saranilssonbooks

[saranilssonbooks]

Since my serotonin is in the midst of a deadly duel with pollen. That and possibly a little procrastination.

#moby dick #herman melville #obsession #literature #classic literature #book characters #ishmael #queequeg #whale weekly #my art #for fun #procrastination #shame on me

[saranilssonbooks]

"The glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

#moby dick #herman melville #quote #fridaymelville

[saranilssonbooks]

Random headcanon: most of Ishmael's clothes are purchased second hand.

#moby dick #herman melville #obsession #literature #classic literature #book characters #ishmael #whale weekly

[saranilssonbooks]

To compare Moby Dick and Ahab from the point of the god angle is really interesting and something I haven't run into all that often! In most ways, Ahab and the whale are the same character: overly intelligent, overly aggressive, their unstoppable and unscrupulous persuit of one another's species, and alwas aiming to what will end in death and nothingness. The same goes for the god status; just as Moby Dick is surrounded by such rumors, Ahab is described by Captain Peleg as an "ungodly god-like man", and certainly works hard on presenting himself as exactly that, perhaps most prominently in The Candles during his outrageous sermon to the lightning, and both engages in and is surrounded by mysticism (the prophesy, Fedallah, dabbling in black magic). There is of course also the Biblical name reference. Additionally, it is worth looking at Ishmael struggling to find words worthy of accurately describing Ahab in The Specksnyder ("Oh Ahab, what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!")

The theme of the unknown as the source of fear is a striking one! I dare argue that the response to the unknown is one of the major factors contributing to Ishmael's and Ahab's oh so different fates. Whereas Ishmael faces his fear of the unknown as early as chapter 3 when first meeting Queequeg and accepting that "ignorance is the parent of fear", and subsequently finds healing and happiness in a nurturing relationship, Ahab allows it to fuel his anxiety and paranoia to the point where Ishmael claims "thy thoughts have created a creature in thee", later echoed by Mr. Monomania himself during the dialogue with Starbuck which you mention ("what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is this..."), racing him toward what will become ultimate self destruction.

As you point out, the same is displayed in their respective sentiments regarding the ocean - Ahab holding an extensive monologue on it's horrors in The Sphynx (don't agree with him, but still think it's the most beautiful thing ever produced by humanity and kinda want the full quote tattooed onto my physical being), and Ishmael writing a several hundred pages worth love letter to whales after them having become his great passion in life, blissfully claiming them to be so magnificent they will survive the fall of civilization (Has the Whale's Magnitude Diminished - Will He Perish?).

All right, let this be it for now or I shall likely be banned for harmful babbling.

Someone mentioned in the reblogs of the last post about their preferred interpretation of Moby Dick and after seeing that I had a little personal thought discussion of my own in my brain and like ahahsjsjs it made me so happy

I just love looking at this book in a more serious way than I usually do so thank you to whoever that was :)

And speaking of, I think from now on I’ll give actual (only occasional!) literary commentary on Moby Dick for these Daily Dick posts because I cannot discuss this book with anyone else except the internet so yes. But for the sake of those who only want to see funky whale drawings I will keep them under the post’s cuts!!

Plus if I didn’t the post would be ungodly long.

Today, I tried to draw a bit of the crew but then I remembered I suck at drawing humans so even more extremely and unnecessarily green shaded Moby instead. Didn’t have much time so I just gave that fella the Outlast camcorder filter treatment. Dw, the cameraman is fine. Don’t like how this turned out though :(

I want to draw whale skeletons tomorrow :D

Anyways, delusional whale ranting time. Be warned this is way longer than my last one and will contain spoilers for those who haven’t finished the book!

So the reblog tag I saw went along the lines of interpreting Moby Dick as not a god but to have the reader doubt that fact throughout the book until the end because of the descriptions we get of him and honestly, yes. I absolutely agree on that for the original novel. It gives us dread while reading!!

