I managed to read this without dropping my phone in the bath last night and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Your description of the sweltering becalmed ship is so vivd, I could almost feel myself wilting as I read it. I particularly liked the nonchalantly whistling captain and poor little sunburned Marmot. And as for Tom stripping to his birthday suit in William's cabin....well....ahem....
There was a story, in the markings, of struggle and trial. It was the strangest thing.. It was like watching geometry try to fly. That's wonderful, really wonderful. One of the most elegant and evocative descriptions of the power and beauty of tattooing that I've read, and believe me, I've read a fair bit!
Poor little Marmot. I have seen my share of kids like that, on the Vineyard. There are people out there even more prone to sunburn than me!
As for tattoos-- I have not read or thought about them much. Sometimes I see one one the street that appeals to me-- usually a geometric pattern rather than a picture. I think they were much more rare back then. And it really would have been a test of endurance to have it done with pre-electic methods. (Poor Simpson would have had a terrible bruise on his hand!)
So Pullings was demonstrating that he was terribly brave! And he was making a statement about his virility... Apparently Joseph Banks got one in Tahiti. I do not usually think of him as particularly studly, but maybe he had qualities that we could not see.
Glad you liked this-- and very glad you did not drop it in the tub.
There is a scene in Melville's White-Jacket where he describes a seaman who has a hawser chain tattooed around his chest. Every time he crossed the equator he would pay a shipmate to tattoo another link on the chain. A seaman with just such a tattoo appears in the film Master and Commander, though I don't know if it was Peter Weir that borrowed the image or O'Brien himself.
I think the first sailors who got Polynesian tattoos must have been very brave indeed. I've seen hand tattooing done once or twice and it can be a bloody business.
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There was a story, in the markings, of struggle and trial. It was the strangest thing.. It was like watching geometry try to fly.
That's wonderful, really wonderful. One of the most elegant and evocative descriptions of the power and beauty of tattooing that I've read, and believe me, I've read a fair bit!
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As for tattoos-- I have not read or thought about them much. Sometimes I see one one the street that appeals to me-- usually a geometric pattern rather than a picture. I think they were much more rare back then. And it really would have been a test of endurance to have it done with pre-electic methods. (Poor Simpson would have had a terrible bruise on his hand!)
So Pullings was demonstrating that he was terribly brave! And he was making a statement about his virility... Apparently Joseph Banks got one in Tahiti. I do not usually think of him as particularly studly, but maybe he had qualities that we could not see.
Glad you liked this-- and very glad you did not drop it in the tub.
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I think the first sailors who got Polynesian tattoos must have been very brave indeed. I've seen hand tattooing done once or twice and it can be a bloody business.
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