The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism." Musing: The Pequod meets another ship. The Delight has encountered Moby Dick and has 5 dead men to bury in the sea as a result of that encounter. As Ahab tries to avoid seeing the last dead sailor tossed off the Delight, the Pe
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"So Ahab’s proceedings in this matter were not unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision- one of those too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat; it was strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman; freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person’s ha
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him." Musing: It is easy to forget that Ishmael has a voice. In the
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen being’s body." And now we focus on the Parsee (Fedallah - the man in black who was smuggled on board by Ahab and whose title implies he is an adherent of Zoroastrianism). Fedallah has a strange rol
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months’ night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab’s purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a single spear or leaf." Musing: So, things are a bummer on the Pequod now. The crew realizes the ship is doomed and the
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"And now that all his successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man’s eyes, which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see." Musing: It seems the central theme of the book evolves here - did the whale take Ahab's leg on purpose or not? Is it worse to sin, or be sinned against? The lan
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health." Musing: Ahab is speaking to Pip. The Pequod has just met another ship, The Rachel, which has seen the white whale. Ahab is preparing for the end. Pip, in his madness, brings out the comforter in Ahab. Ahab also sees his own madness in Pip and admits that he does not want to lose his crazed focus on Moby Dick by staying near Pip
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. 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!" Musing: Ahab is still thinking of the coffin becoming a life-buoy. And as the novel comes closer to its conclusion, the universal questions of life and death become stronger and bigger and as overwhelmi
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
"So man’s seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts?" Musing: These are the lines that stop me cold in Moby-Dick. Ahab is still bothered by the coffin becoming a life-buoy. The entire book asks us to consider what is real and what we make real. What is the coffin but wood, yet what is a coffin but what it represents? Imponderable thoughts. "Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"
The Daily Dick: Musings on the Greatest Novel Ever
“Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades.” At the end of the last chapter, we learn the life-buoy was lost trying to save a now drowned sailor. Starbuck asked the carpenter to take Queequeq's coffin (constructed previously
