(no subject)

[skygiants]

Q: So Becca, why have you posted almost no booklogs in this, the year 2021?
A: Great question! that is largely because I spent all of January (plus much of the surrounding months of December and February) reading my way, at last, very slowly, through Moby Dick

Q: Why are you reading Moby Dick in this, the year 2021?
A: My friends bullied me into it. Next question.

Q: How well would you say that the vast body of Moby Dick-related works you had previously consumed prepared you for this experience?
A: Well, I'm now even more annoyed at The Whale: A Love Story for presenting me with a portrait of Herman Melville that contains not a single grain of a sense of humor. Herman Melville is of course depressed but he is also SO funny! Moby Dick is full of jokes!

Q: Like, intentional jokes?
A: Yes! Also some unintentional jokes, of course. And many whale facts.

Q: And the whale facts are mostly wrong?
A: The whale facts are almost entirely wrong. But presented so charmingly and with such a degree of personality!

Q: Okay, moving on from whale facts --
A: No, wait, I'm not ready to move on from giving my opinion about whale facts. IN my opinion, although there is some stiff competition, the best presentation of whale facts in the book is when Ishmael (the narrator of Moby Dick) suddenly drops the information, about 600 pages in, that not only did he previously visit a temple made out of a whale corpse on a remote island, he then immediately took the opportunity to whip out a tape measure, MEASURE the whale temple, and then GET ACCURATE WHALE DIMENSIONS TATTOOED ON HIS ARM? this is extra funny given how much space is devoted in the first section of the book to Ishmael describing Queequeg's tattoos --

Q: Wait, go back. Quick question: is Ishmael/Queequeg as gay as described?
A: Very much so, they get symbolically married at least twice, but also it's really only relevant like one hundred pages total out of this seven-hundred-page book. Another hundred pages is Ahab chasing his symbolic whale while Starbuck desperately tries to act as a moral counterweight despite the fact that he is in no way able to resist Ahab's incredibly high charisma rolls. The rest is whale facts.

Q: I feel like you're about to tell us more about whale facts.
A: No, I can talk about Ahab and Starbuck first! a.) Ahab's decisions are all clearly very bad on a personal and professional level, but nonetheless the quality of wanting nothing more than to deliver a personal fuck-you to God is a sublime one and I am extremely weak to this. "I know now that thy right worship is defiance" goes right for my jugular! b.) the Ahab-Starbuck relationship is so intense and Shakespearean that after a while I began accidentally looking for iambic pentameter in all their exchanges and I found SO MUCH OF IT. is there no other way? no lawful way? / make him a prisoner to be taken home? / what! hope to wrest this old man's living power / from his own living hands? only a fool / would try it.

Q: So ... it seems like you enjoyed the Moby Dick experience, overall?
A: It turns out I am, indeed, regrettably, the kind of person who does very much enjoy the experience of Moby Dick. To everyone who told me told me they thought this was likely to be true: yes, you were all correct. Congratulations.

Q: You still really want to tell us the second best presentation of whale facts, don't you.
A: Yes I do! It's when Call Me "Definitely Not Herman Melville" Ishmael describes every piece of whale art that he's ever seen, in loving and very funny detail, and concludes that every single one of them is a piece of shit.

Q: Thank you.
A: You're welcome.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I am so edified.

[skygiants]

This is an educational blog!

[sophia_sol]

Someday I will get around to reading Moby Dick too! This honestly sounds delightful

[skygiants]

Wait, you haven't read Moby Dick? I just assumed from all the sea shanties! You're already so prepared for whenever you get around to it!

[lannamichaels]

This sounds glorious.

[skygiants]

It is definitely an Experience! It's an Experience I'm glad to have had!

[seekingferret]

I am so delighted you've finally read it, but are you really sure the jokes are intentional? I am skeptical.


A: Yes I do! It's when Call Me "Definitely Not Herman Melville" Ishmael describes every piece of whale art that he's ever seen, in loving and very funny detail, and concludes that every single one of them is a piece of shit.

