Hi Evrybahdy!

[ish mailian]

https://harpers.org/blog/2010/05/melville-what-the-whale-teaches-us/


On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 8:59 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> A tattooed savage...
>
> I detect "Arthur Gordon Pym" here, and, of course, "Moby-Dick".
>
> Compare and contrast:
>
> "And when we consider that other theory
> of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues --every
> stately or lovely emblazoning --the sweet tinges of sunset skies and
> woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly
> cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually
> inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all
> deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements
> cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed
> further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every
> one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white
> or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter,
> would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank
> tinge --pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a
> leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear
> colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel
> gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the
> prospect around him.  And of all these things the Albino whale was the
> symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"
>
>
> On Thu, 8 Jun 2017 08:30:46 -0400
>  Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Godolphin to Victoria Wren:
>>
>> "“The colors. So many colors.” His eyes were tightly closed, his forehead
>> resting on the bowed edge of one hand. “The trees outside the head shaman’s
>> house have spider monkeys which are iridescent. They change color in the
>> sunlight. Everything changes. The
>> mountains, the lowlands are never the same color from one hour to the
>> next. No sequence of colors is the same from day to day. As if you lived
>> inside a madman’s kaleidoscope. Even your dreams become flooded with colors,
>> with shapes no Occidental ever saw. Not real shapes, not meaningful ones.
>> Simply random, the way clouds change over a Yorkshire landscape.”
>> ...
>> “They stay with you,” he went on, “they aren’t fleecy
>> lambs or jagged profiles. They are, they are Vheissu, its raiment, perhaps
>> its skin.”
>> “And beneath?”
>> “You mean soul don’t you. Of course you do. I wondered about the soul of
>> that place. If it had a soul. Because their music, poetry, laws and
>> ceremonies come no closer. They are skin too. Like the skin of a tattooed
>> savage.”"
>
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