporary civilization offered to Melville (or offers to us.)

That doesn't mean it's easy to appreciate.

But while some works of art are very accessible and easy to appreciate, others are not. They require hard work.

I had to force myself to be patient -- and even then I'd find myself occasionally tapping my toe. But if you stick with it and skim nothing and skip nothing, it is a very different read -- but in my case, a much more rewarding one.

Bill wrote: "So perhaps you're just teasing me because under that intelligent, charming and pretty exterior (I know, I'm imagining it), you're a truly evil woman. :-)"

Gads, no! Not evil at all. I just like to be clear and tend to ask questions/seek clarification until I get it. Sometimes, I have found in other groups here on GR, people talk around in circles with no clear point, other than to drop big words and make outrageous comments. So having those other experiences reinforces my desire for clarity, as much as is possible when I read a comment that makes me scratch my head. I am sorry if I caused you to repeat yourself. Thanks. :D

Loved the soliloquy at the end of Ch. 70's "The Sphynx." Ahab -- so seldom seen -- comes out on deck to address the head of the sperm whale hanging on the Pequod's side, half-submerged.

First, an allusion lost on me: "that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith."

Holofernes sounds like Greek mythology (most of which has gone out to sea in the brine of my head). Judith sounds Biblical... almost like a female David after he slew Goliath.

Anyway, the soliloquy, so like Shakespeare. It reminded me of Juliet's vision of waking in the Capulet tomb just before she takes the fateful sleeping potion. Or of the full-fathom five stuff in The Tempest, maybe, where corals reign.

Anyway, not the alliteration and anaphora here. Capt. Rhetoric knows his Ahab, that's for sure!

First he compares the whales black and hooded head to the "Sphynx's in the desert," then he addresses (without witnesses, apparently).

"Speak, though vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab,"which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in the murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thous saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!"

Loved every word of that speech -- the irony of something so great and so powerful lying mute against a ship run by pygmies.

The speech has a rhythm to it and is not without poetic poignancy. And the image of that "murdered mate" falling into the "deeper midnight of the insatiate maw," as if the ocean can never be fully sated.

Another favorite part: "...where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned." Nice metaphor, that. And the "ballasted with bones" flourish just sings!

Newengland wrote: "Speak, though vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab,"which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee."

OH!! I loved this part a lot too, NE!

Yes, a wonderful passage to read. and the two that you picked at the end make amazing images.

Jennifer -- Good. No problem. I was having trouble figuring out if I was being needled or you just had a question. I don't mind repeating myself. And my image of you is now intelligent, charming, pretty -- but not at all evil. :-)

New England: You're half right. It's one story and all biblical -- although apocryphal. The Book of Judith.

Judith is a pretty Israelite widow who ingratiates her way into the enemy camp of Holofernes. One night she goes into his tent where he's in a sodden sleep and cuts of his head and brings it back.

The only reason I know it is that I spent some time hanging out in museums in Europe and it's a popular subject -- the pretty girl and the chopped off head. Go figure.

Bill, I don't know why I knew of that story but I did. Something in my various studies did stick!

I really liked the chapter on the actual capture of the sperm oil and saving of Tashtego. Exciting writing (oh how poetic)

Gotta hit The Book again some day. KNEW I should have taken that "Bible as Literature" course!

It's never too late NE, and I'm sure there's a Good Reads group to accomodate you. smile.

Here you go NE. I did the research for you . (Big Smiley face here)

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...

Here you go NE, I did the research for you (big smiley face here)

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...

That's quite a group you found, Kitty, You're not supposed to discuss the material, just post your progress. :-)

Bill wrote: "That's quite a group you found, Kitty, You're not supposed to discuss the material, just post your progress. :-)"

I didn't look at the actually site, so I don't know how it operates. I was trying for humor.

And I was suggesting as a selection it is even funnier than you meant it to be. :-)

Hee Hee , we are sooooo funny this morning. Hope NE appreciates our humor.

I am with Susan I got lost on the ropes. I didn't know which end was up so to speak. I was upside down that whole chapter.

NE,

I find the book riddled with passages like that. I almost wonder why he didn't break out into blank verse because he certainly isn't shy about using disparate literary forms. Here's a bit of it as ALMOST blank verse -- but I think it achieves the feel of blank verse if these are not always pure iambic pentameter.

Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
And untold hopes and anchors rot; where in
The murderous hold this frigate earth
Is ballasted with bones of millions
Of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land,
There was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been
Where bell or diver never went; hast slept
By many a sailor's side, where sleepless
Mothers would give their lives to lay them down.
Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping
From their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank
Beneath the exulting wave; true to each other,
When heaven seemed false to them.

Thanks for "anaphora" I had to look it up but learned a new word. However, I confess I may never be absolutely clear on the difference between "synedoche" and "metynomy" -- at least for more than five minutes after I've read the distinction. :-)

Kitty,

I'm not sure which chapter you mean and where Susan posted. Is it this thread? Do you mean Sue and the monkey ropes?

Bill wrote: "Kitty,

I'm not sure which chapter you mean and where Susan posted. Is it this thread? Do you mean Sue and the monkey ropes?"

Yes I thought that was what it was. Might have been another one. I am too lazy to look it up.

Ah! me and the monkey ropes! that's what I thought you were referring to Kitty. Well I finished ch 80. I did find this the most challenging selection of chapters so far but still there were moments of redemption (to keep the religious metaphors rolling).

Kitty, good work finding that Bible group.

It wasn't that hard Sue. I finished the book a few weeks ago. I should put the book by my computer for reference. Nay , maybe later.

I';m hoping to catch up and get a bit ahead over my Christmas break from "Moby school".

I also found the monkey ropes chapter a maze! But having now finished the two whale head chapters, it's interesting to me how the ship is a microcosm with its own equipment, mores and creatures.

I loved how Fedallah looked at the wrinkles of one whale's head while checking the lines on his own hand. What a thing to think of.

Wasn't Phrenology or Physiognomy very popular back then?

Certainly was.....a very Victorian craze!

So maybe he was trying to read the whales personality?