the whale as a dish: chapters 57-75
McKenzie gets specific. Chris tries to pick some fights. We get into the weeds.
M: Another week, another 75 pages! We kill our first whales. We learn a lot about butchering whales. We really get into the guts and gore. Paint me a picture of the vibes this week.
C: This week was pretty heavy on imagery. There was one quote about the sea being a wheel of cheese that was maybe my favorite line from this section.
I love the description of how you skin the whale of its blubber. He compares it to an orange peel. I think this is some of Melville's most meaty work in the book so far in terms of imagery.
M: It's very meaty. I'm glad you mentioned that because it’s definitely one of the defining traits of this section.
When I was reading this, I kept thinking about how specific he is about everything. Melville is like: “It’s time to get into the weeds.” We hear about what every single person is doing, exactly what every single thing looks like, and exactly how all of it functions. We've seen this already in the Cetalogy section, but now we’re more in the operations of whaling.
C: The structure of this section is funny. I would read a chapter where something happened, and then Melville followed it with a chapter where he says “Before we move on, let’s talk about this one little thing that happened there.” Then the next chapter says “Before we move on, I also mentioned this little thing and so we’ll talk about that now.” He’ll do that three or four times before we move on to the next piece of action. It’s frustrating but funny.
M: I don't know if you've come across this in your Internet discourse recently, but I’ve read criticism about a trend in modern literature of lots of vagueness in books. It’s very trendy for vague and vibey books to get published, right? The kinds of books where somebody is floating around and contemplating their life. There's not really scenery. It's very interior.
C: I’m glad you brought that up. I did not know there was criticism going on right now about that in the literary world, but let me pop on to that. I agree! It brings to mind Rachel Cusk. I recently read Outline - I am not interested in books like that. As we’ve discussed in previous weeks, I like reading big books. I like big descriptions. I like it when an author is thorough.
M: Totally. It’s definitely not the kind of book that I know you’re drawn to. Obviously Jonathan Franzen is not out here publishing a slim volume about somebody walking through the streets of a nondescript city. Moby Dick is obviously different tonally but it's still in that vein. Melville takes us into the weeds. I have a question percolating in my head. I keep thinking about specificity and universality. Melville is an extremely specific writer. He’s not talking about hunters generally, he’s not talking about sailors generally: he says “This is a man on a whaling ship who is a whale hunter.” That’s the world we’re in. Whereas on the other hand, I wonder if people are drawn to more modern, ambient vibiness because it’s easier to relate to. You read something moody and think “I feel this thing too”. I also noticed this thing, and observed a stranger in this way, or reflected on my childhood and came to those conclusions. Do you think that because Moby Dick is so specific, it makes it less universal?
C: Universal may be the wrong word. Moby Dick isn’t universal. I think that when something is specific, it makes it more difficult and less accessible. When something is vague, to find your own meaning from the book, you don’t have to travel very far to get it. Not that I’m trying to catch any strays, but there’s a reason horoscopes are so popular. They’re so vague that you can easily skim through them and apply whatever you’re reading to something random in your life. You don’t have to work as hard to parse it.
On the other hand, Moby Dick is obviously about the human condition. I’m no whaling captain. When Melville describes to me every type of whale that anyone on a whaling vessel would know, it’s letting me step into the shoes of a sailor on a ship. I now have knowledge that only whaling people have. It allows me to understand and access the facets of the human condition that the sailors are experiencing. It’s putting me on the ship with them.
So maybe it doesn’t make it less universal - it makes it more difficult to access. It’s harder for BookTok and our short attention spans.
M: To quote Kim K, it seems like nobody wants to work these days.
C: Yes! And yes, I'm attacking horoscopes.
M: Attack away.
Okay, now here's a question that may on its face seem unrelated, but I do promise I'm going somewhere with it. Have you listened to the new Taylor Swift album?
C: I have! I want to be in on the discourse! I've listened to the anthology as well. She’s not my person, but I listened all the way through. She seems very sad!
M: I have a working theory that fans of Taylor Swift are drawn to the specificity of her lyrics. So when I was reading Moby Dick, I was thinking about Taylor. Melville is not vaguely gesturing at anything. He is laying out exactly what’s happening. I was comparing it with the obsession with dissecting Taylor Swift lyrics. I can't think of another contemporary artist where people unpack the text in the same way. Not to be all boomer about it, but a lot of music today is very beautiful and fun to listen to, but the lyrics are either vague or incomprehensible. Singers are vaguely gesturing at universal themes and abstract images.
