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stillbornedprincess · 2 months

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the long awaited Moby dick book review observation for the modern young lady.

do not open if you do not want spoilers

now. The novel is a very dated one, but with all renowned dated novels it’s timeless with at least one theme to touch everyone. Personally I enjoyed reading the novel so much but why it is I found it so beautiful would be untranslatable. Not that I won’t try, and with the first part of the title of this post, “a review”, this will not be a review. Nor will it be a summary: so for accuracy “observation” was coined. A unique aspect of the book, which also makes it notorious, is that is serves more or less like a mirror. What you’ll find in your heart, you’ll find in the text. A journalist would prove it to you in a neater way, but bear with me. There were plenty chapters that twinkled in its secret tongue to me but I’ll highlight two or three. I will start with chapter 85: the fountain. This chapter is about the enigmatic spout of sperm whales. In the olden days, people could only guess how those bodies worked. And even still today, suppose, we still do guess, guessing this time maybe not just with fickle mind but with machines as well. A photograph is a sacred thing. Anyways, here’s a quote narrated by the narrator ‘Ishmael’

how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For, d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.

now, whenever talk of rainbows come up in art or literature, it’s bound to stick out to me. with colours, they make up my stillbornland, and with colours, they make up awe-ful greys. my arguments for the colour grey would be just as jagged as ‘Ishmael’’s arguments for the colour white in the chapter 42. But matters like this are never rational seeing the nature of colours. Maybe God the Painter was a postmodernist. Of course this is a joke, please take it as the joke it is.

and on the topic of jokes, the humour of Moby dick is wry as dried whale foreskin. Worn to take on scalding topics, not so different from try-working workers would put it on to shield from soot and fire. The narrator, who I’m not too sure whether or not he would be the protagonist; funny guy. We the reader are taken by the shoulder like the wedding guest and from then on the leaves of the book fly by like the wedding banquet happening indoors as we watch into the eyes of our ancient marinier with a brisk opening note of “Call me Ishmael.” And an immediate “Some years ago—never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore. . ..”

the character of Ishmael is simple: he tells us about the time as a young man he dreamt up sweet nothings. It also happens that he is very lonely. He’s alone in the first few chapters, and alone again in the epilogue. Ishmael isn’t alone for the whole novel though. His weary heart finds rest in the manly arms of pagan queeqeg which kept him warm at the spouter inn. this gooey part of Ishmael and his friend isn’t really acknowledged again. but what I said about the text being a mirror, many reviewers as seen on Goodreads and jstor, and slate magazine, found it a little erotic. Erotic if you wilt. But personally, I understand why one would interpret that, and I suppose this novel, the watercolour fresco it is, in its washing shades, a layer inbetween touches on that human weakness. And on human weakness, another wash it is, can be traced from the tube that is moody captain ahab. The shade of “mood” as I’ll call it, its body will be taken from ahab. think how paints are mixed together to be darker or bluer or redder, that’s what I’m getting at, as I said about journalists. Ahab: the blue. Pipin: the white (a blinding, humbling white) (ironic cause Pipin is very very black. You could say even, Pipin represents the swallowing mythology of race within the ancient western order, made self aware.) And why it is I chose Pipin to be the lighter shade of mood, particularly white, is that he is pure. He holds no hate, only foreboding. If Pipin loves God it’s up to the reader, and, on that, Love of God is known by most theist philosophies by “forever search.” The Nepalese priests don’t know God, nor do the Sufis of Chad, they may know less about God then the laymen, but their hearts bleed on and on for Him.

Pipin knows God. He saw His foot in the Pacific, and never knew anything else. He saw the thread spindle by and never saw anything else. And that is where I will close on the character of Pipin for now. Ahab, as I was saying, is the mayonnaise of the story. He is described a lot how he’s perceived by readers. Old greek hero: learned, lined face. A line in his description that stood out to me was when his appearance was compared to a broken doll for the thick white scar that runs down his face and neck. It is unknown whether it ran through his whole form. On broken dolls, Ahab is wounded both in the spirit and in the body. He misses a leg infamously licked off by his nemesis, and many scholars write on how this symbolises castration, but, in my opinion, isn’t so necessary because it’s connoted enough that his, um, phallus, Excuse my language, was damaged one horrid time. His prosthetic leg was “so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin.” He was found somewhere layed unconscious alone in a freak accident.

