Not P but Moby-Dick (41)

[Mark Kohut]

'settled' as in water that has stopped being turbulent".....which is then
aligned with the order of being civilized...
not anarchic like an unsettled ocean.....full of unpredictable waves....

On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 6:21 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> In the Atlantic where the journeys are shorter, you can live with a leak…
>
> Even in the much bigger Pacific, captains may choose to utilize the pump in
> lieu of repairs on long voyages, if there’s a reasonably nearby coast to
> retreat to in case it gets really bad.
>
> Is there more reason behind “settled and civilized” & “solitary and savage”
> than alliteration & parallelism?
>
> In particular, why “settled”?
> Settled as in “settlers” like people have made homes there?
>
> Is it setting a tone that the Pacific is wilder than the Atlantic, that one
> could almost feel at home in the Atlantic, whereas the Pacific is more
> exotic, more unsettled, “water water everywhere” & where there is land, the
> people are as yet uncolonized by westernization/globalization, & thus
> there’s a whole array of unsettling conditions, up to and including a white
> whale?
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 5:27 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The solitary and savage seas are not the Atlantic but [the seas] "far
> from
> > you to the westward".
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 1:35 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > That's certainly a possibility, but "settled and civilized" seems to
> > > contrast with "solitary and savage" in the next sentence.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 4:07 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> quiet,,,,not turbulent, no storms, etc.....
> > >>
> > >> On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 2:47 PM Mike Jing <
> > gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> From Chapter 54:
> > >>>
> > >>> You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our
> Atlantic,
> > >>> for
> > >>> example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole way across
> > >>> it; though
> > >>> of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to
> > forget
> > >>> his duty in that respect, the probability would be that he and his
> > >>> shipmates would never again remember it, on account of all hands
> gently
> > >>> subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the solitary and savage seas far from
> > you
> > >>> to the westward, gentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to
> keep
> > >>> clanging at their pump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of
> > >>> considerable length; that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible
> > >>> coast,
> > >>> or if any other reasonable retreat is afforded them.
> > >>>
> > >>> What does "settled" mean here?
> > >>> --
> > >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>>
> > >>
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>