Moby Dick Book Club? January through March 2023

[Hristo Botev]

I'm going to be (re)reading Moby Dick from January through March with another book club, and prompted by this: viewtopic.php?t=12593, if anyone here is looking for an excuse to read or re-read the book and would like a group with which to share thoughts on the reading, or just a place to dump those thoughts in written form as you try and work out the book, join me here.

FWIW, here's the schedule I will be following: (by Jan 8th: Ch. 1-42), (by Feb 12th: Ch. 43-86), (by Mar 12th: Ch. 87-Epilogue).

[Divandan]

Count me in as it was going to be on my reading list!

[Mister Imperceptible]

Given recent events, how about The Confidence Man?

https://archive.org/details/confidencemanhis00melvrich

[Henry]

My first thought was I'm in. Then I saw the timeline and said no way. However, average reading time guidance is 6-8 hrs so it's doable. I will try.

[Hristo Botev]

When available I like to read along with an audiobook, helps keep me plugging along. For moby dick im reading along with the librivox podcast: https://overcast.fm/+BQZLGcEZ4

[chenda]

When I was a child I saw a play of Moby Dick. It was weird and awful. The only scene I remember was some guy going mad and waving about a bath toy (possible of a whale) in a miniature bathtub. I don't know if this actually happened in the book or if it was all some post-modern conceptual 90s take on it all. I've disliked theatre ever since. I'm sure the book is better.

[Hristo Botev]

I don't know if this actually happened in the book or if it was all some post-modern conceptual 90s take on it all.

Here’s your opportunity to find out!!!

[chenda]

Here’s your opportunity to find out!!!

haha you got me there, ok I'm in as I think I have a copy somewhere for some reason.

[Henry]

The only scene I remember was some guy going mad and waving about a bath toy (possible of a whale) in a miniature bathtub.

I think for a group study to work, there has to be rules about the disclosure of significant plot points before the specified discussion dates.

[Hristo Botev]

I think for a group study to work, there has to be rules about the disclosure of significant plot points before the specified discussion dates.

Good point; we are not allowed to talk about the bath toy until after March 12.

[Henry]

Just to clarify, I am not saying that we shouldn't begin discussing the great theme of the book - man's eternal quest to kill his inner child - from the onset of the study.

[chenda]

Duly noted.

This genuinely might be the first serious fiction book I've read since Lord of the Flies at school. If that counts as serious fiction. I found it more interminable than the aforementioned play but our school considered it as providing important life lessons in morality.

[Henry]

Call me Ishmael. Got my musty dusty library copy.

[candide]

... I'm in.

Wife and I went to Barnes and Noble two days ago and I couldn't find a copy with margins I liked. Today, I went to a used bookstore -- only one in this pathetic excuse for a university town -- and got one which is actually laid out in a way that will be useful.

If I get to the end and there isn't a post-modern bathtub scene, I am going to be quite disappointed.

[Henry]

I'm already thinking of bailing.

https://www.amazon.com/Moby-Duck-Beachc ... 0143120506

[Hristo Botev]

Feel free to completely ignore, these are just my own rough notes.

Chapter 1 - Loomings: Ishmael (Biblical outcast) goes to sea when he is feeling melancholy; everyone is drawn to the sea; I goes as a sailor, as is his preference; the Fates have decided to send him on a whaling voyage

Chapter 2 - The Carpet-Bag: I prefers to sail from Nantucket, not New Bedford; he chooses a place to stay in NB, owned by Peter "Coffin," and it is cold

Chapter 3 - The Spouter-Inn: I describes the inn and its bartender, nicknamed "Jonah"; I learns he must share a bed and eats dinner; I describes "Bulkington," w/whom he will sail, back from Figi; I considers sleeping on a bench rather than share a bed; I learns that his bed-mate, a harpooner, is off trying to sell "his heads"; I meets his bedmate, Queequeg, a cannibal

Chapter 4 - The Counterpane: I wakes with Q's arm around him and he describes Q's morning routine

Chapter 5 - Breakfast: I describes b'fast at the inn and how genteelly otherwise wild whalemen behave at table

