#FridayMelville

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Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters. - Herman Melville

[lilyhana]

Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-labourers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally, as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill humour or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

I was never sure if Herman Melville was being naughty in this Chapter 94: A Squeeze of the Hand or winking his eye at all of us, or if this was his homo-eroticism being blatantly out there. My high school honors teacher never went into this. I bought a new recommended edition and the intro really gets into this. I think I need to reread Moby-Dick as an adult in 2022.

And what about the chapter about a whale’s penis? Did we just skip over all this in class? Chapter 95 “The Cassock” is just a page long but it’s all about the big penis of a sperm whale. They killed a whale in a previous chapter and now Melville details the size, shape and removal of the whale’s “grandissimus” and its dissection.

And why “The Cassock?” which is the name for a clergyman’s robe? When the penis is being stripped apart, thesailor called the “mincer” of the whale removes its dick skin whole, cuts himself a couple of arm holes and wears the giant penis skin like a priest’s robe, or a cassock.

[ronk]

and his name wasn't really Ishmael

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“He was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.”

Ishmael on Queequeg, Moby-Dick

No, we're just friends and shipmates. #fridaymelville

[ronk]

I set sail too on Christmas, but on a book rather than a ship. It will still be a rough voyage.

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“It’s not down on any map; true places never are.”

Melville/Ishmael says this in Chapter 12 about Queequeg’ home which is the fictional island of Kokovoko (also known as Rokovoko), an “island far away to the West and South,” or more specifically in the South Pacific Ocean.

[ronk]

“Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and no more.”

Melville, Moby-Dick

⚰️

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"Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head." ~ good ol' Mr. Melville in the book about the whale

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Reading Moby Dick. Again.

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“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”

― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Happy November.

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To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee—

Captain Ahab, Moby-Dick

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But Faith, like a jackal,feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Moby-Dick, The Chapel

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"Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air."          -- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

[ronk]

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. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville