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doug_snyder 's review for:
Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale
by Herman Melville
there are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
[]
like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. no mercy, no power but its own controls it. panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.
consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? for as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. god keep thee! push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
[]
let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; i look deep down and do believe.
[]
(okay unrelated to lines i loved, stubb swiftly became my favorite character, maybe of any book. so i'm just gonna put some stubb stuff here for me to remember and guffaw at)
~ "who's got some paregoric?" said stubb, "he has the stomach-ache, I'm afraid. lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! adverse winds are holding mad christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before? it must be, he's lost his tiller."
as an overladen Indiaman bearing down the hindostan coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. whether he had lost that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say. (this bit made me laugh so hard i felt nauseous)
~ think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.
~ book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. you’ll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.
[]
like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. no mercy, no power but its own controls it. panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.
consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? for as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. god keep thee! push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
[]
let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; i look deep down and do believe.
[]
(okay unrelated to lines i loved, stubb swiftly became my favorite character, maybe of any book. so i'm just gonna put some stubb stuff here for me to remember and guffaw at)
~ "who's got some paregoric?" said stubb, "he has the stomach-ache, I'm afraid. lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! adverse winds are holding mad christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before? it must be, he's lost his tiller."
as an overladen Indiaman bearing down the hindostan coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. whether he had lost that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say. (this bit made me laugh so hard i felt nauseous)
~ think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.
~ book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. you’ll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.