Moby-Dick discussion
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Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Weekly Discussions (Moby-Dick)
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Week One: Chapters 1 -11
Jennifer you are so right it is a fun house. Melville gives us a book written in part like National Geographic and part adventure story. I think that is the draw of it.
Kitty wrote: "Jennifer you are so right it is a fun house. Melville gives us a book written in part like National Geographic and part adventure story. I think that is the draw of it."Exactly!!! That made me giggle, Kitty!!
I was responding to Petra's comment about what makes a narrator's being unreliable in the first place, and that usually has to do with whether we as readers can trust his description of the fictional universe. The unreliable narrator is giving us misinformation about that fictional universe, for whatever reason.Secondly, I was responding to Charles' comment about the fictional universe. Because I don't think the problem of reliability is really any different from what we encounter in real life.
Thirdly -- and I'm smiling -- because although the expression is fanciful, I was born and have lived in the "insular [i.e., island] -- city of Manhattoes" most of my life. .
Ishmael is talking about Manhattan island, which is in the center of New York City and one of its five boroughs. The Manhattoes were the tribe inhabiting the island, and from which Manhattan got its name.
Not exactly from around these parts, are ye? :-)
I thought he was talking about Manhattan. Thanks for the clarification Bill.
Bill wrote: "I was responding to Petra's comment about what makes a narrator's being unreliable in the first place, and that usually has to do with whether we as readers can trust his description of the fiction..."See...I feel dumb. :D I prefaced my comment with that fact.
I fully understood that you were responding to the two comments from Charles and Petra but I am still not making the leap with you about misinformation in the fictional universe. (For the record, unreliable narrators are my most favourite to read.)
Weirdly, I assumed he was talking about the city of Manhattan, but my brain didn't jump to the representative tribe for which it was named. And no, I am not from around those parts.
You don't have to feel dumb, that's totally unnecessary. :-) Petra was making a distinction between a fictional narrator who is deliberately lying and one who may have a limited point of view and is giving you misinformation for that reason. My only point was that the term "unreliable narrator" is used to describe a narrator whose relation of the facts is inaccurate, regardless of the reason. In the film "Memento", the protagonist is brain damaged and can remember nothing for longer than three hours, and has tattoos to remind him of key facts.
I further suggested that we observe narrators like witnesses in the jury box, and we decide whether or not they're telling the truth pretty much the same way, based on the available evidence.
As for Charles, I didn't think how we think of the fictional is necessarily very different from how we think of the ordinary universe, for most intents and purposes. I couldn't figure how the relevance of his distinctions applied to the points at hand.
Bill wrote: "I think the issue of reliability is a function of whether the narrator can be trusted by the reader with regard to the events of the story. ..."Right. That's what I was trying to say but you found much better words, Bill. Thanks.
A narrator is only as reliable and trustworthy as the reader interprets him to be. Therefore, to each of us, Ishmael's rendition of the story will have different levels of reliability.
For now, I believe Ishmael's rendition of events.
Stephanie wrote: "Therefore, Ishmael's acceptance of Queequeq and his customs is an appeal to readers of Melville's time (and ours) to be more tolerant and to see all humans as people. Should I not be reading it this way? ..."Stephanie, I'm enjoying the acceptance of others as well. It's nice to see a friendship occur just for the pleasure of the company and the enjoyment of being with another person, regardless of background and customs.
Greetings all! This will be my 3rd voyage - many years between each. This time around I would like to concentrate on 3 things. The first is Melville's depiction of Capitalism through the Whaling Industry. Two, how do the "Extracts" relate to the body of the text. Three, does Andrew Jackson appear in Moby Dick under some guise, even possibly as a model for Ahab. Although my knowledge of Jackson is admittedly modest, I think he was a lunatic of sorts in just about anyone's book. He was dishonest and irrational at times - kind of a Ronald Reagan on steroids!I also enjoy unreliable narrators, but if I can remember everything from my last reading, I didn't find Ishmael unreliable. I think what Melville did, however, was moved back and forth from Ishmael as a distinct character who was narrating and Ishmael as omniscient narrator.(Thomas Berger's famous novel, "Little Big Man' makes effective use of unreliable
narration. Not only is Jack Crabbe potentially unreliable, but the Editor of the book is also unreliable and gullible to very comical effects. The Editor's role was pretty much left off the Movie starring Dustin Hoffman.)
