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Ishamel and Queequeg - their intimacy - today the entire focus would be on whether they were gay - in the novel it's just companionship
Ishmael has no idea what he's getting into
Ishmael - is he always the narrator, or is it occasionally a 3d person omniscient - Ishmael seems to fade away as novel proceeds
The novel is more like a giant magazine
Fedallah - he and the others are called yellow - stereotypical - why did ahab need to hide them? he needs to have his own men who can go down with him into the fourth boat - the captain is not supposed to go down in the 4th boat, and if Peleg and Bildad had known about Fedallah and the others, they would have realized that Ahab was more interested in Moby Dick than in making money
in the Turner painting - what do the white and the dark mean? Is the white sail safe or dangerous? The mist is also white and it is dangerous
I liked Ishmael's philosophy about religion - he is open
I thought I would like reading this novel- the basic story is really good, I am skimming the biology, the other stuff - now I think I must have read excerpts in high school, and it left a positive impression on me -now it's different
movie will be like the readers digest condensed version
my brother and his buddies think it's an ode or a paean to homosexuality
There's not a lot of dialogue
For me the fun is in the details - I like history, I love the descriptions,the footnotes (reading a different edition)
It's archaeology, marine biology, all in one
I love the words in here that you don't hear much, such as ineffable
the Extracts (at the beginning): 'this story is bigger than the story'
Is the whaling industry like the Pony Express? it's a place where a man can be a man and it's dying out - railroads are replacing canals, kerosene is replacing sperm oil
"cetology" chapter - disappointing for me
Melville didn't have that much formal education - it's amazing that he produced this
Chapter 2 - Ishmael peeks into the black church, and backs out quickly; Melville is presenting an exotic, melting pot town
Chapter 42 - even though we want to use whiteness to point to virtue, we're afraid of it - it makes me think of HP Lovecraft, the terror of the chaotic miasma
Or, maybe he's trying to say that color doesn't really mean anything - he says yellow is the color of the sun and cowardice - maybe it means nothing
No sympathetic portrayal of the whale - very different from today
Ahab - what was he like before his encounter with Moby Dick? Was he better? Did this bring out the worst in him? - he is a 'swearing good man' - "it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one" - Ishmael says he never saw Ahab on his knees (does that mean he is irreligious?)
Ahab passes the goblet of whiskey and they all drink - is this like communion?
What about the scar on Ahab's face? - a long white streak down the side of his face - is it in fact a scar or a birthmark?
What does Melville feel for Ahab? -in general, he describes characters as being interesting rather than good or bad
It is hard to get a read on Melville -what is he really thinking
Has great skill in this slow build of tension, adding layers and layers - the world gets bigger, more complex as you go - the fact that Ishmael sees Fedallah and the others before boarding the ship, many pages before we see them again - lots of layering and anticipation
'monomaniacal' and 'phantom' are words that appear frequently - is the universe a phantom-like - thing?
Everyone is confined by a rope - we're all holding on to it - is this a statement about free will? - end of chapter 60
Melville is mythologizing the whaling industry as it fades away
Why does Ahab keep Fedallah and company hidden so long? is there something especially nefarious about them?
It says Ahab is an Egyptian - is that literal, or does it mean he's pharaoh-like?
Queequeg's mark is the infinity symbol - that means something, but what? does Queequeg have connections to the infinite?
Melville says the novel is a draft of a draft
Everyone is struggling with themselves and others in the whole book
Reading this book is like the white whale
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