I’ll punch the Sun.

What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do!

[adeptune01]

I’m reading moby dick rn and I’m really enjoying the chapters where Melville takes a moment to call people idiots for not knowing anything about whales then proceeds to “correct” them by being also completely wrong but in an entirely different way

[magnoliamagica-deactivated20260]

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own."

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

[allthatlovesabout]

this melville guy is pretty good.

[gnar-slabdash]

Every once in a while my posts get comments like “Woah people are still posting about a show from 2008??” and I think “Oh just wait until you hear about Moby Dick tumblr”

[saranilssonbooks]

Some whale's simply won't go down.

[hwestil]

I'd felt an absence of Ishmael in the narrative since the chapter about Queequeg's coffin, like he never recovered from that, he tapped out of not just that experience but the whole story, and now I know why---

And I also can't stop thinking about Ishmael joking about sailor's wills and these two in particular leaving each other everything and half of what's mine is yours and Queequeg with his coffin saved him

[khazaddoom]

My fellow whalers I love you

[ashleybenlove]

“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck; “never, never wilt thou capture him, old man—In Jesus’ name no more of this, that’s worse than devil’s madness."

Starbuck has decided its time to throw in the towel.

[heart-stricken-moose]

I don’t know why this part broke me, but this part broke me:

I think that there’s something so stubborn and childlike about it, and in the previous chapter (“the symphony”), Melville describes:

“the step-mother world, so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless.”

And the way Starbuck speaks to him is almost like a young father to a child, not trying to reason with him but to appeal to speak to his best self; the self that retains agency and control over inexplicable desires that are so very human of us, and certainly not foreign to him:

Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck’s—wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!—this instant let me alter the course!

I think it is perhaps the desperate outpouring of emotion that arises precisely because this is the point of no return. This confession is not something they will have to live with, or live down.

A childish and stubborn and truthful train of thought, one I think we’ve all experienced to some extent: I want, I want, I want—without knowing how, or why.

[ava-is-up-to-something]

Some may call it “boring” and “mostly pointless” and “none of these whale facts are even remotely correct,” but I think that Moby Dick actually has perfect pacing for a book about a whaling voyage. When I read it, I feel as though I am Queequeg, and I am out on the open ocean where whole weeks pass between anything happening and my main source of entertainment is listening to my husband Ishmael explain all the questionable whale facts he has tattooed on his body.

[wormmpile]

Yesterday I told my coworker moby dick is my favorite book and they were like ME TOO and high fived me so hard it made my arm tingle for the next 10 minutes

[heart-stricken-moose]

When I was training my coworker she said something along the lines of “what I’ve willed I’ll do” (not knowing I was doing whale weekly) and We Had A Moment.

[carolinawrenn]

Crew of the Pequod. Precious baby boys. You are all hearing "half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s murdered Innocents" that could be mermaids, could be the souls of the newly-drowned. Your shipmate on lookout for the white whale has just plunged to his death from the mast. You've had to replace your life-buoy with a coffin.

RUSH YOUR CRAZY-ASS CAPTAIN, THROWN HIM OVERBOARD, AND TURN THE EVERLOVING BOAT BACK AROUND!!!

[appendingfic]

Ahab staunchly refusing to help a man find his lost child for the sake of his quest is

Like, we know we're close to the end. but it's always a bit startling to get near the end and see the transformation to monster that a man obsessed goes through

[call-me-moby-dick]

[mercury50]

RIP Ishmael, you would've loved Urban Dictionary, Sufjan Stevens, and Heartstopper

RIP Ahab, you would've loved moveable prosthetics, Life360, and anger management classes

RIP Starbuck, you would've loved the DSM-5, HR, and the phrase "shut the fuck up"

RIP Stubb, you would've loved ASMR YouTube channels, brain rot humor, and starting flame wars on Twitter

RIP Flask, you would've loved platform boots, saying "bro it's not that deep", and prepackaged sticks of salted butter

RIP Fedallah, you would've loved the gift of prophecy awarded to people on tumblr, not having a phone, and 2020 COVID lockdown

RIP Queequeg, you would've loved Obergefell vs. Hodges, sweatpants, and having personal beef with the Duolingo owl

RIP Tashtego, you would've loved cotton candy vape, trolling people on the internet, and calling things "white people nonsense"

RIP Daggoo, you would've loved not playing basketball (out of spite), offering "uppies", and work visas

RIP Pip, you would've loved child labor laws, kazoos, and water wings

[loveofdetail]

the other night i realized Melville lived too early to ever learn that whales sing and i haven't been okay since

[what-am-i-outside-my-google-tabs]

Why can't they put their whole pussy in a Moby Dick movie. I want to hear the characters talk and understand nothing of what they say. I want multiple section of Ishmael in a sexy teacher outfit explaining why whales are fish. I need the fucking wedding scene to happen, in bed, as it is supposed to be.

[call-me-moby-dick]

[saranilssonbooks]

I need this to be a real thing. Here. Now.