"It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness." When Moby-Dick was first published, one reviewer wrote: The book "takes the shape of narrative or dramatic fiction, it is phantasmal—an attempted description of what is impossible in nature and without probability in art; it repels the reader instead of attracting him." Melville was crushed. He had written the book of a lifetime, had to endure some pretty bad reviews, and never had the literary success he hoped for in his lifetime. The New York Herald misspelled his name in his obituary. If anything, Moby-Dick is a book abou
"On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan." Musing: And with these lines, the book is over. The ship, the Rachel, returns. Earlier Ahab refused to help the captain of the Rachel find his two lost sons, but here the Rachel finds Ishmael. In a biblical sense, the names are relevant. Rachel mourned for her lost children and Ishmael represents orphans and exiles. I'm not sure why the Rachel was 'devious' in her cruising? Another question unanswered.
"Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks." Musing: I love digging into the Epilogue. The sharks, that were "rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water" for Ahab, are kind to Ishmael. Ahab even asks "'who can tell [ . . .] whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab?'" Yet Ishmael, on top of a wooden coffin, is safe from sharks and birds and all of nature. This novel begins as an epic adventure and ends as
"And now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin like-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main." Musing: Ishmael has been saved by Queequeq's coffin. I like to say this is being saved by love. The coffin, which Queequeq commissioned while he was ill, was salvation for Ishmael. Rather than being the symbol of death, it literally keeps Ishmael risen from the depths of the sea. So much religious allusion here at the end. But aren't references to rising again usually reserved for heroes and Chri
"Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve, till gaining that vital center, the black bubble upward burst" Musing: Here is a puzzling part for the book for me. Melville has Ishmael align himself to Ixion - an odd reference. I can so clearly picture Ishmael spinning toward the middle of the vortex. A wheel metaphor seems appropriate here, but Ixion? Ixion is a character from Greek mythology who has some shady characteristics. He throws his father-in-law into a fiery pit to avoid paying for his bride. Zeus saves Ixion only to have Ixion hit on Zeus's lady. Zeus decides the puni
"It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So. floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the half-spent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex." Musing: Ishmael, the character, returns in full voice here. There was so much left to chance in this brief epilogue. Had Ishmael remained in his original place, he too would have been taken in by the vortex. But Ishmael, just like hi
"At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armour. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows." Musing: Oh yes, Melville wrote of Christmas in Moby-Dick.
"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." JOB The Drama's Done. Why then here does any one step forth? - Because one did survive the wreck. Musing: Ishmael speaks now and quotes from Job. Like Job, Ishmael has been tested and here he lets us know he has survived and is reconciled, somehow, with God. The drama, Ishmael also tells us, is over. But why say more? Because he is a survivor. When I wonder why this book speaks to me, I go to this ending. Why speak? Because survivors should. This line has given me courage over the years to speak. I am always, always reminded that I survived a wreck myself. In this moment of communion with Ishmael, I always feel strength.
"Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago." Musing: Here are the last lines of the Chase. I can picture it all so clearly - the screaming birds - the ship sinking - the chaos and confusion and noise and then - nothing. The image of a shroud of the sea is apt since this is a funereal moment. The part that always gives me chills is how strongly this last line speaks to me. All the drama - all the deaths - all the meaning - all nothing. The sea rolls on. It always has. It always will. What are we to make of that? Wonder ye then at
"A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it." Musing: Wow wow
"But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touched;-at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar." Musing: The last vision from the ship is of Tashtego, the Native American, at the mast. The flag is calm, even as everything else is destroyed. The red arm and the hammer perhaps indicate the futility of the Native Americans st
"For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned. "The ship? Great God, where is the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking look-outs on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight." Musing: Ahab is gone - drowned and buried in
"The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;-ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths." Musing: In a second, Ahab is gone. All was fury and hell a second ago, and now, Ahab simply disappears. Was this the fault of the whale, or was it an accident that caused Ahab to get caught in the rope.
"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" Musing: Ok, Nick - here it is. Ahab is done. He still has fight in him though. The whale is all-destroying, but has not conquered Ahab. Ahab wants us to be sure to know that. Still, I like the line. One can be destroyed, but not conquered. This, I believe. There is still rage in Ahab. He stabs at Moby-Dick from '
"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,-death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Musing: I always found it curious that while Melville states earlier that a dying whale turns toward the sun, Ahab turns from the sun. Here, after the boats are all torn asunder, Ahab watches as the Pequod sinks. And the Captain, who should go down with t
"The ship! The hearse!-the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could only be American!" Musing: Reading this book again, in the age of Trump, made me sick. The political tones of Moby-Dick are simply incredible. The Pequod is the microcosm of America. At the time Melville wrote the book, there were thirty states and there are thirty sailors on board the ship. The sailors represent a mix of races and cultures. If the book is often philosophical and cosmic, it is also political and specific. Are we on a self destructive quest to conquer without thought of what that even means? Are we willing to follow a leader blindly because we are trapped on a ship in the ocean and we have pl
"From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Musing: I just want to let this language work its magic.There are so many clues in th
"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's fainting fit. Up helm, I say-ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!" Musing: So much to unpack in here. The whale is coming toward the Pequod and Starbuck knows if this happens, the ship will take on water and sink. Interesting that Starbuck, the godly one, is first afraid he will
"Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon as he." Musing: So much to think about here at the end. I have not spent a lot of time studying the role of Tashtego in Moby Dick, but he certainly represents Native Americans and their role in the American economy. That Melville has Tashtego at the top of the mast at the end of the book is meaningful. There Tashtego stands, with a red flag (blood/p
"Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it-it may be-a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead." Musing: Ahab has hit Moby Dick with a lance. The whale turns back toward Ahab as if to ram his small boat, then seems to notice the Pequod. At that moment Ahab understands the Pequod will be lost and his men are in danger. He also recognizes this is his ow
