catalog

Well-known member
Still not read blood meridian. Dunno where it's gone now. I got about 200 pages of Finnegans Wake left to go. It's getting a bit muddy now, no air at all.
 

version

Well-known member
The whole thing with Pip is pretty racist, but no issue when it was written I suppose.
I was pleasantly surprised by how progressive (for the time) the book seemed at first, but it quickly gives way to Orientalism and whatnot later on. That scene where Ahab's personal crew emerges springs to mind,

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;- a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.
 

version

Well-known member
There was a line I really liked, but it was unfortunately written in this terrible, racist dialect with Melville attempting to sound like an old, black guy. The one about sharks being sharks but if they govern the shark in them then they can become angels as an angel is nothing more than a shark well governed.
This bit reminded me of something I read from Vollmann a while back,

“Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?”
 

catalog

Well-known member
I was pleasantly surprised by how progressive (for the time) the book seemed at first, but it quickly gives way to Orientalism and whatnot later on. That scene where Ahab's personal crew emerges springs to mind,

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;- a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.
I wasn't too bothered by this. Like, it's a bit of an eyebrow raise, but it's all in Ishmael's narration anyway. Maybe that takes the edge off. Likewise the bits with Pip take on this entirely different feel. There's this clumsy racist language being used, but it's not really what draws your attention.

Plus the writing is generally very good, got a good flow to it most of the time. It probably is a bit long like a lot of old novels, but I loved it.
 

version

Well-known member
I wasn't too bothered by this. Like, it's a bit of an eyebrow raise, but it's all in Ishmael's narration anyway. Maybe that takes the edge off. Likewise the bits with Pip take on this entirely different feel. There's this clumsy racist language being used, but it's not really what draws your attention.

Plus the writing is generally very good, got a good flow to it most of the time. It probably is a bit long like a lot of old novels, but I loved it.
Yeah, an eyebrow raise is how I'd describe it. It was just jarring after the pleasant surprise of Ishmael and Queequeg at the start.
 

catalog

Well-known member
I think it's about Ishmael quite a lot, there's a lot going on with using him as narrator... So maybe the racism is deployed strategically, or he's commenting on it? ie that Ishmael is not racist towards queequeg but he is towards others? That strikes me as something that is very realistic and something you still see in people ie people can be racist towards people they don't like, and conveniently forget their racism if it's someone they like. That happens all the time. Not sure if he's commenting on that exactly, but he could be.
 

version

Well-known member
I think it's about Ishmael quite a lot, there's a lot going on with using him as narrator... So maybe the racism is deployed strategically, or he's commenting on it? ie that Ishmael is not racist towards queequeg but he is towards others? That strikes me as something that is very realistic and something you still see in people ie people can be racist towards people they don't like, and conveniently forget their racism if it's someone they like. That happens all the time. Not sure if he's commenting on that exactly, but he could be.
That's a good point. We do read racism towards Queequeg at first, but we get the development of the relationship between the two of them whereas Fedallah and his crew are these distant figures Ishmael has no interaction with.
 

version

Well-known member
I picked it up earlier and I'm enthusiastic again, discussing it last night put the wind in my sails. He's just offered a brief lecture on people of the time criticising the eating of whales by pointing out the cruelty of the stuff they eat themselves, e.g. foie gras. He's also warned never to mess with the corpse or ghost of a shark, Queequeg almost having his hand bitten off after doing so.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Was someone on here saying that it's really good? I'm sure there's a famous writer, perhaps iain sinclair, who mentions it. Hard to get hold of I think.
 

jenks

thread death
Don’t know about the Olson book but I would really recommend Leviathan, or The Whale by Philip Hoare as a non fiction companion. And Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick - I remember seeing her at The Barbican performing it after re-Reading MD and being really impressed.
 

version

Well-known member
Don’t know about the Olson book but I would really recommend Leviathan, or The Whale by Philip Hoare as a non fiction companion.
What do you like about it? Does it have a particular angle? My copy has pretty extensive notes from a guy called Harold Beaver, but I haven't been using them much thus far.

Was someone on here saying that it's really good? I'm sure there's a famous writer, perhaps iain sinclair, who mentions it. Hard to get hold of I think.
It's supposed to be good, yeah. Apparently it's something more poetic than straight criticism. And nah, it's not hard to get hold of. You can get it new on Amazon for £11.

 

catalog

Well-known member
Oh right. My error. Maybe worth a look.

There's one book of Melville scholarship, maybe the one Jenks mentioned, that my friend read. He said it has an interesting section about how Melville spent some time in London and went for walks in the night, something like that.

The writing has something in common with Dickens, all the thick description and documentary feel.
 

jenks

thread death
Oh right. My error. Maybe worth a look.

There's one book of Melville scholarship, maybe the one Jenks mentioned, that my friend read. He said it has an interesting section about how Melville spent some time in London and went for walks in the night, something like that.

The writing has something in common with Dickens, all the thick description and documentary feel.
There’s a blue plaque by the Playhouse Theatre at the bottom of Northumberland Avenue - I like to think of him mooching along the Thames down there.
 

jenks

thread death
What do you like about it? Does it have a particular angle? My copy has pretty extensive notes from a guy called Harold Beaver, but I haven't been using them much thus far.

