Not P but Moby-Dick (45)

[Michael Bailey]

Quicken has 2 main meanings:

To bring to life (by extension, here it could signify to “enliven”)

To make more rapid (ie, lively)

The meanings are complementary -
The more archaic is to bring to life (ie “the quick and the dead”)

Associations of life with movement...

It's probably the sight of the black cloud, portending a storm, that livens
them up


On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 4:35 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From Chapter 56:
>
> From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up
> like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud,
> rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity
> of the excited seamen.
>
> What does "quicken" mean here?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>