#tumblr reads Moby dick

[saltavenegar]

Thanks God

[funkyspacepirate]

still upset Whale Weekly is not called Daily Dick

[estathom]

There is magic in water

The Flow of the River Loren Eiseley // Moby Dick Herman Melville // Welcome to the Monkey House Kurt Vonnegut Jr. // Moby Dick Herman Melville // Ode to Mom Hannah Georgas

[jessequinones]

Tumblr, we need to talk...

I don’t know how accurate this list is. Nor do I know where they got their information from, but according to the blog Fandom, which does the year in review for Tumblr.

I found which books have been trending for this year and I got a few questions.

Who is reading Dracula? Why is it the number five most talked about book? Not only that but Frankenstein, The Iliad, Odyssey, Moby Dick, Romeo and Juliet? Who are reading these in 2023?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these stories are bad or but they’re very old. Was there no new books that came out of 2023? What am I missing?

[nostalgia-tblr]

The immense satisfaction that comes from saying "wait, how old is this book?" when Amazon tries to sell me a very old-fashioned-looking work for 'just £1.99' and then finding it on Project Gutenberg for free instead.

[intj-greenwords]

Firstly, Ishmael and Aunt Charity, I know it was everyday for you, but I CAN’T comprehend the magnitude of packing for a three year whaling voyage! For a whole crew! How big were these boats? And also, they would have to leave capacity for what they were bringing back – three years’ worth of whales. I can’t imagine that three years’ worth of whale haul will all fit IN the boat! Do they tow the bodies behind? How did they stay fresh and usable for three years? Did they process them “on the go”? I can understand they might do that with the oils. But what about the meat? Did they eat whale meat as part of their supplies? SO many questions.

So I started looking and discovered…

Many months of the voyage were taken in getting to the whaling grounds; and the same many months to get back home. It wasn’t all spent in whaling.

The whales were processed on board and the products were stored in the ship’s hold (see picture below).

The primary products were sperm oil, spermaceti, whale oil and whalebone and occasionally ambergris if any were discovered.

Sperm oil (from sperm whale blubber) retains its lubricating qualities in extreme temperatures, making it ideal for light, rapid machinery. It also burns very clearly without smoke or odour. Also made high quality soap.

Spermacetti (from the head of the sperm whale) is liquid wax. Because of its exceptional quality, this was the most valuable product from the whale.

Whale oil (from right, bowhead and humback whales) was of lesser quality but still better returns from a trip than nothing.

Baleen (whale ‘teeth’) is made of keratin, and used for buggy whips, carriage springs, corset stays, fishing poles, hoops for women’s skirts and umbrella ribs.

Ambergris is a wax-like susbstance, rarely found. It is now generally conceded that ambergris is generated in a diseased animal, caused possibly by a biliary irritation, and is mostly found in whales of a sickly appearance and sometimes greatly emaciated.

American whalers felt the gamey flavor and tough texture classified whale meat as improper for consumption. However, they occasionally, grudgingly ate it.

I haven’t been able to find out how many whales might have been taken in a, say, 3-year voyage. (More research needs to be done.)

Source: the internet

The New Bedford Whaling Museum site was particularly interesting https://www.whalingmuseum.org/

[aroacehanzawa]

packing up my bindle and trudging back to the classic lit fandom 💔

[pitske]

long fucking rant about the joy of reading a good book. (not at all accurate title)

I just finished reading Felidae! incredible book I really love the story and- okay bear with me. I got the book a few years back because my mom mentioned reading it when she was younger. I told her I'd want to read it as well and she went through the painstaking process of finding it (which was not easy because the Author is a right fucking prick so his books aren't really sold anymore.)

so we found it on ebay eventually.( god knows I am not givin that author my money) I left it alone for a few years, had other shit to read and actually did not read much at all during that time...

right fast forward I decide I should read it because one of my terrible habits is starting thousands of things at once and never really finishing any of em. SO AND THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING! I read the first 3 pages or so n talked to my mom and brother about it shortly, saying I liked the way it was written, the characters, the exposition, etc etc- AND at the mention of the plot my brother goes "oh! I've heard of that! it's the book that some german studio made into that horrifying animated movie adaptation!" AND IT ALL CAME CRASHING DOWN

because I remember what he meant because you KNOW tiny me with unrestricted internet access had seen some clips of the gory , disturbing cat-movie before! and you know what? I was unfortunate (or maybe fortunate , seeing how I'm a massive horror fan now) enough to watch "Watership down" as a kid so when I saw Felidae being ranked even HIGHER than that movie in those "ooh horrofying disturbing kids movieees ooh" lists, I swore I'd never watch it..

and here we are, I read that boook so fast and it is actually incredibly entertaining (i also just have never read a "krimi" before so I definitely have a high appreciation for the genre now)

I am incredibly excited to watch the movie. JUST AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH a 2D animated thriller-detective cat movie with horrorfying scenes and absurd amounts of gore??? COUNT ME IN TL:DR : I realize that reading is fun if you actually have a good book to read and obsess over the story of a cat solving a series of cat murders

[queenlucythevaliant]

On one side of the gallery above stood the men sentenced to penal servitude in Siberia, who had been let into the church before the others. Each of them had half his head shaved, and their presence was indicated by the clanking of the chains on their feet. On the other side of the gallery stood those in preliminary confinement, without chains, their heads not shaved.