One thing I find amazing about Melville is that he seems to be completely free of any type of racial prejudice - which is really saying something for a book written in 1850-51!
I'd be curious, Donald, where you think Ishmael becomes third person omniscient. I think he's always Ishmael -- at least so far as I've gotten, which is half-way. I think Ishmael moves from describing what's physically happening to extended description and speculation, but I think he's always Ishmael.Of course, you have to keep examples to chapters 1-12.
Bill wrote: "Of course, you have to keep examples to chapters 1 through Right?
Jennifer wrote: "Bill wrote: "Of course, you have to keep examples to chapters 1 through Right?"
RIGHT!!
Sorry about the typo.
Make that Chapters 1-11.To move away from narrator talk (admittedly circular and without much solution), I marked this passage in Ch. 10 ("A Bosom Friend"):
"But savages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is -- which was the only way he could get there -- thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have "broken his digester."
Two connections:
1. The little jab at philosophers toward the end there reminded me of Whitman and his poem, "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer":
WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
A kindred soul, the voice of this poem, no?
2. The Queequeg as philosopher idea also brought to mind Rousseau and his Noble Savage. You know, the notion that we are born innocent, clean slates, and have to learn evil. Thus, babies are innocent, as are simple natives of other lands (or so Rousseau seemed to believe).
Herman Melville appears to share some common ground with the Romantics, at least in his fondness for traveling, for exotic locations and peoples, and for savages who are more civilized than your average proper New Bedfordite....
Newengland wrote: "Make that Chapters 1-11.To move away from narrator talk (admittedly circular and without much solution), I marked this passage in Ch. 10 ("A Bosom Friend"):
"But savages are strange beings; at ..."
I have thought about that a great deal. I think there's a strain of the "noble savage" concept going on here -- but then Melville/Ishmael had more acquaintance with the actual people than most people using the term. He also has a little fun at Queequeg's expense, but as a whole cannibals come off better than Christians, pagans better than Presbyterians.
I think there's an element of that romanticism here -- a sentimentalization of the primitive -- but I think there's also an informed tolerance, which is not quite the same thing.
By the way, the actual expression "noble savage" is apparently Dryden. I was looking up the concept and came across that. Rousseau did write, "Man is born free and everwhere he is in chains."
I was wondering whether in making Queequeg literally noble, Melville was making a joke.
Bill - my recollections are probably a bit hazy since my last reading was a good while back. You're probably right that it's when he's engaging in extended description and speculation that it appeared to me that his narration was less "personal." I'll keep a close eye on that this time around.
I think that I'll put the issue of homosexuality aside as I read. This was a wholly different time with different realities of life in many ways. I'm so ready to enjoy the continuing story, meet Ahab and set out to sea.NE, I'm thinking a visit to Portsmouth might be in order. Haven't been there for a while. Or Salem for the PEM which has everything.
Jennifer,How do you do the cross-out thingy? When I tried to reply to yours it didn't keep the formatting.
Bill wrote: "Don't think I have an axe to grind about this. I was struck by Melville description of being in the bed with Queequeg, and reading further I discovered Moby-Dick wasn't the only book to suggest a homoerotic element in Melville's work."Indeed, Billy Budd has homoerotic elements. The bitter and angry Claggart punishes the "the sweet and pleasant young fellow" that he calls Billy out of frustration, for he is unable to enact his sexual desires.
Certainly as others have said though, Stephanie included, there are other ways to look at this bedroom scene. Homosocial relationships (manifesting themselves in "intimate" gestures or poses) are not uncommon during the period, especially in an all male context as Moby-Dick is thus far.
That being said, as a contemporary reader,I see a queer relationship going on with Ishmael and Queequeg. I would not have been at all surprised if after Queequeg ("Man") "affectionately [threw] his brown tattooed legs over" Ishmael ("Wife"), they had started getting it on. It was what I expected. It followed the motions of a heterosexual bedroom scene. Further, given the fact that we know Melville has written on homosexual relations before, why the hell not?