People love the labor of taking a Taylor Swift lyric and dissecting it - pulling it apart and understanding what she’s referencing, what story she’s telling, and what she’s trying to say. She has a story that she’s trying to tell and she’s expecting her audience to work to understand it. It’s a departure from the general nonspecificity of a lot of music today. Much like reading Moby Dick.
This takes me into the game for today, if you’re interested. I’d like you to take some main characters in Moby Dick, and you can describe to me which Taylor Swift album they most align with and why.
C: Does the 2019 original cast album of Cats count?
M: No, it does not. Has to be pinned by Taylor Swift herself, and not Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Let’s do Ishmael, Queequeg, Ahab, Stubbs, and the whale himself.
C: Stubbs is all about himself. This reminds me of the worst song that Taylor has ever released: “Me”. Stubbs is all about me, and that’s Lover. Queequeg is rough around the edges on the surface, and you’re not sure if you’re going to like him. He might be a cannibal. But the more you get to know him, he’s a fun character. So he’s got to be Reputation. When Reputation first came out, no one would touch it with a ten-foot pole, but since then, everyone’s come to embrace it.
M: Okay, that's interesting, because, to me, Reputation is 100% Ahab. Ahab is out for revenge. He's like I am on a mission, I am planting my stake in the ground. I'm telling it like it is.
C: That actually takes me to Ahab, because I flat disagree with that. I think that Reputation is a very calculated album. Ahab is not calculated. Ahab is all emotion. Ahab is being tortured by his obsession with Moby Dick. He is the type that would release 30 songs at once. Ahab is The Tortured Poets Department. Taylor is not okay in this album. Ahab is not okay. We are worried about Ahab. TTPD fits that better than Reputation to me.
I'm struggling to come up with a good reason for this, but I just feel like ish has a Midnights vibe. He’s the accessible character. He’s the palatable, radio-friendly album. And I would describe Ish as an anti-hero. He’s got some flaws, but we’re rooting for him anyway. And he is DEFINITELY moody.
And last, but not least, Moby Dick is the OG Taylor Swift debut. He’s been there since the beginning of time. He is the titular album because he is the titular character.
M: I have a disagreement. I think that Ishmael is TTPD. Hear me out. At face value, Ishmael’s storytelling strategy is overwhelming and profuse, and you may wonder: did he really need to say all that? Do we need these tangents? Does Ishmael need an editor? Is all of this relevant? Is he choosing the most convoluted and clunky way of saying all of this?
Let us remember that when Moby Dick was first published, it was not popular. People did not like it. It was weird and niche and didn’t take off. But in time, people came around. They reread it and realized the genius in the verbosity, and saw the beauty in the level of detail and meandering storytelling. How fun would it be if, a few years from now, we also think, is TTPD the most genius album she’s ever released? What if we just don’t get it yet? And don’t get it twisted. I don’t get it yet. I don’t love it. But time may educate us.
C: I think the Swifties and the horoscope girlies may come for us. These are two dangerous groups.
Let’s wrap it up before we get in any more trouble. Did you read/watch/listen to anything fun this week?
M: My reading life is very nautical this week because I just finished David Grann’s book called The Wager, which is about a shipwreck. I’m reading it for my book club. He’s the guy who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, and he does write very excellent, engaging nonfiction. I just downloaded The Warmth of Other Suns because I’ve been enjoying nonfic a lot recently! Most critically, I started watching something extremely important to me today. There is a new season of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team. It got canceled by CMT and has been picked up by Netflix and episode one is everything I wanted it to be and more.
C: I saw Bleachers in concert at The Anthem. Fun fact: when you go to a band’s concert where you know all the words to every song, it’s a very fun experience. A good discovery to make late in life. I’ve been staying with my friends Jackie and Tyler in Winchester, and we’ve been watching Jeopardy every night. Fun fact: a Survivor 45 contestant competed last night and won, and will be back tonight! I’ve also been gearing up for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August, and researching and booking shows for our trip.
Will they catch the whale?
M: No. It’s been revealed to us that the lesser whales are easy to catch. They’re all too high on their horses right now. But Moby Dick, this mythical creature, will not be caught by mere mortals.
C: I think they won’t catch the whale, and instead the whale will eat the ship and everyone on it, but Ish will somehow survive. That’s my current theory.