The prison church had been rebuilt and ornamented by a rich merchant, who spent several tens of thousands of roubles on it, and it glittered with gay colours and gold. For a time there was silence in the church, and only coughing, blowing of noses, the crying of babies, and now and then the rattling of chains, was heard. [...]

The priest, having dressed in a strange and very inconvenient garb, made of gold cloth, cut and arranged little bits of bread on a saucer, and then put them into a cup with wine, repeating at the same time different names and prayers. Meanwhile the deacon first read Slavonic prayers, difficult to understand in themselves, and rendered still more incomprehensible by being read very fast, and then sang them turn and turn about with the convicts. The contents of the prayers were chiefly the desire for the welfare of the Emperor and his family. These petitions were repeated many times, separately and together with other prayers, the people kneeling. Besides this, several verses from the Acts of the Apostles were read by the deacon in a peculiarly strained voice, which made it impossible to understand what he read [...]

No one present seemed conscious that all that was going on here was the greatest blasphemy and a supreme mockery of that same Christ in whose name it was being done. No one seemed to realise that the gilt cross with the enamel medallions at the ends, which the priest held out to the people to be kissed, was nothing but the emblem of that gallows on which Christ had been executed for denouncing just what was going on here. That these priests, who imagined they were eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine, did in reality eat and drink His flesh and His blood, but not as wine and bits of bread, but by ensnaring “these little ones” with whom He identified Himself, by depriving them of the greatest blessings and submitting them to most cruel torments, and by hiding from men the tidings of great joy which He had brought. That thought did not enter into the mind of any one present.

From Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

[azsnowmann]

Has this been done already?

[beu-ytr]

Resenha de "Moby Dick" de Herman Melville

*sem spoilers, editado

Moby Dick é um clássico muito bem conhecido popularmente e eu tenho certeza de que você, leitor, deve conhecer pelo menos vagamente o enredo dessa obra

Eu já conhecia bem até demais, porque meu pai costumava me contar essa história pra eu dormir, nós viamos os filmes juntos e eu pesquisava que nem louca querendo saber tudo sobre essa história

isso tudo quando eu era muito pirralinha, eu sempre fiquei muito fascinada com essa história por algum motivo kkkk eu não era uma criança que batia muito bem das ideias

Mas de qualquer forma Moby Dick fez parte da minha infância, e eu guardo as memórias relacionadas a esse clássico bem juntinho do meu coração

E foi por esse motivo que eu decidi ler a versão original do clássico e reviver umas nostalgias, porém entretanto todavia eu acho que eu elevei um pouquinho demais minhas expectativas

Eu fui muito é besta de achar que eu ia amar essa livro de 900 e poucas páginas e origens questionáveis

Sim, questionáveis, esse livro tem uma pitada de tudo: racismo, misoginia, maltrato aos animais (meio óbvio), e uma escrita lenta e maçante que te faz querer morrer só pra não precisar passar por uma tortura daquelas

Foi uma tortura, de fato. E eu fiquei muito triste por ter odiado porque esperava tanto de uma história que eu amo tanto e que eu tinha tanta expectativa

Mas eu não vou largar tão fácil assim, eu vou dar um jeito de conseguir outra edição de Moby Dick porque às vezes a culpa nem é do livro em si mesmo e sim da editora que dificulta as coisas

Quando eu for ler de novo não vou inventar de pegar versão clássica original, eu vou pegar uma modificada mesmo porque ninguém é de ferro e eu não sou obrigada a aguentar uma história chata pra mulesta do cachorro doido só pra ser cult

Obrigada pela atenção, e até a próxima :)

[saltavenegar]

Found a gem from years ago

[funkyspacepirate]

there's a whale in my mail

[estathom]

I’ve fallen so fucking far behind on Whale Weekly. Omfg, I NEED to catch up.

[italofobia]

just remembered about a children's book i read in elementary school iirc it was called "l'arcobalena" which roughly translates to "the rainbowhale" and it literally had the same plot as the rainbow fish. except that in the end the raimbowhale gets with moby dick

[opalescentegg]

honestly so sad that on this our beloved hellsite people go on and on about the whole bee movie being in one gif but no one ever mentions the clickhole article “the time I spent on a commercial whaling ship totally changed my perspective of the world” that had the unabridged entirety of moby dick as its text (complete with pull quotes).