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Feb. 21st, 2021 07:51 pmQ: 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.
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.