Although I will say that if we were to add/accept some kind of mysticism to Moby Dick and see him as not only a whale and as something else, he still wouldn’t be a “god”. Yet at the same time he isn’t exactly a whale either. Or at least not a normal one (that much is clearly obvious I suppose). Like if that’s not a god then what is a god? And if that’s not a whale what is it? It’s all vague!!

One of the many messages or themes in Moby Dick is humanity’s constant struggle against the unknown and the uncertain. We all fear the unknown in one way or another whether we realise it or not. Why else do we dread our future? Or what will happen tomorrow? Or what will happen after death? Because we don’t know.

With Moby Dick we understand that he’s described as a massive white whale who is known to wreak havoc among sailors. But aside from that what else do we actually know about Moby? The only information we get about him all come from 3rd party sources (such as that other whaling crew they met at chapter 54) and then through Ishmael as our narrator. Like Ishmael himself has only encountered Moby Dick once. How do we know if the information he got from others is true?

And even if it was true it still doesn’t tell us a lot about Moby Dick. We don’t understand why he attacks ships, was he angry? Was he in pain? Was it his own form of revenge? Or was he genuinely just trying to mind his own business? We don’t understand how he became so intelligent, or whether it really was Moby Dick that they saw in the apparitions of chapter 51 or was it just a squid like we see in a later chapter? If it was Moby why was he following them?

The vagueness of Moby Dick’s position in being either whale or something else makes him haunting. So in my own interpretation I’d say to keep the final verdict completely undecided. He appears, then disappears. As only one of the many horrors of the deep. Moby Dick isn’t a horror book by any means but it is about the ocean, the ocean just so happens to be scary because we haven’t truly discovered everything it has to offer. Who knows what’s down there?

Also, not only the fear or mystery he gives to us as the readers but to the crew in the story as well. Moby Dick took victory from doing what other whales the crew have hunted never do. He was “unpredictable” as described. That wraps back to the beginning where I mentioned humanity’s struggles against the unknown and uncertain. But yet, even when we fear what we don’t know we are constantly challenging it still. We’re intrigued by it. Ishmael does so by wanting to learn more about whales and go off on more voyages despite his experience the first time around, and the pequod crew or most notably Ahab does so by challenging Moby Dick.

Speaking of Ahab, he himself can also be compared to Moby Dick’s unpredictability. He might not be vaguely god-like as Moby is, but there’s definitely something about him. Ishmael even quotes something about a mad man, a man who has let go of all rationality and morality, to be more dangerous than any beast. Why? Because he will become an unpredictable man. A man who will do anything to get what he desires even at the cost of others. Which is exactly what Ahab does. Humans are already dangerous enough when we understand them but when we don’t understand them? Even more dangerous no doubt.

That’s why his crew feared him after all. They didn’t know and nor did they want to know what would happen if they disobeyed him. Even Ahab doesn’t understand himself as he mentioned in the chapter with Starbuck. Why does he do the things he do? For revenge? For glory? For gold? He doesn’t understand except the fact he knows (or feels?) he has to. And it’s tragic.

In conclusion; aside from accepting differences, democracy, and the dangers of unhealthy obsession or copious amounts of whale anatomy, Moby Dick is also about the unknown and the uncertain. There’s a lot of other instances like Starbuck’s hesitation and Fedallah’s entire existence but I don’t want to drag out the rant for too long and obviously I’m not the first person to come up with this.

But what do you think? And thank you to anyone who actually read all my crap frfr 🙏🐟

#moby dick #obsession #herman melville #book characters #ishmael #captain ahab #literature #ahabophile #art #DICK DAILY!! #discussion

[saranilssonbooks]

Funny, these coincidences. 😆

captain ahab 🤝 captain flint

unapproachable terrifying intelligent captains who are viewed as gods of the sea and who bribe their crew with the promise of spanish gold to achieve a years-in-the-making revenge scheme they're utterly obsessed with to the point of madness

#black sails #moby dick

[saranilssonbooks]

Ishmael's fever dream.