This is false. The second best presentation of whale facts (I am in 100% agreement on your number one) is when Ishmael tells you that porpoises are happy, fun loving good luck symbols beloved by all whalers, and then he tells you that porpoises yield "one good gallon of good oil" and are "good eating".

[asakiyume]

*dying*

[bemused_writer]

I've been wanting to read Moby Dick for a while now and this makes me want to read it even more. It sounds great!

[skygiants]

Herman Melville just has charisma as a writer!

[sovay]

"I know now that thy right worship is defiance" goes right for my jugular!

I'm pretty sure I am one of the people who recommended Moby-Dick to you and I can't believe it didn't occur to me to sell it on this angle alone. I always think of "Strike through the mask."

It turns out I am, indeed, regrettably, the kind of person who does very much enjoy the experience of Moby Dick.

I don't think that's regrettable at all.

[skygiants]

You were absolutely one of the people who told me I should read Moby-Dick, and I did know you were right at the time, I just needed a while to come to terms with the inevitability of finally becoming a person who has read Moby-Dick ... I am glad to be here but it does mark a transition.

[thistleingrey]

ha! Thank you.

[skygiants]

Glad you enjoyed!!

[hokuton_punch]

I am so glad you had fun with it! :D I have such fond memories, though it's been a while since I read it myself.

[skygiants]

I am glad your memories are also fond! :D It will probably be a while before I reread it, but I do kind of want to reread some of the Moby Dick-related material I've accumulated over the years with my new understanding...

[chimney_swift]

I read Moby Dick in college, and one of my favorite bits about the whale facts is that Melville probably knew they were all wrong! His only goal is to indeed be charming and tricksy. What a book. I enjoyed it. Kudos to you for reading it all on your own--I'm not sure I'd be able to make it entirely on my own.

[skygiants]

He succeeds at it admirably!! (I did not really make it on my own either, I was supported throughout by an informal book club, which made it a slower but even more delightful experience.) I still think the best way to introduce kids to Moby-Dick is to give fourth graders with Strong Whale Opinions a copy of "Cetology" and let them fight with it.

[newredshoes]

One of us!! One of us!!!!! WHALES!!!!!

[skygiants]

I'm here! WHALES!!!

(we also just started Tale of the Nine-Tailed and I laughed extremely hard at Lee Rang clutching his comic copy of Moby-Dick...)

[rachelindeed]

I'm so happy you mentioned the humor -- that was the biggest surprise for me when reading it because it's somehow literature's best kept secret?? Despite starting with the wry charmingness in literally paragraph one with the whole 'Can. Barely. Resist. Knocking people's hats off. Send help. Time to go to sea!' intro???

[skygiants]

When I was a kid I definitely never had any idea that Moby-Dick was at all a funny book, and then over the years I sort of began to gradually osmose this idea as more and more people I knew with great senses of humor kept telling me how good Moby-Dick was -- but it was still such a delight to actually experience it!

[vass]

I'm very glad you loved it too. Infodumping for the win!

[skygiants]

Have I retained any of what I 'learned' about whales? Absolutely not. Did I nonetheless delight in it while absorbed in it? ABSOLUTELY.

[ceitfianna]

I love this. I read Moby Dick in college and had a great prof and a really lovely illustrated version, so I have a lot of affection for this strange book.

[skygiants]

I saw a bunch of gorgeous illustrated versions when I went to go see the Moby-Dick musical in 2019 and it was so much fun to explore them -- as a book it's gotten some really beautiful treatments over the years!

[jinian]

Yes! It's so good. (The Bill Sienkiewicz comic version is gorgeously atmospheric but not nearly hilarious enough.)

[skygiants]

If it's not funny it's not Moby-Dick! >:(

[allchildren]

becca
becca
becca

more whale facts please becca

[skygiants]

Whale Fact: St. George's dragon, PROBABLY a whale! Evidence? Well, no evidence, but frankly, says Melville, it would be embarrassing if it hadn't been a whale. "It would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale."

[kate_nepveu]

Amazing.

