dirty Books

Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:01 pm GMT
"This round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self."

"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."

"Book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts."

Quite correct Renee. As these passages from the chapter called the "Doubloon" indicate quite readily. I must, however, disagree with your opinion of debate. The exchange of ideas, the willingness to agree and/or disagree is quite important . . . at least from a democratic perspective.

As far as differences in time, well, you might be surprised at the sexual sophistication of many a person in the 19th century. they weren't quite as naive and prudish as many people think. I would suggest the book, "Problems in the History of Sexuality". . . quite enlightening. You will see a primary source in there from a navy drummer who describes the frequency and variety of sexual activities on ships in his journal. The entries are from 1852-1853. "Moby-Dick" was published in 1851. Melville makes a direct and unmistakable reference to it in "White Jacket". But, as has been stated, perception is everything.
Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:20 pm GMT
As an addition, here is a copy of Melville's letter to Nathaniel Hawethorne about "Moby-Dick".

LETTER TO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, NOVEMBER [17?] 1851

Your letter was handed me last night on the road going to Mr. Morewood's, and I read it there. Had I been at home, I would have sat down at once and answered it. In me divine maganimities are spontaneous and instantaneous -- catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can't write what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then -- your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling -- no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content -- that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips -- lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. Now, sympathizing with the paper, my angel turns over another page. you did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book -- and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul. Once you hugged the ugly Socrates because you saw the flame in the mouth, and heard the rushing of the demon, -- the familiar, -- and recognized the sound; for you have heard it in your own solitudes.

My dear Hawthorne, the atmospheric skepticisms steal into me now, and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don't write a word about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserly delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you -- it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So,now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; -- I have heard if Krakens.

This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. Possibly, if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you will missend it -- for the very fingers that now guide this pen are not precisely the same that just took it up and put it on this paper. Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it's a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.

What a pity, that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, good-by to you, with my blessing.

Herman.

P.S. I can't stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, I'll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand -- a million -- billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question -- they are One.
Guest 2   Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:31 pm GMT
<Actually, spermiceti is an oil not a wax.>

Spermaceti (note the spelling) is a wax. Candles can be (and were) made from pure spermaceti. Look in any encyclopedia.

< I know far more about his work and life then you ever will. >

If you are Melville, you may be entitled to appeal to your own authority. If you are not, you may have to accept the fact that reading books and giving presentations is only distantly related to omniscience.

<It is obvious by his use of language that the narrator is describing a very intimate, sensual, and transcendental experience (i.e. orgasmic).>

Your "i.e." is invalid, and indicates the source of your confusion; unless you can demonstrate that every "intimate" or "sensual" or "transcendental" experience is "orgasmic" (and was so for Melville).

<Hawthorne...describes Melville's experience...as having opened Melville's mind to *expressions of sexuality*. >

That sounds like a tendentious paraphrase. The word "sexuality" is not recorded until after Hawthorne's death.
Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:08 pm GMT
"Spermaceti (note the spelling) is a wax. Candles can be (and were) made from pure spermaceti. Look in any encyclopedia."

No shit Shurlock, I am sure you had to look that up for yourself. It can be made into wax but is not wax, and it certainly is not wax when the narrator of the novel describes it in the above section.

"If you are Melville, you may be entitled to appeal to your own authority. If you are not, you may have to accept the fact that reading books and giving presentations is only distantly related to omniscience."

I don't recall using the word omniscience at all in any of my postings on this forum. I appeal to my own authority because you have made it blatantly obvious that you know nothing about Melville, his work, or the studies that have since been done on his work. I, however, have demonstrated time and time again that I do. Where are your citations, where is your evidence? The fact is that you have none. Educate yourself before opening your mouth.

"Your "i.e." is invalid, and indicates the source of your confusion; unless you can demonstrate that every "intimate" or "sensual" or "transcendental" experience is "orgasmic" (and was so for Melville)."

