#lx reads moby dick
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Firstly, Ishmael and Aunt Charity, I know it was everyday for you, but I CAN’T comprehend the magnitude of packing for a three year whaling voyage! For a whole crew! How big were these boats? And also, they would have to leave capacity for what they were bringing back – three years’ worth of whales. I can’t imagine that three years’ worth of whale haul will all fit IN the boat! Do they tow the bodies behind? How did they stay fresh and usable for three years? Did they process them “on the go”? I can understand they might do that with the oils. But what about the meat? Did they eat whale meat as part of their supplies? SO many questions.
So I started looking and discovered…
Many months of the voyage were taken in getting to the whaling grounds; and the same many months to get back home. It wasn’t all spent in whaling.
The whales were processed on board and the products were stored in the ship’s hold (see picture below).
The primary products were sperm oil, spermaceti, whale oil and whalebone and occasionally ambergris if any were discovered.
Sperm oil (from sperm whale blubber) retains its lubricating qualities in extreme temperatures, making it ideal for light, rapid machinery. It also burns very clearly without smoke or odour. Also made high quality soap.
Spermacetti (from the head of the sperm whale) is liquid wax. Because of its exceptional quality, this was the most valuable product from the whale.
Whale oil (from right, bowhead and humback whales) was of lesser quality but still better returns from a trip than nothing.
Baleen (whale ‘teeth’) is made of keratin, and used for buggy whips, carriage springs, corset stays, fishing poles, hoops for women’s skirts and umbrella ribs.
Ambergris is a wax-like susbstance, rarely found. It is now generally conceded that ambergris is generated in a diseased animal, caused possibly by a biliary irritation, and is mostly found in whales of a sickly appearance and sometimes greatly emaciated.
American whalers felt the gamey flavor and tough texture classified whale meat as improper for consumption. However, they occasionally, grudgingly ate it.
I haven’t been able to find out how many whales might have been taken in a, say, 3-year voyage. (More research needs to be done.)
Source: the internet
The New Bedford Whaling Museum site was particularly interesting https://www.whalingmuseum.org/
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Ishmael: Sometimes whales sink. But the Sperm Whale is better at not sinking than other whales.
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coping mechanisms for damp, drizzly Novembers in the soul
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If you want to know what Ishmael says, you'll need to read Chapter 86 of Moby Dick, "The Tail".
#if you want to do the share thing for a larger sample size go you#but I feel like only 3 people will ever look at this post lol#so the sample will be not whale sized#i just wanted to make a poll#whale weekly#lx reads moby dick
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I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of “ancient dames” moving about “in the jaws of the whale”. BUT… instead I discovered that Ishmael should stick to expostulating about whales, and not venture into women’s fashion about which he is apparently not knowledgeable.
The first picture is of Queen Anne (early 18C) not wearing a farthingale (farthingales actually being out of fashion in Queen Anne’s time).
The second picture is Queen Elizabeth 1 (late 16C) wearing a farthingale when they were fashionable, more than 100 years earlier.
But either way, they were still both likely going about "in the jaws of the whale", just not as Ishmael described it.
As everyone knows, these same “hogs’ bristles,” “fins,” “whiskers,” “blinds,” or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne’s time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you may say...
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Ishmael engages in theological debate on Jonah and the whale:
Sag-Harbor whaleman (explaining his disbelief in the story of Jonah): The story of Jonah couldn’t be true. The Right Whale’s swallow is so small, Jonah would never have made it into the whale’s belly.
Bishop Jebb (not perturbed): The Right Whale’s mouth is large enough to have temporarily accommodated Jonah without ever needing to make his way to the whale’s belly.
Ishmael (getting excited): Indeed, the Right Whale’s mouth is so large, Jonah may have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth!
Really Ishmael??
Ishmael (calming down): On second thoughts, perhaps not. The Right Whale is toothless. Oops.
Sag-Harbour: Anyway, if Jonah had been incarcerated in the whale's body, he would have been consumed by the whale’s digestive juices.
Ishmael (citing an unnamed German exegetist): It is possible that Jonah took refuge in the floating body of a dead whale.
Ishmael: (citing other unnamed commentators): It is possible that when Jonah was thrown overboard, he was actually picked up by another sailing vessel nearby, possibly called the “Whale” (as some craft are nowadays christened “Shark”, “Gull” or “Eagle)”.
Sag-Harbor (not giving up): Even so it would not be possible for the whale to vomit Jonah up after three days at Nineveh, which was more than three days away.
Ishmael (quoting a Portuguese Catholic Priest): "This was clearly a miracle!"
Ishmael (for emphasis): And so it was!
Ismael (this is his homily for today's chapter): And what’s more, there is a Turkish mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which a miraculous lamp burns without any oil.
Ishmael, my man, don't give up your day job. Theological apologetics is not for you.
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Another crossover between two of my current substacks
6 November Whale Weekly:
Ishmael alludes to the French soldiers caught in the grasp of winter
"... even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them."
7 November War and Peace:
The winter frosts begin, plaguing the fleeing French army.
"... when the frosts began, the flight of the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing, or roasting themselves to death at the campfires ..."
#war and peace (and emails)#whale weekly#lx reads war and peace#lx reads moby dick#Moby Dick Ch 83#W&P 4.3.16
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Everyone: A whale is not a fish.
Ishmael:
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In today's chapter, Ishmael doesn't conclude with a homily. Instead, he provides a philosophical analysis of two whale heads.
This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.
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Today's email from Ishmael:
You're all trying to draw whales, and you're all WRONG!
It's not even possible to know what a whale LOOKS like. If the whale is in the water, you only see half of it. If the whale is out of the water, it doesn't look like a true whale, because whales only look like whales in the water.
And if you go whaling to get a closer look, you'll end up dead.
So just stop being curious.
"there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like."
(Actual Ishmael quote)
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The whale-head similes and metaphors are still coming (specifically, today, for the Right Whale’s head):
a Roman war chariot
a gigantic galliot-toed shoe
a shoemaker’s last
a bass viol
comb-like incrustation is a crown or bonnet
the trunk of a huge oak with a bird’s nest
a Haarlem organ
Ishmael has so many words ...
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In this week’s emails…
WHALE WEEKLY
Ishmael: I need a place to stay.
Mrs Hussey: You could share with this guy I know. He’s a bit weird.
Ishmael and Queequeg, bffs.
LETTERS FROM WATSON
Watson: I need a place to stay.
Stamford: You could share with this guy I know. He’s a bit weird.
Watson and Sherlock, bffs.
#whale weekly#letters from watson#contrasts and parallels#lx reads moby dick#lx reads sherlock homes
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#tail! tail! but it’s too late to change it#i've discovered polls#i know I'm late#whale weekly#lx reads moby dick#chapter 86
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"Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an æsthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp." ~ Ishmael
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I enjoyed watching Melville have some fun extending his birthing analogy for the Tashtego accident, but I didn't expect him to continue it into the concluding ‘moral’ of this chapter the way he did.
… thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.
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