From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!

Chapter 23.  Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington!  Bear thee grimly, demigod!  Up from the spray of the ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! Chapter 24.  And, as for me, if by any possibility, there by any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of;  if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death , my executors, or more properly, my creditors, find any precious MSS in my desk, then here I prespectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. Chapter 25.  Think of that, ye loyal Britons! We whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff! Chapter 26.  Thy selected champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, oh God! Chapter 27.  On the grim Pequod’s...

This is from goodly Bob in Texas, one of the stellar members of this band of literary ruffians: I like the comment re: Elijah, “Elijah! Thought I , and we walked away, both commenting, after each other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor, and agreed  that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear.”   The start of Chapter 23: “Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.”

We have our own Bildad amongst us, which is a good and magical thing.  He’s a bit of an elusive figure, but always an enlightened one, me thinks.  Truth be told, me thinks he’s building a ship of his own as we speak.  A vessel of sorts, by hand.  It’s an old trade, but keeps men young. This phrase/sentence is rather lovely (18):  “Pious harpooners never make good voyagers — it takes the shark out of ‘em’; no harpooner is worth a straw who ain’t pretty sharkish.” Although ‘harpooning’ seems so malicious and cruel to me, somehow, if you are going to jump on that game, this sentence rings very true. There’s a kind of moral and I’m not sure how to say it, but I feel it... I can’t put my foot on it .... Melville and this book.  He kind of captures the hypocrisy of Western culture, without shaming it.  Or coming off as a pompous prick?  Maybe?  Like noting the differences between cultures, and kind of saying our own comes up a bit shy.  ...

“I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment....” “I learnt that there were three ships up for three years’ voyages.”  [HOLY HELL IS THAT A BIG COMMITMENT!!!!!  Wow]. “A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies.”  [Use of the word ‘cannibal’ again, this time in reference to the ship and not Queequeg, but more fusion of metaphor]. [And the ship is also compared to a whale, and has whale teeth,] “...to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons too.” “Merchant service be damned.” “For some of these Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters.  They are fighting Quakers with a vengeance.” “It’s better to sale with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.”

Nothing to do with Melville, but I just finished what is probably Amler's most famous book "A Coffin for Dimitrios".  Ambler's like Graham Greene but without the crushing guilt (or the Catholicism). Loved by both Greene and Alfred Hitchcock, Ambler merits comparisons to both.  Again, nothing to do with Melville, but read this dude!

From  50 Chowders , by Jasper White, in which he unearths New England's oldest-known printed recipe for chowder, from the September 23rd, 1751 edition of the   Boston Evening Post 
Because in Chouder there can be not turning;
Then lay some Pork in slices very thing,
Thus you in Chouder always must begin.
Next lay some Fish cut crossways very nice
Then season well with Pepper, Salt, and Spice;
Parsley, Sweet-Marjoram, Savory, and Thyme,
Then Biscuit next which must be soak'd some Time.
Thus your Foundation laid, you will be able
To raise a Chouder, high as Tower of Babel;
For by repeating o'er the Same again,
You may make a Chouder for a thousand men.
Last a Bottle of Claret, with Water eno; to smother 'em,
You'll have a Mess which some call Omnium gather 'em. Source:  Serious Eats

Some of you have emailed me and indicated your posts/comments are not ‘posting.’  My current best guess at this point is that the blog was initially opened in Europe, and Europe Google and US Google apparently have some issues with each other. In the meantime, feel free to email me your comments and posts if it’s not working for you, and I will post them for you, under your desired username. notberlin@protonmail.com

I’m reading the Penguin English Library edition of Moby Dick.  It basically has a one paragraph outline of his life.  I’ll transcribe it below.  Because, although I knew of a number of his books, some of the details, even in this brief introduction to the man, were rather surprising to me. “Herman Melville (1819-1891) became in his late twenties a highly successful author of exotic novels based on his experiences as a sailor - writing in quick succession Typee, Omoo, Redburn and White-Jacket.   However, his masterpiece Moby Dick  was met with incomprehension, and the other later works which are not the basis of his reputation, such as Bartley the Scrivener  and The Confidence Man , were failures.  Melville stopped writing fiction and the rest of his long life was spent first as a lecturer and then, for nineteen years, as a customs official in New York City.  He was also the author of the immensely long poem Clarel , which was similarly dismissed...

Better to have scaled the side of the ship to gain passage as a stowaway to sail the seven seas than remain on shore waiting to be a king

From first paragraph, Chapter One:  “If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean with me.”  Question?  Does everyone agree with this statement?

A hearty welcome to Moby Dick Across the Globe™! We have only a few suggested guidelines: 1. Have fun! 2. Everyone’s thoughts, questions, comments, suggestions, are considered equally sacred. Contention, alternative views, various interpretations, great. (And of course mostly just positive collaborative inquiry as to what things might mean). But always with respect. 3. We are reading a book, and will be discussing our various interpretations of it. That doesn’t mean our own voyage won’t go off a on tangent now and then, and valuable life experiences in relation to the text are very welcome.   So, we are at the loading dock, some of us know each other, some not at all. Some of us brought a fair amount of luggage, others a shirt and a pair of socks at best. And that, along with a general sort of longing for the expansive unknown (and beauty) is, we might suggest, what brought us here. Onward! Dave (Portland) & Kevin (Prague)