special ships

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 ~~~ witnessing the pequod's fate chapter by chapter, i came to think about, 
 well, s p e c i a l  s h i p s. by this i mean ships which are not of mere 
 military and/or economic character. (right, there are submarines in col49 and  
 gr as well as other warships in v and m&d). all the ships i wanna talk about 
 now have some kind of special destination. ~~~ there is, of course, noah's ark 
 (cf. 1. mose 6,18f.; 7,1.7.9.13.15.17f.; mt 24,38; lk 17,27; 1. petr 3,20; hebr 
 11,7), the ship of divine rescue which is also, through the process of 
 choosing the animals worth saving, the proto-type of cultural canonization;  
 lee "scratch" perry called, mid 1970s, his kingston studio "black ark" ~~~ and 
 then there are the "narrenschiffe" (playlist addition: "ship of fools"), michel 
 foucault talks about in the beginning of "histoire de la folie" [1961], a book 
 which was partly written in hamburg. according to foucault, the narrenschiff 
 motiv first appeared in european literature around 1500; there is also a 
 related picture by hieronimus bosch. but these mad-ships did really exist; in  
 germany, and also in some other european countries, the madmen & -women were at 
 that time, in some cases, first collected by the city's authorities and then 
 shipped away by business people who got paid for it by the city. hardly in 
 any harbor these ships were welcome. foucault, you perhaps remember that, reads 
 this institution, together with the epoch's complementary cultural obsession 
 with the theme, as an indicator for the beginning exclusion of madness from 
 european civilization ~~~ another variation of special ships are phantom ships 
 like the one of the "flying dutchman" by richard wagner (who developed here 
 motives of heine, fitzball, hauff and marryat), dammed to sail forever 
 restlessly, yet finally released by a woman's love & death. we meet the flying 
 dutchman also in gravity's rainbow: "'please, mother,' silent otto plaintive in 
 the window of the pilot house. in reply the good woman commences bellowing a 
 bloodthirsty ~ sea chanty ~ i'm the pirate queen of the baltic run, and nobody 
 fucks ~ with me--- ~ and those who've tried are bones and skulls, and lie 
 beneath ~ the sea. ~ and the little fish like messengers swim in and out their 
 eyes, ~ singing, 'fuck ye not with gory gnahb and her desperate ~ enterprise!' 
 ~ i'll tangle with a battleship, i'll massacre a sloop, ~ i've sent a hundred 
 souls to hell in one relentless swoop--- ~ i've seen the flying dutchman, and 
 each time we pass, he cries, ~ 'oh, steer me clear of gory gnahb, and her 
 desperate ~ enterprise!' ~ whereupon she grips her wheel and accelerates." 
 (497f) ~~~ before i come to death-ships, let me just hint at the fact that, in 
 the 20th century, two ships which had started as normal (luxury)ships became 
 kinda special ships through their catastrophical ending which was perceived by 
 the public as being, somehow, paradigmatic for modernity's false promise of 
 control: the "andrea doria" (great seinfeld-episode!) and the "titanic" (no, i 
 did not see that movie) ~~~ since the "pequod" got its name from a tribe of  
 native americans, "now extinct as the ancient medes"  (chapter 16, the ship), 
 and since the journey turns, for everybody but the narrator, out to be the 
 final one, it can probably called a totenschiff. and the "anubis" in gravity's 
 rainbow (vgl. pp. 459ff) is, by its name, connected to the religious framing of 
 the death process. "this boatload of degenerates [forerunners of vineland's  
 thanatoids? kfl] is named for the jackal-headed god in egyptian mythology who  
 conducted the dead to judgement. in gerhard von göll's film alpdrücken, the  
 'jackal men' ravish margherita erdmann" (weisenburger, gr-companion, 213). ~~~ 
 there are probably many other death-ships in literature (anyone?) ~~~ hans  
 henny jahnn's "das holzschiff", the prologue of the incredible 2200 pages novel 
 "fluss ohne ufer" (about: boundless river), comes to my mind: "und eine krone  
 darüber, dicht wie schwarze nacht; gewölbe anzuschauen wie gebuchtete segel,  
 aber steinern, gleich erhöhltem fels. dass sie ihrer unbeschützten haut und  
 ihren weichen gedanken selbst eine zuflucht gäben gegen die unbill. die tempel 
 kippten noch einmal zwischen zwei wimperzuckungen durch den raum. die männer  
 starrten. ihre augen starrten. und wie mit flügelschlägen eines vogels schoben 
 sich die schiffswände in die glaswelt" (113). ach, i could go on writing down  
 this beautiful prose all night long ... but then this posting already became a 
 little extended, so i simply stop here ~~~

philobatically yours, kai frederik  //:: ps: oh, wait a moment, i forgot a very 
                                        important death-vehicle. in the end of 
                                       vineland we read: "and soon, ahead, came 
                                      the sound of the river, echoing, harsh, 
                                     ceaseless, and beyond it the drumming, the 
                                    voices, not chanting together but 
                                   remembering, speculating, arguing, telling 
                                  tales, uttering curses, singing songs, all the 
                                 things voices do, but without ever allowing the 
                                briefest breath of silence. all these voices, 
                               forever. ~ across the river brock could see 
                              lights, layer after layer, crookedly ascending, 
                             thickly crowded dwellings, heaped one on the other. 
                            in the smoking torch- and firelight he saw people 
                           dancing. an old woman and an old man approached. the 
                          man carried objects in his hand that brock couldn't 
                         make out clearly. then he began to notice, all around 
                        in the gloom, bones, human bones, skulls and skeletons. 
                       'what is it?' he asked. 'please.' ~ 'they'll take out 
                      your bones,' vato explained. 'the bones have to stay on 
                     this side. the rest of you goes over. you look a lot 
                    different, and you move funny for a while, but they say 
                   you'll adjust. give these third-worlders a chance, you know,
                  they can be a lotta fun.' ~ 'so long, brock,' said blood" ~ 
                 pp. 379f, secker & warburg edition. before death you make your 
                mind, and after death your mind makes you! ~~~ ~~~ ~~~