"evocaticitatiousness"

Thank you for this, Robert. I shall have to see if I can ever work it into a conversation.

I The recent exchanges about what there is to say about Melville led me to attempt to do some work. so I found english.illinois.edu/-people-/emeritus/ ... arrel.htm# this article. The main points I got from it : The problem with trying to discuss Moby Dick is one of genre "we are able to interp...

Saffron, I hope this means you're going to return to the discussions? Now you have the overview...

I've been keeping up chapter by chapter , enjoying the reading but having nothing to say (except that I keep wanting to say:Wow what wonderful writing! How does he do that? ).
So I'm glad others are struggling too!

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman's...

Thanks for the hard work, Robert - it's really good to read along with others, I'm finding. I'm also enjoying the re-reading - having got 2/3 through before this forum started. For me the crucial line in this chapter is ' I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last lon...

Wondering about what's going on in these 'religious' chapters, I think it's useful to remember that it's Ishmael talking, not Melville (so to speak). I've got no idea about Melville's beliefs, but in any case he's imagining Ishmael's at this point, doing it sympathetically enough so that I imagine t...

I hadn't noticed the Swiftian reference - though Melville's satire here is much gentler, I think. Women, as flowers, make a brief appearance. Do women ever appear in Melville other than as a scented suggestion? Presumably the reference to musk and Salem is a glance back at Hawthorne and sexual danger?

Isn't Melville having some fun with the idea of the Noble Savage here? In a way, he takes it seriously, since Queequeg is a good guy, but he's also playing with it, with the comedy of the boots and Q's status half-way between civilised and savage.

To continue with the Proust comparison - here Ishmael makes as much to-do about his getting to bed as Marcel, and just as the latter's good night kiss allowed Marcel to sleep, so Queequeg's benediction does the same for Ishmael.