The madness was planted not the hour when he lost his leg, but I’ll say it was placed after how his coworkers treated him as he was sore. Of course he was distressed, he was just after getting maimed by a leviathan. Then they leave him in the ship basement in a straitjacket for three months. A believable 20th century psychology experiment. And on that absurdity on both his freakout and the funny treatment others follows with, all ahab did was poke a little knife into moby’s thick skin; what’s six inches to a whale? the calf of a man it seems. And on this, I’ll say, especially on the last five chapters of the novel, it really tugged at my heart. How many people go mad over silly things and how many of them sit in their graves, over something so silly. The sober portrayal of madness in Moby Dick was new to me, and poor ahab, nothing was holding him back. I’m sure one of you here have tasted madness before and you’ll know how it wraps the particles in the air. You’ll be right till you’re wrong and by then it’s too late and everyone hates you and what’s left then but to kill the White Whale. Lucid or not, a self fulfilling ‘prophesy’. If you are mad, I am sorry. I was planning to add some quote about how ‘people that don’t go mad after adversity are unlucky’ or whatever but I think this one will be more appropriate for my case.

“I like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man.”

... What people do for truth. Sigh. If only the reformation didn’t happen.

A short wedge away from crazy Ahab now, a character I will pull in front will be Fedallah, the formally secret pagan accomplice of the captain. While I was washing my hair thinking about this text straight after I completed it, thinking about how phallic it is. There also happens to be no female characters obviously seeing the setting, now I could write about how all the maces and harpoons and daggers and such all the sperm and domination castration etc and I sure will, maybe, but a tidbit I dreamt up under bubbles of shampoo:

I feel ‘Fedallah’ is a very feminine character, how Ahab is an archetypal wounded masculin. He kind of works though him, teaching him the eastern ways of blood magic and all queer ideas on how to defeat the whale. On my observation of Fedallah being feminine, many people critique that this ‘Fedallah’ is orientalist. Someone wrote a whole paper on it, but I didn’t read it, Said’s book on Orientalism is enough, and yes I suppose one can see why someone else takes that view. A phantom parsee whom ‘Stubb’ and ‘Starbuck’ call the devil well before it’s open to see that they were right. He kind of slithers in and out, like a veiled witch in some western story about those Moroccan seductresses, feasting on the woes of a madman just getting eviler and eviler. Fedallah, as a character, I will make a joke now, maybe it was that unnamed wife of ahab’s in a strap on beard. It makes sense seeing how Old Testament the novel reads, Wicked Jezebel. Now. What do I write that hasn’t been written by others. another chapter I quite liked. Say, chapter 96 was memorable to me, really all the chapters in the early 90’s. Here’s an excerpt from this ninety six.

“Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity". ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon. But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain" (i. e. even while living) "in the congregation of the dead". Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”

The sun doesn’t hide anything over ground, all encompassing to feed everyone vitamin D. The ending of this extract, narrated by Ishmael, suggests that some people get more vitamin D than others. This reads like a clever sermon and you’ll be sure to find other witty sermons, the one on Jonah ch.9.

I wanted to write about the character of ‘Starbuck’ now that I am thinking of preaching and morals. Starbuck is the yellow colour in the sandwich. He is the formal second-in-charge of the boat, and a pious Christian he is. His piety is seen in chapter 123 where he debates whether he kills his boss with his own musket in his sleep. He doesn’t kill Ahab, although he was noble to entertain it. I think the of Starbuck represents empathy. He worries for his friend’s soul, always telling him to come back to the Light but failing. A chapter where starbuck confronts Ahab once again, around the last 4 chapters, Ahab wept and admitted to his friend that maybe he didn’t want to chase on this suicide mission. Of course Ahab being Ahab he takes back his statement and goes back to being stoic but. Starbuck emphasised with the madman by reflecting what they both had in common; and we know most good holy people would brush a philistine off as a heathen with no humanity, and might even try to kill them not out of worry for their mortal soul, but from a sinister spot, hoping the wrongdoer burns in Hell. And on the topic of pagans, right and wrong, followers of old timey Nantucket christianity, presentations, we have a ‘Queequeg’ to stain the fresco with the shade of outsiders. I suppose Ishmael is an apparent outsider but only just to the reader. In the pretend word of Moby Dick he would had blended in just fine a tidy american boy. His name, like crazy Elijah and loony Ahab puts the nature of his background frankly. Not here or there, what morals he held, and geographical location, manhattan to God knows where. Ishmael bows down to his husbands idol goddess and seemed to want to do as he did until the idol goddess told him otherwise, and instead advised ‘queequeg’ to follow Ishmael.