Lastly, I'd like to add that I find what Melville meant to say or how Melville's contemporaries would read it to be so much less interesting than how we read it (that's right, I'm looking at you New Historicists and authorial intent people). The words are there. The scene is arousing and distinctly queer in my eyes and in yours Bill, so yes it seems that we have here, as you said, another theme in a multi-themed work.
Bill wrote: "Jennifer,How do you do the cross-out thingy? When I tried to reply to yours it didn't keep the formatting."
In the (some html is ok) area on top of the comment box, right side, you will see the strikeout feature. It's a nifty little tool!!
Nota bene: Just so everyone knows going forward, I belong to no literary party or group and am ax-free. In fact, I've no clue what all of them are. Thus, Elizabeth, you've trumped me with your allusions to "New Historicists" (I think I missed the "Old Historicists" bus, never mind the New) and the "authorial intent people" (maybe that's your own coinage, as it is less mysterious).So yeah, I'm OK with "to each his or her own" as long as there's enough evidence in the book to merit it. Is there a "New Courtroom" literary group? Maybe that's where I belong -- with the hung jury. Bottom line: I agree that the Queequeg-Ishmael thing is unresolvable. How convenient for readers! (More authors should give us this leeway, methinks.)
Bill -- thanks for that extra info on the term "noble savage." Dryden it is! Of course, I often confuse Dryden with Donne (thus my "D" in poetry). Donne is the "For Whom the Bell Tolls" guy Hemingway stole from, right?
Sue -- By all means, get yourself to Portsmouth some purdy day. It's undergone a renaissance of sorts, like many (but nowhere near all) of the seaside and factory villages of New England. I've never been at Christmas but hear they do it up with lots of lights and candles and (of course) shops selling "stuff" (is there anything quite as American as "stuff" and the worship thereof?).
Also, to strike out text, put an s between carats before whatever you want to strike and a /s between carats afterwards.
Jeeesh go for breakfast and you all write a book. Just finished all the comments. So the poet was Whitman. I did't realize Dryden was represented also. Thanks for the information.
Newengland wrote: "Also, to strike out text, put an s between carats before whatever you want to strike and a /s between carats afterwards. It's a neat trick of HTML."
O
I have a really general question for all of you. Did you read/ skim the "Extracts" - the notes in prior literature of where whales have shown up? What effect did it have on you before embarking? I guess I'm asking because after skimming those (yeah, didn't have the patience for all of them) I turned to "Loomings" and read the line, "Call me Ishmael." What a moment! We've all heard it so many times! It's iconic in our culture and after reading all of these other quotes (some familiar, many not) it raised the book to a somewhat mythical experience, which culminated in that legendary line. Am I blowing this out of proportion? (probably :/ ) Did any of you have a similar experience, an experience with that line that really situated you and reminded you of what you were reading?
Newengland wrote: "Nota bene: Just so everyone knows going forward, I belong to no literary party or group and am ax-free. In fact, I've no clue what all of them are. Thus, Elizabeth, you've trumped me with your al..."Yup, that's Donne. Meditation "17", where he also suggests men aren't islands. I had to look up the "17". I once had a teacher of psychology put the "No man is an island" quote up on the board for the final exam and said, "Relate that to what you learned this year in social psychology."
But the Donne I love is the early love sonnet Donne, the Donne of
Song
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
You got a 1950s pop song for Perry Como from the first line and then almost at the end of Eliot's Prufrock from the mermaids.
I have heard the mermaids singing each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
And then for pure voice
The Triple Fool
I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry ;
Of course, Donne is one of the most difficult poets just to unpack the literal meaning -- and I don't always understand it the tenth try. :-)
About Dryden I know nothing. But I found that when searching around for "noble savage" stuff.
Call me Ismael , but I read all the Extracts. I can't say that it effected my reading at all. I think we are exposed to the reality of the whale. We know it communicates, plays and bonds. Prior to that knowledge whales were a mystery and exotic. Didn't Melville say some cultures worshiped the whale or maybe he said they should have?
