I mean he's supposedly fairly young and yet he has such a marvelously deep knowledge of seemingly everything in life. I'm not saying this is a flaw, in fact I like it because it adds mystery. I know this is because Melville was an incredibly studious writer and worked his damnedest to write a great novel but character wise it makes Ishmael (if that's in fact his real name) endlessly fascinating.

bulkington

Chapters:

• CHAPTER 127. The Deck.
• CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.
• CHAPTER 129. The Cabin.

Summary:

Ahab addresses the carpenter, trolling him a bit for being “unprincipled” in the sense that he has many roles on the ship: a woodworker, a leg maker, an undertaker, and so on. Ahab, as is often the case, talks past the confused carpenter and walks away, ordering him to finish the buoy before he returns. Ahab goes into his cabin to talk more with Pip.

The next day, the Pequod meets the Rachel, a whaling ship with all of its crew up in the masts as lookouts – a bad omen, says the Manxman. Ahab asks if they’ve seen the white whale and the captain replies that he has, yesterday. The ships meet and Ahab jumps on deck, realizing that he and the captain know each other from Nantucket. The captain tells the story of their disastrous encounter with Moby Dick which led to one of their whale boats going missing, including his 12-year-old son. He pleads with Ahab to help scour the area to find the boat. Ahab refuses, adding “may I forgive myself, but I must go.” The Pequod continues its hunt for Moby Dick.

In the cabin, Ahab talks to Pip, preparing him for the encounter with Moby Dick and telling him not to follow him to the deck. As Ahab leaves, Pip talks to himself in third person asking no one – perhaps visions – if they’ve seen the coward Pip, but promises to stay put “though this stern strikes rocks; and they bulge through; and oysters come to join me.”

Questions:

• What does Ahab really mean to say in his conversation with the carpenter? What does it matter that he’s ‘unprincipled’?
• What does Ahab think of the coffin-buoy?
• Is there any meaning to Ahab’s slight remorse for not helping the Rachel?
• Why is the crew so distrustful of the Rachel and its captain?
• What do you make of Pip and his ramblings?
• Why does Ahab have such a fondness for Pip? Why does he want to protect him?
• (ONGOING) Choose one of the references or allusions made in this week’s chapters to look up and post some more information about it

Upcoming:

• December 2 - December 8: Chapters 130-132
• December 9 - December 15: Chapters 133-134
• December 16 - December 22: Chapters 135-Epilogue

In O Captain! My Captain!, Whitman seems to be quoting this passage from Moby Dick from chapter 132 of Melville's master piece:

“Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck’s—wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!—this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.”

What do others think?

I recently stumbled upon a great website which has scans of some of the books he owned with his markings and marginalia:

https://melvillesmarginalia.org/Browser.aspx.

It would be great to purchase a physical copy of some of these, especially the Bible and Mosses from an Old Manse which he wrote in.

I’m so excited to start this highly esteemed American classic!

I read somewhere that during one of Melville's letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne, he claimed that he wanted to spend an eternity with him in a field of flowers. Does anyone have a source for this? Thanks.

Chapters:

• CHAPTER 124. The Needle.
• CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.
• CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.

Summary:

The next morning, Ahab finds that the electrical energy of the storm turned around the needles of the ship’s compass; the Pequod is going west instead of east along the equator. He calls the crew to stand around him as he takes one of the needles used for sewing the sails and hammers it repeatedly with a hammer, giving it a charge. When he puts it in the binnacle, it points true (based on the position of the sun).

Ahab instructs two members of the crew to drop the long-unused log and line into the water to give them a measure of the ship’s speed. The Manxman tells him the line is “spoiled” from the heat and wet, but Ahab orders him to drop it anyway – the line quickly snaps. He orders a new one be made and has a “conversation” with Pip, who has clearly lost his mind. Ahab feels sorry for him, and takes him to stay in his own cabin, saying: “I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor’s!”

The Pequod heads southeast, crossing the equator toward the cruising grounds. One night, sailors on the nightwatch hear a “wild and unearthly” wailing, believing them to be mermaids or possibly “voices of newly drowned men in the sea.” Ahab laughs it off as nothing but the noise of young seals, though the crew considers it a bad omen nonetheless. That morning, an unnamed member of the crew falls from a masthead and drowns when the life-buoy thrown after him sinks just as quickly. The Pequod is left without any buoys, but Queequeg offers his coffin to be sealed up as a makeshift buoy, which the carpenter does with some reservation.

Questions:

• What’s the meaning of all of the Pequod’s navigational instruments either being destroyed, breaking, or rotting?
• What does it show to the crew that Ahab breaks and mends the tools at his will?
• What is Ahab’s relationship with Pip? Why is he so interested in him?
• Melville lays on the bad omens/foreshadowing pretty thick. Does he go perhaps past the point of superstition to imply that ‘something’ really is pushing them away from Moby Dick?
• (ONGOING) Choose one of the references or allusions made in this week’s chapters to look up and post some more information about it

Upcoming:

• November 25 - December 1: Chapters 127-129
• December 2 - December 8: Chapters 130-132
• December 9 - December 15: Chapters 133-134
• December 16 - December 22: Chapters 135-Epilogue

I’m a first time reader of Moby Dick and wanted to stop by this subreddit to say that, this is without a doubt the best prose in a novel I’ve ever read. I’ve only just begun but I can’t get over how amazing it is already only 10% through. I’m beginning to see why this is so highly regarded, he’ll be hilarious one paragraph and then slap you in the face with the most beautiful description of death in a poetic way that you’ve never thought of yourself.

