elstaffe’s Reviews > Moby Dick > Status Update

"Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightaway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low salutation presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones." (362) did what to their what now

"Nor does this—its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a Titanism of power." (360) I pity the AI trained on Melville for punctuation use

"But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that." (351) true. They're the less facts because of lack of evidence, not because of the doubt itself

"...let them never eye a Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they." (349-350) I know that here "Nantucketer" stands for all whale men but also, sir, you are from Manhattan

"But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all." (345)

"...followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried extremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble.
'Who's got some paregoric?' said Stubb, "he has the stomach-ache, I'm afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind I ever knew to blow from astern;'" (339) whale farts.

"If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of view." (336) that's not what I'm being struck by right now, Melville

"Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the whale," (307) spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out if tribe was literal or metaphorical (as in his membership in the class of mates) and I still can't decide

"That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it." (291) no, one mustn't needs, one really need not

"'Wish, by Gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,' muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock." (291) one day I'm going to write out a phonetic version of received standard Midwestern US pronunciation but only for a comical white character