dickalong | Chapters 23-33

The plaque on the bottom is the privateer: https://imgur.com/QHcrf1a The top one refers to Hancock, but I don't know if it was John Hancock the revolutionary (and smuggler) or his rich uncle the merchant (and smuggler).

The cherubim from the Grouchy plaque: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/gruchy-s-angels

Bonus! The first captain of USS Constitution is buried in the crypt of the same church. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=33223263&PIpi=15148335

And finally, a very pre-Melville sailing plaque, but I think it's the best so here's a pic: https://imgur.com/3IApXgx It's right up at the very front.

Thank you! One of my favorite sailor-heavy burying grounds is up in Rockport, but it doesn't do plaques so impressively.

(The Liberty belonged to the younger John Hancock, of the magnificent signature. For anyone who wants to wander off into the wrong century, the documents in the case were reprinted in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and they're part of JSTOR's free content:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25080130?seq=17#page_scan_tab_contents
If you don't want the commentary, skip ahead to page 262, for gems such as "I do not stand for price I like a rich wine," and "From Menaces they proceeded to Violence...")

AYRT

Thank you! That link is excessively RTMI but damn, I don't have time to go spelunking right now...

The chapter on Bulkington was short, but I was rather struck by how gorgeous and evocative it was. I especially liked this bit: “Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington.”

One thing that bothered me a bit, though, was the confrontation between Scrubb and Ahab, and Scrubb’s later monologue to himself. As far as I can recall, this book has been limited to only Ishmael’s point of view, correct? And, as far as I can tell, Ishmael wasn’t around when that happened, was he? So seeing events that he wasn’t privy to threw me off. Other than that, though, I did like that whole scene.

Also, while I usually have a strong dislike for smoking, something about that image of Ahab’s pipe sinking into the sea struck me as being rather sad.

I haven’t been paying much attention to chapter titles, but the title of “Queen Mab” stood out to me, especially considering that the chapter itself deals mostly with Scrubb’s dream— or “dream”, as I’m not convinced that it wasn’t just Scrubb’s way of dealing with his humiliation from his confrontation with Ahab / justifying his actions to himself.

As for “Cetology”— the mod comment on the reading schedule post had me bracing myself for this one, but I actually found it kind of hilarious? At least in the beginning! And then the rest had some really pretty turns of phrase; most of the quotes I copied down came from this chapter.

I loved this observation: “Nevertheless, though of real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty”— I know he’s just talking about whales, but this could apply to so many things.

And then this piece of brilliance appeared:

“And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,—the Greenland whale is deposed,—the great sperm whale now reigneth!”

I just love how enthusiastic and fangirl-y he is about it!

I don’t know too much about whales, so I don’t really know anything about how accurate/inaccurate his observations might be (outside of his “whales are fish!” thing, which, yeah, no), but there were so many pretty lines in there that it didn’t matter, at least not to me.

I loved pretty much the entire section on the ridgeback whales, but especially this bit: “Of a retiring
nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers.” and this one: “Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else.”

I also really liked this observation, about the killer whale: “Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.”

And then there was this line: “Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas.”

In short, I, contrary to my expectations, actually really liked the chapter, even though nothing at all happened in it.

Yeah, Melville starts to head-hop. It's skillful and you always know whose POV you're in, but it's not just Ishmael anymore. (I'm a little ahead in the reading, for once.)

I adore Ceteology, not least for the jolly porpoises and the bawdy joke about Queen Elizabeth.

I keep going "la la la, this is GREAT, no wonder it's a classic, it's not boring at all, it's not even that long, look at GRRM's doorstops that everybody reads, everybody should also read this genius nov--********NINETEENTH CENTURY RACISM****************************--el."

I KNOW, right?? I'm mostly enjoyed this a lot, but one part I noted when reading was when he went, "Americans provide the brains, and the rest of the world the muscle!" (not an exact quote), and I went NOPE.

Spoiler alert: Beware the disquisition on the color white, coming up in Chapter 42. It has not aged well. OTOH the ways in which it hasn't aged well are visible from space, so when the inevitable happens it's not a shock.

Yeah, it is very noticeable. Doesn't some of it also play into the idea that we're listening to an attorney arguing the case that the whaleship is a microcosm of an industrializing America? I'm not sure that we're meant to whole-heartedly admire him; or, at least, I think we're supposed to be aware that he's a bit of a huckster, and we're being sold a bag of goods.

Ishmael is an unreliable narrator, and a snarky asshole! I haven't heard that idea about the attorney. Deets?

Well, first of all: I certainly don't mean to imply that a lawyer suddenly appears! and you're right, this chapter is presented as Ishmael's voice. But throughout the novel Melville's playing with genre, right from Etymology & Extracts, through sermon and adventure story and naturalist's taxomony; to me, at least, The Advocate sounds like a piece of political or legal argument: its position will inevitably be overblown, because it's meant to be a kind of rhetoric that convinces by overwhelming.

There's the chapter title itself, of course. I took a look at the 1844 Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, and the first definition is still, "Advocate, in its primary sense, signifies, one who pleads the cause of another in a court of civil law."

(And speaking of unreliable narrators, that opens the question of how much Ishmael would stand by his own argument; unlike an American dictionary today, espousing what you're saying doesn't show up until the 3rd definition. I realize going back to dictionary definitions is a bit comical - but I also think that it's a noticeable difference from 21st century usage, and a degree of nuance Melville might have employed.)

All of which is to say that I wouldn't be too surprised if those brainy white whalemen and their exploits were revealed to be less noble than our advocate would have them be. I wonder, too, how much of this rhetoric is a reaction to (against?) American expansionism and Manifest Destiny.

Oh, gosh, that got really long, and also wandered away from the 19th-century racism point, didn't it? Sorry!

Manifest Destiny is thoroughly entangled with 19th-century racism! I don't have time to reread with this in mind, but I'll be paying much better attention to genre from now on.

Chapters 23-33

Pictures!

Re: Pictures!

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