[skygiants]

An Experience!! (I hit the part where Melville starts complaining about classical whale sculptures and all I could think was "the beauty of the House is immeasurable; its kindness infinite; its mediocre whale statues, however --"

[blotthis]

it's an honor and pleasure to bully you, very glad it was productive for both of us

[skygiants]

Can't wait for you to hit [redacted], [redacted] or [redacted] in Les Mis -

[troisoiseaux]

I tried reading Moby Dick, in my freshman year of college. I might possibly have gotten farther if the situation in which I was reading it was not out loud, to my mother (we were in a car for 8 hours, long story) and therefore I was frantically self-editing to avoid saying the word "sperm" out loud, but also I suspect that Life Is Simply Too Short To Read Moby Dick. This review............. is tempting me to give it another go. Gdi.

(Have you heard of Dave Malloy's Moby Dick musical?)

[evelyn_b]

This is the best anecdote about failing to read Moby Dick I have ever heard. No one could be prepared for how many times the word "sperm" occurs in Moby Dick.

[krait]

I'm dying at Melville Self Insert Art Insults! :D

[skygiants]

He has SO MANY whale art opinions and they're all SO funny!

[larryhammer]

When I first read Moby Dick at eleven, before puberty had really hit me, I was All In for the whales-and-whaling facts and the adventure story.

When I reread it at thirteen, still reeling from puberty, I was Very Confused by Ishmael/Queequeg and even more confused by Ahab/Starbuck and so doubled-down on the whales-and-whaling facts. It was hard to double-down on the adventure story, as I was just enough of a reader to recognize that Ahab/Starbuck is tightly bound into thread.

I've spent much of my life since then wondering if I was old enough yet to reread it.

ETA: Both readings, I was headblind to iambic pentameter, so I TOTALLY missed that part. This alone piques my interest. (Even more.)

[skygiants]

It's especially notable when Melville decides that a given scene is dramatic enough that he's just shifting to script format (all prose, technically, but a very Shakespeare-inflected prose) but the rhythm of the iambs really drives forward a lot of the Ahab/Starbuck scenes and it sort of feels like he's very conscientiously using it to set those sections apart and elevate them from the rest of the (very enjoyable) Time For Melville's Opinion sections.

[oracne]

WHALE FAX

[skygiants]

WHALE FAX!!!

[evelyn_b]

I can't share your regret at having enjoyed the heck out of Moby Dick, its hilarious narrator, and its sea of incorrect whale facts.

(I'm also thrilled to meet someone else who has read the wonderfully ridiculous slashfic The Whale: A Love Story: A Novel).

[skygiants]

My friend obopolsk read The Whale: A Love Story several years ago and then traveled across three state borders to press it into my hands. "It's not good," she said, "and you have to read it." And I did! I did have to!

[asakiyume]

The one and only thing I remember about reading Moby Dick was how I could feel that iambic pentameter rumbling in my bones as I read--I like that sensation.

(I liked it very much when I read it, just for some reason it didn't linger for me.)

but nonetheless the quality of wanting nothing more than to deliver a personal fuck-you to God is a sublime one and I am extremely weak to this. "I know now that thy right worship is defiance" goes right for my jugular! --😍<--This, in spite of the fact that I don't, myself, want to? But MAN I understand the feeling.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that's exactly it! I hadn't realized how sensitive I was to it until I couldn't turn it off. Iambs all around me!

Human Vs. The Divine And Refusing To Just Let It Win is one of the Big Plots that draws me in every single time -- there's just something about the sense that whether one can or can't actually stand up to this immense power, there's a ... virtue is not the word I want? A triumph, maybe, in the very attempt.

[kore]

I tried to read Moby-Dick many times and finally succeeded in my very early twenties, when I was still chewing through very long books, and my main memory is there was an entire chapter on whiteness. It is fascinating to think what modern editors and reviewers would make of the whole thing today.

[skygiants]

I'm honestly not entirely sure that a scholar of critical race studies in American literature didn't invent a time machine for the sole reason of visiting Melville during his period of composition of Moby-Dick and offering him $5 to put down all his feelings about whiteness ... it's just so intensely on point!

[reconditarmonia]

I really need to reread this, it's been too long.

[skygiants]

I suspect it's even more rewarding on a round 2!