Anybody have this copy? Bantam mass-market paperback from the 80s. All the editions with the gnarly whaling paintings on the covers are cool and all, but I this hits harder imo. So ominous.

Chapters:

• CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks.
• CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.
• CHAPTER 123. The Musket.

Summary:

As Stubb and Flask work, they argue about the danger Ahab put the ship in Chapter 119: The Candles when he threw away the lightning rods. Stubb believes it poses no real risk and doesn’t take Ahab’s histrionics seriously. That said, he notes that their (presumed) instructions to lash the anchors tightly might put them in a bind. Ominously, a heavy wind hits and his hat goes flying overboard.

Tashtego, aloft in the top-sail-yards, works quickly as he hears thunder claps all around him.

The Pequod continues through the storm, now heading east-southeast toward their final destination. When they finally hit fair winds, the crew starts cheering and Starbuck goes to report the change to Ahab in his cabin. Starbuck finds Ahab asleep, and notices the loaded musket hanging on the wall. He picks it up and briefly considers murdering him in order to save the crew, noting that not long before Ahab had threatened to kill him with the same musket. Ultimately, he can’t bring himself to commit murder and replaces the gun, returning to the deck.

Questions:

• Stubb and Flask have been arguing about Ahab since the early days of the voyage. What other pairs do they remind you of? What purpose have they’ve served in the book?
• What’s Stubb’s deal? Is he willfully blind, truly carefree, or just dumb?
• asd
• (ONGOING) Choose one of the references or allusions made in this week’s chapters to look up and post some more information about it

Upcoming:

• November 18 - November 24: Chapters 124-126
• November 25 - December 1: Chapters 127-129
• December 2 - December 8: Chapters 130-132
• December 9 - December 15: Chapters 133-134

I am stunned.

To be honest, I was kind of fed up with the book.

I read it in English which is not my native language. So all of Ishamel/Melville's ramblings on whaling were getting kind of annoying. The peak of it was the "The Doubloom" chapter, which I have to re-read in some months/years to get all of it symbolism.

But this end... this three day pursuit for the Whale... all of its reflections on fate and how we pursue it... It made it all worth it.

It's definitely sticking into my mind. A second read in Portuguese will definitely happen in a few years!

Hi all, I’m a first-time reader, just meeting Ahab. Ishmael writes that “as I leveled my glance toward the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.”

I’m really drawn to the phrasing here, but having trouble with it, as, it seems to me, apprehension in this case outran reality - he apprehended the looming force of Ahab before he recognized Ahab’s physical reality before him.

Or does Melville mean to say the reality of Ahab’s forcefulness hit Ishmael before he fully apprehended its source? Or does “outran” in this usage mean something more like surpassed/transcended, ie, the massiveness of this figure is too great for Ishmael to fully apprehend?

Fighting off the urge to doom-scroll this long 2024 Election Night with finally, instead, finishing Chapter 8. No matter who wins the Presidency, it’s onto Chapter 9 tomorrow.

Chapters:

• CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.
• CHAPTER 119. The Candles.
• CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.

Summary:

Ahab takes daily measurements of their location using the quadrant, until one day he becomes frustrated that it can only tell him where he is, not where he can find Moby Dick or anything about the future. He throws it to the deck, smashing it, and resolves to navigate only using the ship’s compass and dead reckoning. Starbuck and Stubb look on and give their thoughts as to the futility of Ahab’s quest, though Stubb seems to find some admiration in it.

As the ship enters the Japanese seas, it encounters a typhoon which rips apart its sails. Starbuck interprets the bad weather as an omen, believing it’s a sign to turn around and ride the winds to safety. Suddenly, Starbuck notices “corpusants,” also known as St. Elmo’s Fire, at the top of each of the three masts like candles. The crew stops their work, enchanted and frightened. Fedallah kneels before Ahab as he addresses the crew, telling them that the flame “lights the way to the White Whale.” Ahab then addresses the fire directly, both challenging its elemental power and asserting their shared genealogy. Starbuck notices that Ahab’s boat has been stove by the waves and tells him that “God is against thee, old man” and begs him to turn around. The crew panics and start murmuring about mutiny, but Ahab waves a burning harpoon at them and reminds them of their oaths. They run from him in terror.

After the storm, Starbuck tells Ahab that they need to stop to repair some sails. Ahab refuses and tells him they’re to stop for nothing.

Questions:

• What is Melville saying about technology in The Quadrant?
• How does a quadrant work, or dead reckoning?
• What are your initial thoughts on Ahab’s speech in The Candles? Now, do a bit of research and share some takeaways after reading (and rereading)
• (ONGOING) Choose one of the references or allusions made in this week’s chapters to look up and post some more information about it

Upcoming:

• November 11 - November 17: Chapters 121-123
• November 18 - November 24: Chapters 124-126
• November 25 - December 1: Chapters 127-129
• December 2 - December 8: Chapters 130-132

Can't decide if I just need to start tipping people's hats off or go to sea for a while.