Now, I could go on about how this character was ment to resonate to culturally Christian American western people, but that’s obvious and boring with “better a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”, But instead I will lend the map my meek mind interpreted while pondering ‘Queequeg’. I think maybe, if I were in charge of a modern adaption of the book, I would shift Queequeg into a “pointless migrant” from some place that isn’t war-torn or necessarily unpleasant but for some reason bleeds out immigrants like blood. Say, Albania. Excuse my rude language, it’s supposed to be wry. I say this not to make a geopolicical statement, it’s just, well, a modern Moby dick, surely a Polynesian devil worshipper would fain to be relevant. A hardworking young man from Timbuktu ready to die for his employers as long as he gets to mope around hostels, away from the oppression of his family. Something to think about, we don’t often hear the plights of these undesirables on euronews. In this modern Moby Dick the details of Queequeg’s past life would change but the structure would stay the same methinks. In the novel, he’s of noble stock. First in line to a barbarian throne to a cannibal kingdom. Dismayed with what he sees on his island he abandons its customs and goes abroad to see what life is like in the fabled new world. Poor fellow was in for a shock, turns out the Christians are so much worse than the pagans in daily life. While the cannibals may chop up and eat a person once every so often, Americans drink until they slobber and spit on others for being the wrong shade of brown. The story goes, the mere observation of it all makes ‘Queequeg’ feel so tainted to even return to what he escaped, so he put on the brimmed hat and linen and squawked how’de’ye’doo .. … that story was touching. as a younger girl the muslamic ways of my family made me sick. even now when I ponder on them too long the similar nausea manifests… but. I look out the window to see what the folk around me get up to. As much as culture and its rules may sting, imagine living without it? right now there’s a European girl finding this conclusion but vice versa. Fickle thing this all is. Now, that’s a theme touched on the text, how we really are all just copies of one another, shaped by circumstance. And on that, I’d imagine a modern Ishmael to look a bit like this:

art hoe kind of person.. r/redscarepod when it was still about art. And on art, this book, really, it’s nothing like how i describe it. It’s really beautiful. Maybe I’m a bad reader, I don’t know literature, but this one was different. Nothing washed over me like it before. And I know the novel isnt finished with me yet. Lord willing I’d be sure to pick it up again in a year. The text is thick with references and even though I might have caught the biblical ones, and the ones I did not understand were filled in via powermobydick.com. Maybe twelve months later I’ll be the wiser. On beautiful things, here’s a pick of three pretty book covers.

1. A unique rainbow. Oh! How come I wrote nothing about the whale! Wow. Here’s a excerpt that stood out to me about the creature.

“the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale.”

a confession, picturing The Whale in my head while reading; it was not much like how it was described. Maybe its eye sockets were broader, but full of void. Misty, opaque poltergeist of pale pastels and whites. Kind of kawaii, but not so much a fish-mammal but an angel.

Adore the paper cutout impression the colouring produces. not much distinction between the ‘sky’ and the ‘sea’. Moby Dick could be flying.

Who’s the face supposed to represent? And the whale, that certainly cannot be Moby, because it’s hurt. I think the face is supposed to be Ishmael, the disheveled beard makes me wonder that it’s supposed to be him after a day or two floating in Queequeg’s coffin, after the Pequod sank. Look at those colours, those scraggly bruises look sore. Poor whale, I think it’s crying.

oh, sob, it moved me so much I wanted to make art about it, a collage was my first idea, but it occurred to me I don’t know how I’d execute that. Usually collages are reserved for art on different feelings. I was thinking maybe a video collage, a retelling of the novel though internet memes and pop culture moments. But what memes other than Dj Khalid clips would be added? So scrap that. A journalist would know.

useless note: this made me think of the character ‘Stubb.’ :

hardy harr harr, what were your thoughts on Stubb? Many reviewers found stubb a poopyhead, which he was, but an intresting poopyhead nonetheless. Unforgivable what he did to Pipin though.

This is the end of my observation. Thank you if you read all of this. Thanks. God bless.

“Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike— for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”

#Moby Dick #Herman Meville

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darkesttimelinestuff · 4 years

Text

Queequeg’s Final Repose

“Thanks for coming. I know it’s early,” Scully says, chin tucked into her chest, her boots shifting uncomfortably in the mud.

“Morning.” Mulder nods sharply, walking down the grassy embankment to her side.

“It seemed appropriate to do something to honor him.”