Chapter 6 - The Street: I describes New Bedford, it's queer inhabitants, wealth from the whale industry, and it's pretty women

Chapter 7 - The Chapel: I goes to church; discussion of the effect on a sailor's widow of not having a gravesite to visit

Chapter 8 - The Pulpit: I describes Father Mapple and the curious pulpit

Chapter 9 - The Sermon: Fr. Mapple preaches about Jonah, naturally enough

Chapter 10 - A Bosom Friend: I and Q become bosom friends; I turns idolater reasoning it be the will of God

Chapter 11 - Nightgown: I and Q sit up in bed awake and Q begins to tell his story

Chapter 12 - Biographical: Q tells he left his island b/c he wanted to learn from Christendom something he could take back to his people (he was to be king) in aid of their happiness, but he has found Christians to be as miserable as anyone else; I and Q decide to sail together

Chapter 13 - Wheelbarrow: I and Q sail for Nantucket to find a whale ship; while aboard, Q saves the day and rescues a "bumpkin" who had previously been making fun of Q's savage appearance

Chapter 14 - Nantucket: Description of Nantucket and its people, who are more at home at sea than on the land and who therefore consider their realm to be exponentially larger than the small strip of island sand that serves as their base

Chapter 15 - Chowder: I and Q land in Nantucket and seek out lodging; I recounts all the ominous signs he has thus far encountered; description of chowder

Chapter 16 - The Ship: Q charges I with finding their ship, as Q will be observing his "Ramadan"; I meets Captains Peleg and Bildad, owners of the Pequod; I describes the contradiction as between the faith and the violent labor of Quaker whalemen; Bildad relies upon scripture in an attempt to negotiate down I's "lay"; ominous description of the not-yet-present Capt. Ahab

Chapter 17 - The Ramadan: Q engages in "Ramadan" ascetic practices for a 24-hour period; I attempts to convince Q that such voluntary deprivations are counterproductive

Chapter 18 - His Mark: I secures Q's place on the Pequod despite Peleg and Bildad's reservations about having a pagan on board

Chapter 19 - The Prophet: A stranger, Elizah (Biblical prophet who was a harbinger of the messiah and of the eschaton), relays ominous vagaries to I and Q about Ahab, upsetting I

Chapter 20 - All Astir: Final preparations for voyage are made upon the Pequod; still no sign of Ahab

Chapter 21 - Going Aboard: More ominous premonitions from Elizah; I and Q board and meet the rigger; Ahab is aboard but I has not yet seen him

[Henry]

This passage stuck out to me in Chapter 1:

I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the fates, what is the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me and influences me in some unaccountable way he can better answer than anyone else.

It introduces a supernatural force into the narrative. Overlays the chronicles with a sense of mystery.

I also like this line "We are going a whaling." Provides a sense of adventure.

[Hristo Botev]

I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the fates, what is the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me and influences me in some unaccountable way he can better answer than anyone else.

That's a good one. Chapter 1 is a doozy, for sure. Speaking of which, given that this is an "ERE" forum and all, this certainly stuck out to me:



Brought to mind both the first line from Paul's letter to the Romans that was the epistle from this past Sunday's readings: "Paul, a slave to Christ Jesus, . . ."; and also one of my favorite lines from John Wayne in McLintock:

Everybody works for somebody. Me, I work for everybody in these United States that steps into a butcher's shop for a T-bone steak, and you work for me. There's not much difference.

[Henry]

(1) I have researched (wikipedia) the book and found that Moby Dick is amongst many things, a statement against the Emersonian transcendentalism of the time. I believe that paragraph may be an example;

(2) I think you are onto something with regard to Paul. In Chapter 2 "- "It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about Paul's tossed craft." Obviously the book is steeped in biblical references, Ishmael being the first son of Abraham in the OT;

[Hristo Botev]

(1) I have researched (wikipedia) the book and found that Moby Dick is amongst many things, a statement against the Emersonian transcendentalism of the time. I believe that paragraph may be an example;

Well shoot, now I have to look up what Emersonian transcendentalism is. I’m a little nervous to do that, though, cuz Emerson’s Self Reliance is something I pick up every couple of years, and it never fails to stir up he feelies in me.