Unless you can demonstrate that it absolutley was not, I am going to go with what LOGIC and EVIDENCE can supply. In the future, I suggest you actually read the book and something about the author before responding. Surely, it couldn't hurt your argument.
Guest (from before)   Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:15 pm GMT
>>>I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces.<<<

^ This is what Melville describes in:
>>>Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, - Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness." <<<

Nothing to do with homosexual orgies, imho.
Wintereis   Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:48 pm GMT
<<Nothing to do with homosexual orgies, imho. >>

"Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips -- lo, they are yours and not mine."

"I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb."

"But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning."

Here is some reading for you. Try and learn something.


http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s04/web3/d1scarpa.html

"Sex and the Sea: A Close Reading of Moby Dick
Diane Scarpa
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is fraught with sexual imagery. The elaborate descriptions with which the author establishes his indulgent style of writing aptly reflect the often indulgent behaviors of the characters. Melville's choice of words is loaded with sensuality. This is most noticeable in the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. The evolution of their relationship throughout the text associates homosexuality with negative consequences. As the book progresses their interactions become increasingly more erotic. This negativity culminates with the death of Queequeg. Thus, intimate relationships between men are negatively depicted through a range of literary devices. The subject matter is reflective of Melville's attempt to construct a social commentary about homosexuality.

This story is a vehicle to express something entirely unrelated to the surface meanings. Sexual references are often disguised by Melville's clever use of diction. Such references take many forms in the text but become most evident in Melville's description of a scene. Chapter 94, A Squeeze of the Hand, is illustrative of this. Melville writes, "I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes" (322-323). The word "sperm" is short for spermatozoon, a mature male reproductive cell. The word appropriately symbolizes the all male crew by referring to the biological essence of masculinity. Therefore, the language used here is symbolic. In this context the sperm represents the men and makes the passage serve as a metaphor for an intimate act."


http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/looking_melville_unfolding_and_beyond_culture_sexuality_and_fluid_text

"'Melville Unfolding' and Beyond: Looking at culture, sexuality, and the fluid text
by John Bryant on February 2, 2009"


http://cco.cambridge.org/extract?id=ccol0521554772_CCOL0521554772A010

"The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville
8 Melville and Sexuality
Robert K. Martin

Sexuality is a concept we owe to Melville's time. As the theorist Michel Foucault has argued, prior to some point in the later nineteenth century, there were no sexual identities, but only sexual acts that could be committed by anyone. What sexuality does is to associate acts and “tastes” with identity, to say, for instance, putting it simply, that there are those who prefer the same sex and those who prefer the other sex, and that these “preferences” are crucial to the construction of the self. The effect of the creation of this binary of sexuality is at once an enlargement of possibility and the assurance of an identity that may serve to create community, as well as an augmentation of the power of social discipline through the creation of manageable, confinable groups. Melville's career coincides with these developments, both reflecting them and participating in their elaboration. The Melville of the earliest travel writings still operates largely in a realm of undifferentiated sexuality, while his final work, Billy Budd, is an enactment of a drama figuring the exclusion and execution of the homosexual. "

http://books.google.com/books?id=iIjx-GhqXlYC&dq=melville+hawthorne+relationship&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=67BO8EfVMe&sig=t8zXxtu8H08i7W8lo-UVSzN-75s&hl=en&ei=ceAWS4nzHonusQPTkoyKBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=&f=false
different guest   Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:58 pm GMT
Yes, I know how interpretation of literature works, I did enough of it at university. I'm willing to accept that it's valid. But why don't you try opening YOUR mind for once, instead of always accusing others of being close-minded? You are stuck in the tunnel vision of a literary critic and are unwilling to consider points of view outside of it.
My personal opinion is this:
Yes, there are subliminal messaged and metaphors and all kinds of similar things in literature, however they are secondary to the obvious meaning and by a long way. Often they are unintended and interpretations of them are fraught with subjectivity and misunderstandings. Subliminal messages make up at most 15% of the total content. The problem with literary critics is they blow up the subliminal messages to be the main point of any text, the be all and end all of everything. This is hogwash, these messages should kept in the back of the mind, but not the focal point of your attention.
Guest 2 Wintereis   Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:11 am GMT
<No shit Shurlock, I am sure you had to look that up for yourself. It can be made into wax but is not wax>

Spermaceti isn't "made into" wax; technically, it *is* a wax.