The sun, slung low on the horizon, casts shadows over the city, nearly hiding the grief etched on her face. And something else. Resentment, maybe. Scully hugs herself against the early-spring chill; the wind is biting near the water.

“How do we do this? I’ve never paid my respects to a dog before.”

“Didn’t you have pets growing up, Mulder?”

“We had a dog, yeah, but he ran away shortly after Samantha…” He trails off. “I always suspected my mom gave him away, actually.”

Scully’s brow furrows as she takes this in: a boy grieving for his lost baby sister has his dog, likely his only emotional support, ripped away from him.

“What makes you think that?”

“Baxter never ran away.” Mulder squints into the distance at the memory. “We’d let him run up and down the beach, play at the park with other dogs. He always came back to me. But one day I went to school and when I came home Baxter was gone. I never saw him again.”

“Oh, Mulder,” Scully sighs, a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“Did you have a dog growing up?”

“With four willifull kids, we had pets in the house constantly.” Scully smiles. “Missy brought home orphaned cats and hurt puppies. It drove my dad nuts, but I think Charlie’s snake was the angriest I’ve ever seen him over a pet. Not many made it through the bigger moves, unfortunately. Mom would find a kind neighbor to take them in.”

“Even the snake?”

“I don’t remember.”

“So, how did you say goodbye to your furry friends, Scully? Did you have a pet cemetery in your backyard?”

Scully huffs a sharp cold breath of laughter. “Not quite. But we respectfully laid to rest our lost pets.”

Mulder has a sudden flash of decaying rabbit; a rope of snake hanging from young Dana’s hands: stories divulged by Maggie, while Scully, ever protective of her privacy, lay in a hospital bed unable to defend herself.

He blinks the images away and gestures to a small bag dangling on Scully’s wrist.

“Oh,” Scully says. “These are a couple of Queequeg’s things.”

“His favorite toys?” Mulder asks and Scully nods, a lump forming in her throat. “Can I see?”

She hands Mulder the chewed leash, a ball, a small plush bone. “That last one is from Mr. Bruckman,” she manages hoarsely and bites her lip. “He left me some food and that toy. Queequeg loved it.”

“He was a good dog,” Mulder says, his sympathetic gaze so unnerving that she averts her eyes.

“You hated him,” she retorts, hoping it didn’t come out as mean as it sounded to her.

“I didn’t hate him,” Mulder replies softly, leaning against the guardrail. “I’m just of the school of thought that dogs shouldn’t resemble rodents. But he made you happy. He was important to you and that’s what counts. Plus, you had matching hair.” He can’t help but joke and wonders if he bears as much responsibility for Queeqeg’s death as Big Blue. Or an alligator.

“Thanks, Mulder. But don’t ever compare me to a dog again,” she warns, bumping his shoulder with her own.

“Never, Scully.”

“So when a pet passed in my family,” she begins, then pauses to take a shaky breath, “we’d bury it in our backyard with a favourite toy. Then Mom would make a big, unhealthy meal to help us forget. But I don’t have a backyard.”

Mulder nods understandingly. ”Do you want me to hold these for you?”

“Yeah. Just give me a minute,” Scully replies. She takes out the bone and hands him the bag.

“Take your time.”

Tears are welling in her eyes, but there is also deep gratitude there too and, Mulder thinks, maybe she doesn't blame him, after all. He rubs her back gently.

With another shaky breath, Scully bends to scoop up a handful of dirt. “Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored,” Scully recites and let’s the dusted earth trickle between loose fingers, the grains swept away with the breeze. Then she tosses the toy into the water.

There is comfort in the warmth and silence of the moment and Scully, heavy and sullen, leans into Mulder. He doesn’t offer vague apologies or empty promises; he allows her to grieve. Though only in her life briefly, Queequeg had occupied a large portion of her heart. Death is a career choice for Scully, but nothing prepared Dana for the sudden loss of the one friend she came home to every night.

For several minutes nothing exists but their heavy breaths and the rushing river. Finally, Scully straightens, squaring her shoulders.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yes, fine.”

“Buy you a big, greasy breakfast?” Mulder offers, pocketing the leash and toy.

“Sounds perfect.” Scully smiles appreciatively as they turn from the river and up toward the busy district, where coffee shops and diners are quickly filling with early birds.

“You know, Scully, I never pictured you littering like that.”

@today-in-fic

#fanfic #the x files #TXF #txf fanfic #Fox Mulder #Dana Scully #mulder and scully #queequeg

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