Newengland wrote: "Thus, Elizabeth, you've trumped me with your allusions to "New Historicists" (I think I missed the "Old Historicists" bus, never mind the New) and the "authorial intent people" (maybe that's your own coinage, as it is less mysterious)."Oh I so didn't mean to do any trumping. I'm sorry if it sounded that way! Here's some wikis if you're at all interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoria... Intent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hist... Historicism
Basically they're just schools of looking at literature. They can have the tendency to look at literature in a vacuum, rather than let it exist in various periods for a multitude of readers. So I guess all I was saying is what you said about the reading being to each his own. It's a way more interesting way to read it I think if everyone has different opinions. For indeed, if we didn't disagree about some stuff, it wouldn't be a text that people still read.
Elizabeth wrote: "I have a really general question for all of you. Did you read/ skim the "Extracts" - the notes in prior literature of where whales have shown up? What effect did it have on you before embarking? I ..."I didn't, Elizabeth. I always skip any introductions/prefaces/extra(ct)s at the start of a novel. I read them once I have finished the story. I have read one too many spoiler in my time so many years ago began to read in this manner. I have been happier for it too! :D
According to notes in my version of MB, Edited by Harold Beaver, the "Tennessee poet" is Bayard Taylor and his mention is an inside joke since Melville knew Taylor.
The old historicists were put on the bus themselves by the New Critics, and were then put on the bus by the structuralist and post-structuralist theorists from those practicing a flavor of deconstruction to Freudians, post-colonialists, feminists, and the new historicists, queer theorists, et al.)It's very hard to keep and I haven't.
Sorry, I am just going back to Sarah's original question concerning "Call me Ishmael."I have been pondering this and wonder if it is just as simple as a foreshadowing device? My name isn't really important, but these events I am about to tell you about, they are important.
I did not read the Extracts either. Too reminiscent of dentists, for my tastes. And, like Jennifer, I have a tendency to skip prologues of any sort. Less noble than her, however, I seldom go back unless I feel the need.Donne's #17 ("No man is an island") also gave us Simon and Garfunkel's song, "I Am a Rock, I Am an Island." Right up there with Hemingway in the literary canon.
Elizabeth -- I feel lines like Melville's opener are national treasures. Wow. Our guy said that, just like, say, Russia's guy said All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (or something close).
Better yet, as Citizens of the World, they're ALL our guys.
Interesting, Donald, about the inside joke. Something tells me this book is loaded with them.
Jennifer wrote: "Sorry, I am just going back to Sarah's original question concerning "Call me Ishmael."I have been pondering this and wonder if it is just as simple as a foreshadowing device? My name isn't reall..."
I like this Jennifer.
Sue wrote: "I like this Jennifer."Thanks, Sue. It could really be that simple, I think.
Donald wrote: "According to notes in my version of MB, Edited by Harold Beaver, the "Tennessee poet" is Bayard Taylor and his mention is an inside joke since Melville knew Taylor."Thanks, Donald. My version doesn't have notes so I'm glad you shared this.
I bet Melville had a hoot writing this book if he took the opportunity to include inside jokes.
Jennifer, I like your thought about the foreshadowing device. Simple, clean, effective.
I like it too.....it is what I felt but didn't explain as well as you (on the previous page). I have never read beyond page 5 before, and have never read any analyses or critiques (it is not part of NZ curriculum!) or part of our cultural past - although whaling was. So I have a completely fresh eye, for which I am thankful! It seems to me that you can risk becoming so mired in interpretation that you lose the joy of reading it: enjoying the use of the language and following the story.
Petra: My copy is 1/3rd notes! All in small print. So, if there's ever a question on a reference, I should at least have some sort of answer.
Well said, Deb. Only so far I think of it more as a "meandering" than a story. Of course, I always think Thoreau when I write or see "meander." Melville does with words what Thoreau liked to do with his feet -- move at a leisurely pace, yes, but with a purpose and (blessed be!) in no hurry to get there.
"You come, too." (Channeling Robert Frost now....)