#moby dick #herman melville #obsession #literature #classic literature #book characters #ishmael #whales #whale weekly

[saranilssonbooks]

The only weird research project of mine that Dearly Beloved has ever vetoed: giving myself scurvy. Look, I never intended it to go all the way to tooth loss, okay?!

#scurvy #age of sail #historical research #maritime history #aye aye #you win

[saranilssonbooks]

Epic PMS mood swings and weeping over the fact that Captain Ahab didn't get to have a fresh bread roll before boss fight.

#moby dick #herman melville #obsession #literature #classic literature #book characters #captain ahab #pms

[saranilssonbooks]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALBUM!! 🤍🤍🤍

NATIONAL HOLIDAY TODAY BTW

[ID: An edited screenshot of a Tumblr post. The first part reads: "people who celebrate album birthdays are annoying pass it on." The second part reads: "FUCK this post and happy birthday Moby Dick or The Whale by Caleb Hayashida." End ID]

#caleb hayashida #moby dick #moby dick or the whale #music #album recommendation #whale weekly #topmost greatness

[saranilssonbooks]

So you mean you not only had to WORK when you were at work but also perform according to expectations?? Shocking, Elijah, shocking!

For some strange reason this reminds me of that person who still can't get over the time their first boss bawled them out for browsing Facebook instead of stacking those boxes.

#moby dick #herman melville #obsession #literature #classic literature #book characters #whale weekly

[saranilssonbooks]

If the universe presents me with a similar situation, I will proove that I too can totally abstain.

It was only with extraordinary self control that I did not buy these overpriced vintage Moby Dick salt and pepper shakers

#moby dick #need one so bad

[saranilssonbooks]

Got indirectly involved in a polite instance of criticism aimed towards those who choose to read the cetology chapters from Ishmael's point of view rather than switching over directly to that of Melville himself. For me, there are several reasons why I keep to the former, but the main one is that he keeps referring to himself as Ishmael. Good enough?

#moby dick #herman melville #obsession #literature #classic literature #book characters #ishmael #whale weekly

[saranilssonbooks]

One of my absolute favorite trauma studies of Moby-Dick and a theory I am a heartfelt supporter of.

His description of Mapple's actions in the deserted chapel, however, is a subtle sign of the narrative s movement beyond the frame of the character's perception. This movement occurs smoothly, with the focalization remaining on Father Mapple appearing to come to the reader through a narrator located among "all the people" (48), a nonspecific group that assembles for the sermon, then leaves the chapel and takes Ishmael along. Ishmael appears at ease describing both the details he recalls and those he imagines. At this point, prior to his trauma, he is capable of encompassing contradiction and invention without losing a sense of self: as a character, he revises his prejudices, and as a narrator, he interweaves imaginative details and memory without appearing to be troubled by their effect on mimesis.

Irreconcilable Differences: Voice, Trauma, and Melville's "Moby-Dick"

#moby dick #herman melville #trauma study

[saranilssonbooks]

#moby dick #whale weekly #bizarro #herman melville #comics #book characters #ishmael #accurate #love it

[saranilssonbooks]

Since I'm still royally pissed off after having read a magazine article the other week in which a supposed age of sail expert claimed that "due to conflicting reports we cannot say for sure whether romantic relationships between men occured on sail ships". How long did you have to search before you found a source contradicting that they did, oh mighty expert?

#age of sail #maritime history #queer history #sailors #my art #traditional painting #traditional art #ink and watercolor #ink and wash #still learning #always learning #quick painting #mini rant #wtf

[saranilssonbooks]

In life: Underappreciated and left to fade into obscurity with your weird whale book.

In death: A whale so badass it fucked up the megalodon gets named after you.

#herman melville #moby dick #obsession #literature #classic literature #whales

[saranilssonbooks]

A perfect summary!

Moby Dick Chapter 41: Oh, He’s *Crazy*

Narrator Ishmael calling Captain Ahab insane for 20 minutes. Go off, king.

#moby dick #captain ahab