To Kill a Giant
Captain Ahab has finally appeared on deck and the Pequod is far from shore. I love Melville's choice there--at Nantucket, Ahab is spoken of but never seen, instead we have the two disciplinarian but basically decent Quaker captains. Ahab doesn't emerge until the crew are in immersed in life at sea. He's like the spirit of cabin fever.
I hadn't intended to read Moby Dick again, it just sort of happened. Mostly I blame the voice Melville created for Ishmael. Despite the fact that the character becomes less and less directly involved with the action--I'm not sure there's ever a sign Ahab even notices him--his voice is such a crucial part of establishing the little world at sea of whaling men. Something of the habituation to horror and death is as much in Ishmael's cyclical repetition of sounds as it is in the man he's describing, in this case Stubbs.
He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.
Few books more plainly show the folly in the modern preoccupation with character arcs. I don't think a single character has an arc in this book. Everyone is sort of grimly or sadly immutable 'til death.
Lately, in addition to the Japanese pop students recommend to me, I've been watching Chrysta Bell videos a lot. It keeps occurring to me the simple English David Lynch uses would make the songs good for ESL students but I suspect the songs and videos would be too weird for most of the kids.
Click to viewTwitter Sonnet #1451
Replacement rocks replenished magma lights.
Revealing planks the walls were warmly wood.
A fire fixed the hearth to useful rights.
A second note is never understood.
The greenish cloud has stolen cues from gods.
To understand the chicken ask the crow.
We played with dice to fool the double odds.
Arrange the shoes beside the booted row.
The risen arm detects a cam'ra near.
The quiet hall was yet composed of noise.
Behind the drapes the hollow faces peer.
A lucid stack became the hazy toys.
The iv'ry thuds along the splintered deck.
The shape of health belongs to future wreck.