Did I lend my paperback copy of Moby Dick to anyone on here? Just had to buy a hardback Everyman library edition to replace. Moby Dick watching I. waterstones reveals nice one with whale etching on cover £17. Paperback I have lost £6.99, v good value per page plus has slight Nick in last copy so that will get you 70p off as long as you do not ask the grumpy manager. Or in a mad world a £19.99 for paperback with very rough paper.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Call me ishmael
(16 posts)-
Posted 5 years ago #
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Did I lend my paperback copy of Moby Dick to anyone on here?
Should you not just turn up at PY silently whetting a filleting knife in the corner?
Posted 5 years ago # -
That would get me barred from PY for a month until their entire staff on the early shift had turned over.
Would get me a residence in Cult tho
Posted 5 years ago # -
How about if you kneaded a large tub of spermaceti?
Those are my two favourite scenes. The knife sharpening duel (which I'm convinced Peake stole for the cake duel in Gormenghast) and the soft hands.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@iwrats, you are perhaps referring to a form of hyper realism that pervades Moby Dick.? A dreamscape played out as a warning against obsession? Melville only wrote classics. Bartleby prefigures modernism. The stories in Billy Budd are laced with literary laudanum.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I am always in search of a decent annotated Moby Dick. There's one online but it's a bit hard on the eyes in a 90s website way. Any recommendations?
Online one alerted me to the fart joke in chapter one (my classical education was lacking); “as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim)“ - the Pythagorean maxim is, as I now know, to eat no beans...
Posted 5 years ago # -
@unhurt, is that when the two chaps are sharing the one bed?
Posted 5 years ago # -
No, in the introductory pages. That part is adorable though. Also Melville totally understands the joy of a warm bed in a freezing room.
Posted 5 years ago # -
May read some of it tonight
Posted 5 years ago # -
Second hand copy of Elephant Bill arrived here today.
Not read it since the ‘80s.
Posted 5 years ago # -
The proprietor of The Spouter Inn, New Bedford is called Peter Coffin. Fairly sure this bobs up late on.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Thanks for reminding me I must get the dusty copy off my shelf and finally read it.
Unread books on my shelf give me plenty of "joy", thank you very much. Anticipation is at least 50% of pleasure.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Just remembered the harpoon made from broken razors. That is also my favourite bit.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Or the harpoon Queeqweg shaves with after his night with Ishmael.
Suggestion harpoons very sharp with one going in at the tail of the whale, travelling 40 feet and coming out at the head.
Maybe the modern japanese ones?
Posted 5 years ago # -
This passage now makes me think of Steveo and his bivvying proclivities:
"We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal."
Posted 5 years ago # -
the luxurious discomforts of the rich
Gah. I would have stolen that in an instant.
Posted 5 years ago #
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