"Time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise!" Musing: This is a rare monologue by Ahab. The lines always remind me of Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality: "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,/The earth, and every common sight, to me did seem appareled in celestial light. /The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day. The things which I
"Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,- to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with a touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe." Musing: This chapter comes right after Ahab's challenge to Starbuck. Here, we have Starbuck's thoughts. This is the first time in reading the novel I have seen such a blatant tug-of-war between Ahab and Starbuck. I have never liked Starbuck - at all. Yet now I see more of me in this character. I too have "hated with a touch of pity." I love how each read of Moby Dick finds new
"Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go." Musing: Ahab has just finished his speech about taking on God and poking throu
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. [ . . . ] If man will strike, strike though the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. 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. Musing: We have, in this passage, the biggest 'theme' of the book. What is behind the events in life? Is there anything - anybody - any reason? For Ahab, the lo
"Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!" Musing: Nothing to muse on but the beautiful description of Ahab. We are still learning about him in these opening chapters. I am still learning about Ahab after many readings of this novel.
"For be a man’s intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base." Musing. Okay, wow. In this chapter, Ishmael fills us in on the political structure of the boat - who sleeps where, who eats where, who is superior to whom. Ishmael clearly feels that this structure is antiquated. He does, however, recognize that titles and traditions are necessary for those at the top of the food chain even though those titles and traditions are outdated and 'base.' What does that say about those at the top of the food chain?
"But I now leave my cetological system standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draft - nay, but the draft of a draft. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!" Musing: In this rather odd chapter, I feel the voice of Melville rather than Ishmael. First of all, hardly anyone, even Melville fans, like this chapter. It categorizes whales. When people complain that this book is boring, this is the chapter
"Ahab looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single
"But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; but it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meager faces; but, man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. " Musing: This paragraph deserves a pause or two. I love each line. It is true that when I see someone fail it almost hurts to
But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God- so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! Musing: This is the "Bulkington chapter." One of the crew, Bulkington, perishes just as the ship begins to sail. Bulkington had just returned from a four year journey, then joined the Pequod in a three year journey. There is a little hint in this chapter that men who cannot stay in one place may be doomed, but the sentiment seems more universal to me. Risk is greater than being stagnant regardless of the end result.
“Anything down there about your souls?” “About what?” “Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though, I know many chaps that hav’n’t got any,- good luck to ‘em; and they are all the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon.” Ishmael and Queequeq have just signed papers to sail on the Pequod when they meet an odd man in the streets. He asks them if they've signed on to sail with Ahab then gives them all kinds of hints about what a mistake that was. The title of the chapter is "The Prophet" - which should be a clue to readers. Later we find out the man's given name is Elijah. Elijah's comment about a soul being a fifth wheel is actually pretty brill
"He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. " Musing: This is our first introduction to Ahab in Moby Dick. Captain Peleg is describing Ahab to IshMael after Ishmael has signed on to sail on the Pequod. All of the descriptors will turn out to be true. And the fiery lance will be dipped in stranger things than fire!
"Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy then." Musing: Because it's my birthday, I will take today's quote as a gift and a sign of hope for our world. Queequeq, the cannibal, and Ishmael, the good Christian boy from the North East, put aside petty differences because of love. The entirety of the relationship between Queequeq and Ishmael should be required reading in schools and in the White House. How beautifull
"Because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." Musing: Long before I loved Melville, I loved William Blake. Blake wrote : "Without contraries there is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence." Blake later writes that without knowing hell, you can't appreciate heaven and vice-versa. At this point in August in Texas, I would love the opportunity to experience a cold day so I can better appreciate this intense heat. In the quote above, Melville has Ishmael and Queequeq sharing another night o
"I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool." Musing: Here is the Ishmael I love - funny and smart all at once.
"For what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?" Musing: This is the last of Father Mapple's sermon and more words that stick with me. These lines always remind me of a line from Robert Browning's amazing poem Andrea Del Sarto: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" Melville will demonstrate throughout Moby Dick that once we reach perfection, what then? What is left? How can we be greater than our God, Father Mapple asks? How can we exceed our dreams, Browning asks? It seems that desire - to succeed, to believe in God, to conquer, is a more powerful hope than completion could ever be. Things are getting deeper in Moby Dick!
"Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appall! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!” Musing: I'm not sure where to begin with this part of Father Mapple's savory sermon. So delicious are these words I want to read them over and over. These are all principles which will be tested throughout the voyage of the Pequod. These are also more than sayings - these are deep, tough adages that, if we followed them, would guarantee a better world. My f
"But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists." Musing: The famous Father Mapple begins his sermon with many of the themes that will run through the book. Starbuck, in particular, faces the challenge of obeying God or listening to his own gut. In obeying God, Starbuck leaves Ahab to destroy the Pequod. Like everything else in the book, nothing is cut and dry. But, the if ideal is that we must listen to God's commands first, then let's see how that plays out through
"Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air." Musing: Another wow line. Many scholars refer to 1 Corinthians 13:12 when discussing this line. It fits. Melville was schooled in religion. But the beauty of this line from Moby Dick, to me, is its deep reference to the journey Ishmael, and all of us readers, are about to take. At this point in the book, we are too far away from the end to see the whole meaning. At this point in our lives, perhaps we are too far away as well?
"But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope." Musing: Holy crap- Melville throws these lines in like a gut punch. Faith is sometimes too soft a word. It is easily forgotten - skipped over - invisible. But faith becoming a jackal? Now I'm paying attention! The faith in this section is not the faith you have in a quiet church with candles lighting the dark. The faith of a jackal is rough and opportunistic. It is most needed when things have died and it feeds on fear and sorrow and hopes for some nourishment. If you told me that faith was like the wind in the tree, I'd read on. But you tell me that faith is a jackal - I'm goi