I liked the way he connected his own fascination with whales with Moby Dick and then giving a social/historical context - great bits about whale oil making London the best lit city in the world. Plus there’s lots of pictures and illustrations.
 

version

Well-known member
Just read a great bit where they encounter another ship with a crewman aboard who believes he's the archangel Gabriel,
 

version

Well-known member
@catalog The bit where one of them falls into the severed whale head and starts sinking, trapped inside it, is mental. Queequeg essentially delivering him out of the base of it like a midwife.

Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;- he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way-head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected.

And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah I remember that bit, it's brilliant. Proper big of drama. That whole thing with tying the head on and keeping the sharks off. I think you're approaching the really memorable bit,
where they do this huge slaughter and go into the eye of the storm of loads of whales
 

version

Well-known member
It's an amazing image. The two severed heads hanging from either side of the ship then the whole sequence of Tash falling into the head, the head going overboard, Queequeg going after it and cutting him out then the arm appearing out of the sea as if out of the grave. Reminds me of the hand at the end of Deliverance.

Screen-Shot-2013-11-17-at-7.13.28-PM.png
 

catalog

Well-known member
Was looking for something else in my emails and found the notes I made from years ago when reading Moby Dick.

(Would just like to add that I typed these into my pre-smartphone phone! I think I was writing it at around the same time I was trying to make a film called "three dreams", which I shot but never edited).

Check out pictures of the narwhale moby dick page 120...

Also is the right whale / greenland whale the blue whale?

Page 122: the huzza porpoise. 'I call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They are the lads that always like before the wind. They are accounted a lucky omen.'

page 141 about the whale: how can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me... He tasks me, he heaps me; i see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what i hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, i will wreak that hate upon him.'

page 143: god hunt us all, if we do not hunt moby dick to his death!

Page 144: this lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since i can ne'er enjoy...

Pips line from page 153 of moby dick... ' oh, thou big white god aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no bowels to feel fear'. Could i give this line to sijad in the film?

Elsewhere, pip is referred to as a 'blackling'.

Page 184 moby dick: "in times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional nature of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness."

Moby dick page 228: 'i know it to be true; it happened on this ball.' ie the earth. The whole radley / steelkilt story is great and then it ends with him swearing its truth over the biggest bible they can bring which really makes you feel like you are reading something completely real, and then he says he's met steelkilt since and its really really strong. Just a great story within a story.

Page 229: 'antediluvian Hindoo' ?? Its a really worldly book, like when he talks about the wrong pictures of whales...

Really gives you a sense of the world at that time, in detail, and how he is questioning loads of false assertions really well. Giving vent to all his little thoughts on things which you tend to agree with because of the plain and reasoned way in which he writes.

The descriptions of the inaccuracies of whale drawings, the detail in how he describes the tools for the kill - the line, the boats and so on. Its all so documentary. He even gives recommendations, that the harpooner should not row.

The 61st chapter, 'stubb kills a whale' is really gripping, like the earlier story inc story of steelkilt. And great last line as with the other. Then after that, when stubb gets the black cook to preach to the sharks to not eat the whale so loudly, thats just hilarious. Tragedy followed by farce.

Moby dick page 310 the blind whale: '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 merry makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.'

Moby dick page 328: "The more i consider this mighty tail...".

Page 366: "burning a corpse, plunging it into that blackness of darkness...".

Page 367: "glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp, all others liars." (the karna connection).

Page 368: "The sun hides not the ocean...".

Page 411: "for whatever is truth - truly wondrous."

Moby dick page 419: "can you smoothe out a seam like this?"..,"glad enough would i lay my head upon the anvil"

page 426, the dying whale for the death of karna?

"he too worships fire" "he turns and turns him to it, how slowly but how steadfastly ... As the whale dies it turns to the sun. "but see! No sooner dead than death whirls round the corpse and it heads some other way"

karna needs to die as the sun dies. Imminglings?

"in vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again." the dying person wants to live, looks to the sun to give it life.

Photocopy this whole page. "i am buoyed by breaths of once living things"

Page 428 of moby dick... Where its the whale watch and the parsee is telling him how he might die.. Only thru hemp, and ahab is arrogant, thinks hes immortal, its all really reminiscent of vishnu avatars, of the demon thinking he can live forever, always forgetting something...

Really makes me think that moby dick is precisely so strong cos melville has used the hinduism he must have sailed with... Made it meet the christianity. Would not be so strong without the mingling of the two.

Moby dick page 446: ahab and pip... "thou touchest my inmost centre boy; thou art tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let's down."

and pip saying about his hand... "this seems to me, sir, as a man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by. Oh sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for i will not let this go."

page 464-5: "what cozzening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me..." "Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?"

Moby dick page 447 onwards. Its coming thick and fast now. The wailing seals, the man overboard, the useless buoy, deciding to use queequegs coffin as life buoy... Its all gushing out. Like watching a really good film its all there to savour. The ships crew all fucked.

Ahab says to pip page 455: "like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health." and about fedallah, unsleeping, unmoving ... Id like to adapt this book, put it on as as a play.

Moby dick. Page 451-452: "a life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! And then to pip: "now then pip, we'll talk this over; i do suck most wondrous philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown world must empty into thee!"

Moby dick page 462 the description of the sea as man and air as woman, birds as feminine and sharks as masculine, sun as king... Its like an art direction for karna!

And then ahab described like a demon: "eyes glowing like coals".

And theres more... The king the sun giving the air to the sea and thats where ahabs demon steps in.

Moby dick page 473: the whole page... "Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck." "ahab stands alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbours."
 
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