Preterition, GR, and _Moby-Dick_

[jm]

>David cheers us up wiv:
>A-and, for another Pynchon-parallel, this time a matter of tone and 
>technique, consider the passage that slides in out of nowhere and [Melville]
>describes a seaman making himself a slick waterproof coat out of the hide 
>of the whale's dick, or is it a Dick?  The passage makes you laugh while 
>your hair slowly rises up on end, the same sort of surreal spookiness 
>that occurs in so much of Pynchon.
>

Yes, and then Melville goes straight to a pun more awful than the one about
Pirate's batman when he compares the penis hide to the seamless robe worn by
Christ and puns, "what a candidate for an archbishoprick..."  What we got
here is Melville at his most subversive.      -jm