It occurred to me that me that we might persuade some folks to read this book. Post your favorite quotes! I've got a few here:
"When on that shivering winter’s night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights ’gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!
Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?
But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing—straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!"
"Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"
"Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."
Ahab threatening to kill the sun is an important part of why you should NOT dismiss his "madness" as some 19th century description of something that we would have an actual diagnosis for today, Sherlock Holmes would have been described as mad at the time, and he clearly just has some kind of AST. With Ahab I just wonder if people would say "Today we use the term crazy/insane".
I'm very interested in this comment because I basically did not read Ahab as a literal person but rather either representative of a natural force or maybe an aspect of unbridled obsession of the author's mind. I definitely don't think he's mad, but I also don't think he's sane, because he maybe does not perhaps enough depth to read as something more than a manifestation of something else. Admittedly, this is largely informed by the fact his boating crew is composed of actual ghosts who appear only when he must hunt Moby Dick.
Nothing in Moby Dick is entirely representative. If I remember correctly from my days at university reading/discussing Moby Dick, Melville held a particular contempt for people that thought of Moby Dick (the actual whale, not the book) as a metaphor. And it's not that the white whale doesn't represent anything - it absolutely does. The whale, even more than Ahab is representative of a natural force (but no one can match Ahab in representing obsession). But it was important to Melville that this is also an adventure novel, and Moby Dick is also a cool monster. It's possible to go all "death of the author", saying that what Melville thought isn't important and read the whale as entirely representative of nature itself, but I agree with Melville in that this is how you write a cool monster. There must be meaning and representation involved, and there is. There must also be descriptions of a physically imposing and dangerous albino sperm whale, and there are! It's kind of like how Godzilla is representative of the US. It clearly is, but it's ALSO an actual monster driving the story.
Same thing with Ahab. He is representative of certain human characteristics, because that's the reason he should be there as a character. But he is there as a character, and that character is an absolute lunatic. So to simplify things perhaps a bit too much we have Ahab, a character representing obsession. He is still an actual character and what he represents is just his reason for being in the story. We also have Moby Dick, a monstrous albino sperm whale that represents nature or the universe itself of whatever. Still an actual monster and what he represents is his reason for being in the story.
Reading things in Moby Dick as entirely representative of something goes against the author's intention. That isn't a problem by itself, because death of the author and all that, but I happen to agree with the author's intention. Everything has its reason for being in the story, but it's also the story of a glorious madman hunting a truly terrifying monster.
This reply was going to be longer initially, but if I don't go to sleep in like 30 minutes I won't be able to work tomorrow. I cut some stuff, and I worry that now I'll look like an asshole because it looks like I'm saying that "you don't really get Moby Dick". Please trust that I was trying to explain what I personally think and just ran out of time. I'm not an expert.