#moby dick spoilers

[cirrus-grey]

Delighted to see that today, Whale Weekly has made it up to the most memorable chapter of Moby Dick.

[pasdetrois]

one of the many devastating components of moby dick's epilogue is its brevity. this tome of a novel that has discussed every fathomable aspect of the vessel and those it hunts, and it ends with a solitary paragraph in which ishmael quietly reveals his survival only after the drama is done. this seaborn(e), self named orphan (who asks us to call him such from the first line!), not yet able to weave the epitaphs that will cut the tapestry loose from the loom..

[graveyardrabbit]

bumper sticker that says “my other ride was the Pequod”

[colemckenzies]

um. the bit in moby dick where ishmael is elbow deep in sperm and looking at the other sailors with love and tenderness in his eyes and holding hands with them. in the sperm.

[jadedanddark]

Ishmael is completely unhinged but at least when ranting about Whale Facts he does cite his sources.*

*his own arm, where he tattooed a bunch of whale stats because he didn't have any paper handy** while he was measuring the whale

**he also didn't have any measuring tools but sometimes all you have is a thing of ink and a needle okay don't judge

[umarthiels]

...

[tomboy014]

Man, I haven't read Moby Dick in ages. It's not something I read over and over again like Dracula or Frankenstein, but it definitely left an impact.

I read the first entry in Whale Weekly and so many memories are flooding back. Not the big dramatic events, but the little moments. The human moments, resting cold noses on knees tucked up to your chest, enjoying hot bowls of clam and cod chowder, missing fingers and toes from work injuries...

...and an essay on what the different parts of the whale are used for?

Yeah, there's a fair amount of educational essays in here

[saltavenegar]

thinking so strongly abt queeshmael

[heart-stricken-moose]

!!!

At first I thought, “this is alarming but don’t panic. The book can’t end here—I know because I can see it! There are definitely more pages! Lots more pages — and they can’t all be about random fish whale facts!”

But then as I was thinking about it… well… we’ve just had that narrative shift a few chapters back. Ishmael is no longer our sole interlocutor, and hasn’t been for some time. So perhaps I wasn’t as safe in the narrative as I initially thought.

[dearest--gertrude]

I am so ahead of whale weekly and I don’t want to post spoilers but it is literally impossible because all I could say is Ishmael infodumps about whales and how sexy Queequeg is, and Ahab is weird and portentous. Also Mr. Starbuck remains the only sane crewmember, MVP, my fave.

[cirrus-grey]

I know it's kind of the point, the passions of man versus the indifferent cruelty of nature, but it is amazing to me how much the Whale in Moby Dick just does not give a fuck.

The whole book sets it up as this malicious, intelligent demon that has it out for humans and wants to kill them all, and then when the Pequod finally catches up to it it's just... puttering along, enjoying the weather, having a grand old time. Even after they attack it and it destroys one of the boats it just kind of sits in the water nearby swatting at debris with its tail and ignoring them. Even at the end, the final destruction of the ship and deaths of all the crew, it kind of just has this attitude of like. Hey. You. I thought I told you to fuck off. Like -

Ahab: From Hell's heart I stab at thee!

The Whale: Oh, not you again. 🙄

[bread-into-toast]

Reading ahead in moby dick (Ch119) and like. Ahab is really my emotional support queer scrungly meow meow old man

ID: screenshot of Chapter 119 of moby dick on the website power moby dick, with the line “while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights” highlighted:

"No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee."

[queen-of-spoilers-zvonchy]

"And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for".

[explorersaremadeofhope]

the gilf density per capita on the pequod is unsustainable btw

[milfannihilator]

I read Moby dick like 2 years ago and don't remember it sharply, but no matter which way you spin it, it's gay.

You're sleeping in the same bed?

He drapes his arms around you lovingly and affectionately?

You're a cozy loving pair?

You were saved metaphorically by his coffin floating from the wreckage in a final act of love?

[prokopetz]

I was thinking about that post arguing that Moby-Dick is one of the principal forerunners of the cosmic horror literature of the early 20th Century again, and it just occurred to me that both of the major scenes in the book where Captain Ahab performs arguably supernatural feats, the forging of the lodestone and holding lightning in his hand, specifically involve electricity and magnetism – which is also a recurring motif for inhuman characters in early literary cosmic horror.

There's probably an essay lurking in that, if I had the time or the energy to chase it down.