an incomplete list of things that really happen in Moby Dick, an absolutely wild book that I have just finished after four months
Note: events are in the order that I think of them and not the order in which they occur in the book:
Ishmael goes to an inn and they say âthere are no beds but if you want to share with this cannibal thatâs cool.â Ishmael shares with the cannibal, whose name is Queequeg, and after establishing that he is not going to get eaten, seems to fall madly in love with him.
Quote: âHow it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our heartsâ honeymoon, lay I and Queequegâa cosy, loving pair.â
Quote: âHe pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his countryâs phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be.â
Fellas is it gay to kiss a manâs nose, cuddle in bed with him, compare yourselves to honeymooners, declare love after 24 hours, and then declare youâre married repeatedly throughout the book?
Backing up a bit, itâs apparently taken for granted the Pacific Islanders are cannibals? But Ishmael also does not seem to have a problem with this, and at some point straight up defends cannibalism (at one point going on a âweâre all cannibals because MEAT IS MURDERâ tangent, which is a bit rich for a dude whose day job is killing whales.)
He regularly refers the Polynesian characters as savages, but then will occasionally remind us that he thinks all people are savages, singling out Achilles and, for some reason, German painter Albrecht Durer.
(Occasionally Queequeg will be like âwow Christians are weirdosâ and Ishmael will be like âoh shit⊠heâs right. Why are we such weirdos.â)
At one point while theyâre still on land, Ishmael becomes convinced that Queequeg has killed himself, because heâs locked himself in their room. He gets the landlady tells someone to get a sign made that says âno suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;â because, quote, âmight as well kill both birds at once.â
It turns out that Queequeg has not killed himself, he is just squatting with a statue of his god held over his head and refuses to move a muscle until sundown. This is how Herman Melville thinks Ramadan is practiced.
Sidebar: Melville seemed under the impression that Ramadan was a Polynesian thing?
Ishamel drags capitalism at every opportunity
and if there isnât an opportunity, he makes one
âPaying for things sucks but getting paid is the best even though money is terrible and people who chase money are all going to hellâ
On one of the ships they run into, one of the sailors has declared that he is the Archangel Gabriel, and basically recruited most of the crew into a cult. This is never mentioned again.
Instead, Melville gives us entire chapters on: whale heads, whale tales, why whaling is a noble calling actually, rope, etc.
At one point Ishmael flat-out says that if you donât respect whaling he will fight youÂ
There is an entire chapter about the color white, in which he lists other white things he thinks are scary. They include: great white sharks, polar bears, albatrosses, the Andes mountains, and albinos.
There is also an entire chapter about whale penis. At one point, if I read that chapter correctly, a dude makes the whale penis into a suit? Or possibly climbs into it? Itâs all very euphemistic at that point.
After they kill a whale, they have to do something known as âsqueezing sperm.â (Heâs referring to parts of the sperm whale, not actual sperm,) and how much Ishmael likes squeezing sperm, and how sometimes, when squeezing sperm, he accidentally squeezes the hands of his fellows by accident, because they are also squeezing sperm, and Ishmael really likes that and wishes they could hold hands more.
âWould that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!â - Ishmael, chapter 94.
He admits that sure, maybe over-whaling could lead to fewer whales, but whales are so big and have been here such a long time that there canât be any risk of them ever being endangered: look at Elephants! Elephants are doing fine!
The previous chapter did not age well.
There is a dude named Peleg with very strong @dril vibes who, when accused of being a little off his rocker, declares âsay that again to me, and start my soul-bolts, but IâllâIâllâyes, Iâll swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on.â
At one point Ishmaelâs boat almost gets run over by the ship, and heâs like âis that normal???â and everyone is like âyepâ and Ishmael is like âcool if anyone is looking for me Iâll be writing my willâ and goes and does that. Which is hilarious because he established in the first chapter that he does not own Anything.
Ishmael is so invested in measuring whales that he tattoosâ whales dimensions onto his arm because he doesnât have anywhere else to write it down
Heâs also really offended that pirates are more famous than whalers.
Queequeg gets a fever and has the carpenter build him a coffin, but then he gets better so they turn his coffin into a buoy. This buoy is the reason Ishmael is the only one not to go down with the ship, so in a way, Queequeg did die to save him. Huh.
Captain Ahab decides that what he needs to kill Moby Dick is a Special Harpoon. He has the blacksmith make one. They are still on their wooden ship at this time and, despite over-explaining every other detail, Melville does not seem to clarify how they did this without burning the ship down.
Ahab also decides he needs to temper it in blood, and asks the harpooners if theyâll contribute some, and theyâre like âyeah, whatever, man.â
(The harpooners are all POC who write off all shenanigans as Weird White People Shit, and seem to be the only ones with the braincells.)
The other character with one brain cell is Starbuck, the first mate, who really wants to go home to his wife Mary, and his son, âboy.â I am not convinced he knows his sonâs name.
Ahab makes himself a nest on the mast so he can look for Moby Dick and a bird steals his hat
Some out of context quotes:
âHark! The infernal orgies!â
âLong usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.â
âStubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says heâs queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; heâs queer, says Stubb; heâs queerâ queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the timeâ queerâ sirâ queer, queer, very queer.â
izzy806
prguitarman
baratheonpilled
areudirty
romaincrisis
discoholicmusic
