Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those repeated whaling disasters—some few of which are casually chronicled—of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you […]
The comment and the conquistador
Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, […]
Snubbed and Bingo #3!
cbr10bingo Snubbed Christophe Chaboute’s graphic novel adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick was nominated for a 2018 Eisner Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium. It lost to Damien Duffy and John Jennings’ adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. I’ve never had a great desire to conquer Moby Dick. It was never assigned in any of my high school or university literature classes, and frankly, the story of a crazy old sea captain trying to exact revenge on a white whale sounded weird. And then there’s […]
The implacable horror of isolation
There are books that speak to you. Books that reach down into the core of your inner being to play the delicate chords of your heart strings. Books that stay with you, becoming a passenger for life, indelibly connecting you to a particular place and time, like some kind of existential anchor of permanence in a sea of change. Moby Dick is one such book, for me. That book haunts me. It’s the girl I had a crush on in high school but was too afraid […]