You're probably confusing spermaceti with the substance from which it's extracted (often called "oil"; but technically also a wax).

<The word "sperm" is short for spermatozoon, a mature male reproductive cell.>

Another anachronistic reading. The word "sperm" appears from the 14th century; "spermatozoon" from the mid nineteenth.

<Unless you can demonstrate that it absolutley was not>

You want me to prove that a "sensual" or "intimate" or "transcendental" experience is not necessarily "orgasmic".

Either you've misunderstood, or your dry-cleaning bill is phenomenal.

<I am going to go with what LOGIC and EVIDENCE can supply.>

There is no "logic" in assuming that because Melville visited Tahiti, the scene with the spermaceti is erotic.

A journal entry from 1852 is not "evidence" that an 1851 work of fiction is "an attempt to construct a social commentary about homosexuality".

The problem is, you're reading a 19th century novel with twentieth century eyes.

<you know nothing about Melville, his work, or the studies that have since been done on his work. I, however, have demonstrated time and time again that I do.>

A perfect example of dramatic irony.
Wintereis   Thu Dec 03, 2009 5:42 am GMT
I suppose this poem from the middle of the 19th century has nothing to do with sex either.


"Not the heat flames up and consumes,
Not the sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of
the ripe summer, bears lightly along
white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop
where they may,
Not these—O none of these, more than the
flames of me, consuming, burning for
her love whom I love—O none, more
than I, hurrying in and out;
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and
never give up?—O I, the same, to
seek my life-long lover;
O nor down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high
rain-emitting clouds, are borne through
the open air, more than my copious
soul is borne through the open air,
wafted in all directions, for friendship,
for love.—"
analyst   Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:11 am GMT
"Not the heat flames up and consumes,
Not the sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of
the ripe summer, bears lightly along
white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop
where they may,
Not these—O none of these, more than the
flames of me, consuming, burning for
her love whom I love—O none, more
than I, hurrying in and out;
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and
never give up?—O I, the same, to
seek my life-long lover;
O nor down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high
rain-emitting clouds, are borne through
the open air, more than my copious
soul is borne through the open air,
wafted in all directions, for friendship,
for love.—"


Your interpretation is valid. My interpretation is the following:

This person is something of a Notradamus! An accurate portrayal of a nuclear explosion from the point of view of a mischievous atomic bomb:


O none of these [since the energy produced is higher than most experienced on earth], more than the flames of me [of the atomic bomb], consuming [consumption of U235 by fission into decay products], burning [energy in the decay products] for
her love whom I love [the laws of physics] —O none, more
than I [since neutrons are produced in very high quantity, in the upper order of that experienced on earth], hurrying in and out [neutrons produced by fission processes whizzing around];

my copious soul [clouds of radioactive dust] is borne through the open air,
friendship, for love. [the loving harmony that are the laws of nature]


The bomb is performing its natural duty and carrying out the biddings of its patron - mother nature. A nice poem, a bomb is given a spiritual face. Interesting. Amazing that it was written before the bomb was even invented!
Guest (who had to sleep)   Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:21 am GMT
Okay, how does ANOTHER POEM justify your interpretation of Moby Dick as a gay Lady Chatterley's lover? Where's LOGIC in THAT?
Guest (still sleepy)   Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:22 am GMT
May I add: LOL!!!
Wintereis   Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:58 am GMT
<<Okay, how does ANOTHER POEM justify your interpretation of Moby Dick as a gay Lady Chatterley's lover? Where's LOGIC in THAT?>>

Ummm . . . I don't recall ever typing the term gay, queer, straight, homosexual, or heterosexual in anything that I wrote on this topic. If I had used such terms, they would be anacronistic. But I havent. I think you reached that conclusion on your own. You seem to like to jump to conclusions without justification.
Guest (yawning)   Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:31 am GMT
I think you do not understand 'transcendental'. It is more 'mystic' than 'orgasmic'.
Wintereis   Thu Dec 03, 2009 4:14 pm GMT
anyway . . . done eduacting the trolls for the time being. You have a good one.