Debbie wrote: "I like it too.....it is what I felt but didn't explain as well as you (on the previous page). I have never read beyond page 5 before, and have never read any analyses or critiques (it is not part o..."I think I am like you Debbie, I am enjoying the purity and language of the book. I do get chuckles from time to time.
Donald that is good to know that you will be our reference guide. Thanks for the info on Taylor. I looked him up and he was born in Pennsylvania, so it must have been a deep inside joke. Maybe his poems were about the countryside.
I tried meandering NE but I am now up to Chapter 28 and trying to slow it down by re-reading No1 Ladies Detective Agency alonside!!
Donald wrote: "Petra: My copy is 1/3rd notes! All in small print. So, if there's ever a question on a reference, I should at least have some sort of answer."If there are any notes on why Queequeg put his boots on under the bed, that would be interesting. :D
Ah, you mention Thoreau. Another of my never reads. I'm sticking with Melville for now. I've never heard it said that Thoreau had a sense of humor and I'm enjoying the occasional fun moments in M.D.
Chapter 28??? But... but... YOU were the one who demanded that the reading pace be cut in half from 100 to 50 pp/week!Melville is chuckling somewhere over this. He seems the sort who would appreciate irony, don't you think?
Anyway, I'm impressed. I'm only on the chapter called "The Ship" (13? 14?). Then again, "Leisurely" is my middle name (Mom was prescient that way)....
Kitty - the notes say that Taylor was known as the pedestrian poet from Pennsylvania. The inside joke was not explained. Melville owned a copy of Taylor's "Views-A-Foot" (thus the pedestrian) and Melville accompanied Taylor's cousin to Europe in 1849, according to the note.
I know NE....but I really did think I was going to find it hard yakka!
Petra, no luck with Queequeg's boots!
Perhaps it was a gentle rib at western modesty? Maybe, to savages, our insistence that eyes be averted while we change clothes is "humorous"? It would be to Adam. And Eve. And the entire animal world.Here, what looks silly to us (hiding to change boots), echoes what might look silly to more "earthy" cultures than ours.
"Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to."
-- Mark Twain
Newengland wrote: "Perhaps it was a gentle rib at western modesty? Maybe, to savages, our insistence that eyes be averted while we change clothes is "humorous"? It would be to Adam. And Eve. And the entire animal..."A gentle rib NE, when talking of Eve and Adam. :-)
More properly, it wouldn't have made a difference to Adam and Eve before the apple was eaten.
What I've always liked is that the writer of that strand of the Bible felt he had to justify clothes.
Donald wrote: "Petra, no luck with Queequeg's boots!"Rats!! This particular scene, while highly entertaining with the visual I managed to create in my brain, is really, really getting the better of my curiosity and I have no good answer to satisfy. :D
I am just about to begin chapter 40. I thought the original pace to be totally reasonable, but I am really not the greatest at keeping to a scheduled reading pace., so I am definitely a poor example. :D Once I start a book, I move along at a fairly good clip.
Debbie, I am totally with you in your thinking. I am really enjoying the story and I am happy to go wherever Melville is leading me. I don't want to get so mired down in analyses that the story gets lost to me. I will admit to feeling like, in reading some of these posts, a) a dumb-ass (which I know I am not); and b) like I am back in a university lecture hall.
Melville, at this stage in the story, has done a tremendous job with his use of language, creating the settings and developing the characters. With each page, I become more and more impressed. I am also glad that in reading this novel again, nearly 30 years after the first (and last) time, it has held up. I have long listed it as one of my favourite novels but had lost the ability to justify its place on my favourites list.
Moby-Dick
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I am sorry to be dumb, but I am not following your point, Bill. The whole thing is a work of fiction, so liberties are going to be taken with names and places. On the very first page of the book, we are also told about the "insular city of Manhattoes" - which also doesn't exactly exist.
I have been thinking Melville does a great job keeping us off-balance as readers. On one hand, he gives us enough details to make us feel as though we can trust him as our guide through this story. On the other hand we have, from the first sentence, reason to be suspicious. It's like a fun-house in here! Hee hee hee.