I finally finished Moby Dick on Friday and haven't had a chance to post my thoughts on the ending yet. However, I just flipped through this week's New Yorker, and lo and behold there is a book review of Eric Jay Dolin's Leviathan titled "There She Blew: The history of American whaling" by Caleb Crain. How serendipitous!
Here is a link to the article:
"There She Blew"
Showing posts with label Moby Dick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moby Dick. Show all posts
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Moby Dick: The Whaling Chapters
Aren't they all? The fifth consecutive person recently warned me about these so-called whaling chapters, but I can't figure out what might distinguish these from the rest of the chapters in the book. EVERY SINGLE chapter talks about whaling. By the way, I am now completely hooked on this book. No more need for laps around the living room after finishing a chapter. Despite my zeal, I've fallen behind on reading after having attended a lovely wedding at Sewanee and a teaching/technology conference in Memphis, both of which were wonderful in different respects. I was absolutely blown away by the technology conference, where I realized that I could not have started this blog a moment too soon. See Will Richardson's www.weblogg-ed.com.
Back to Melville:
My new favorite chapter is "The Try-Works," Chapter 66, although a close second is Chapter 64's "A Squeeze of the Hand," in which Ishmael describes the Lethe-like experience of preparing the whale sperm for the try-works. Whalers have to sit by tubs of this sweet-smelling whale sperm (aka blubber) and squeeze it through their hands to keep it from hardening. As he drifts off into euphoria he gets downright silly about his newfound love of whale sperm. In his own words: "Would that I could keep squeezing sperm forever!...In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermacetti" (273). I guess our 20/21st century equivalent would be getting slimed on Nickelodeon, or, less interestingly, getting a parafin treatment at the nail salon. I am sure someone out there has written about similarities between Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Chapter 64 of Moby Dick. Both seem to be a celebration of the body/soul/universe, albeit Melville's description is, well, humorous.
Anyway, back to the try-works. The prose just catapults here. I was surfing around for criticism on Melville while I was in Memphis, and I found out from another blogger that Melville first started reading Shakespeare while in the middle of drafting Moby Dick. If this is true, it is absolutely apparent in his prose. Stubbs even later seems to taken on the drunken porter role from Macbeth. And who will the fool be? I had to stop myself from reading the full blog review that I found because I didn't want to get ahead of my own reading, but for those of you who have in fact finished Moby Dick, check out the recent review on www.fictionmonkeys.com: http://fictionmonkeys.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/moby-dick-by-herman-melville/
I am sure there is a way to imbed these links...still learning! I appreciate the patience. Okay, enough of me. Listen to this glorious prose as Melville describes the try-works blazing at night:
"Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. as they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bones in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; 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 (281).
Does it get any better than this?! Read aloud for best affect.
Back to Melville:
My new favorite chapter is "The Try-Works," Chapter 66, although a close second is Chapter 64's "A Squeeze of the Hand," in which Ishmael describes the Lethe-like experience of preparing the whale sperm for the try-works. Whalers have to sit by tubs of this sweet-smelling whale sperm (aka blubber) and squeeze it through their hands to keep it from hardening. As he drifts off into euphoria he gets downright silly about his newfound love of whale sperm. In his own words: "Would that I could keep squeezing sperm forever!...In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermacetti" (273). I guess our 20/21st century equivalent would be getting slimed on Nickelodeon, or, less interestingly, getting a parafin treatment at the nail salon. I am sure someone out there has written about similarities between Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Chapter 64 of Moby Dick. Both seem to be a celebration of the body/soul/universe, albeit Melville's description is, well, humorous.
Anyway, back to the try-works. The prose just catapults here. I was surfing around for criticism on Melville while I was in Memphis, and I found out from another blogger that Melville first started reading Shakespeare while in the middle of drafting Moby Dick. If this is true, it is absolutely apparent in his prose. Stubbs even later seems to taken on the drunken porter role from Macbeth. And who will the fool be? I had to stop myself from reading the full blog review that I found because I didn't want to get ahead of my own reading, but for those of you who have in fact finished Moby Dick, check out the recent review on www.fictionmonkeys.com: http://fictionmonkeys.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/moby-dick-by-herman-melville/
I am sure there is a way to imbed these links...still learning! I appreciate the patience. Okay, enough of me. Listen to this glorious prose as Melville describes the try-works blazing at night:
"Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. as they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bones in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; 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 (281).
Does it get any better than this?! Read aloud for best affect.
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