Drew Rhine’s Reviews > Moby Dick: Or, The Whale > Status Update

A scene of a sailor accidentally falling into an open Sperm Whale's vat-like head and then that head falling into the ocean and then that sailor being cut and birthed out of the head underwater by Queequeg immediately followed by a chapter attempting to do phrenology on whales about sums it up.

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

What wonder remained soon waned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides… the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of oar, blown-off Japanese junks and whatnot, that Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle.