Not P but Moby-Dick (75)

[Mark Kohut]

And maybe I did not express myself correctly.....I meant that the
'breaking' was
of the mould as they sat together...if we want to explicate with a
realistic action

But maybe I just got too literal and the breaking of the mould was like
breaking bread metaphorically.
Sorry.

On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 1:44 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Maybe I did not word it properly, but I thought it was obvious that it
> should not be taken literally.
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 1:35 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And maybe not for bread as food as even Mike’s quoted explication allows.
>> Which is where I came in.
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Feb 28, 2024, at 1:30 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Of course it's a metaphor, and not just for the unpalatability of mould.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 5:55 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> okay.....I would still argue it is a metaphorical associative allusion
>>> to 'breaking bread'.....
>>> since there can be little meaning to "green damp mould" as edible....
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 3:06 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It seems I'm not the only one who thinks so. I found this as the first
>>>> hit in google books search for "green damp mould":
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Pen_of_Iron/kDKrkyn-1DkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22green+damp+mould%22&pg=PA61
>>>>
>>>> The peculiar final gesture of this paragraph is another instance of
>>>> Melville’s propensity to introduce jocular half-notes into dark
>>>> meditations. The person who skirts around the ineluctable reality of death
>>>> and despair is unsuited “to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green
>>>> damp mould with unfathomable wondrous Solomon.” This is, I think, a kind of
>>>> macabre joke. Solomon was the wisest of men, not for the legendary reason
>>>> given in the Book of Kings, but because he wrote Ecclesiastes and the
>>>> gloomier verses of the Book of Proverbs. Spiritual conviviality with
>>>> wondrous Solomon would be a meeting in a graveyard, where instead of
>>>> breaking bread together with him one would break green damp mould.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 1:39 AM Mike Jing <
>>>> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I agree, but I thought "break the green damp mould with" was fashioned
>>>>> after the phrase "to break bread with" as a humorous way of saying it. I
>>>>> could be totally wrong though.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 7:03 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I think that "break the green damp mould" means to sit with
>>>>>> Solomon...it repeats with
>>>>>> this real image that man is not fitted to sit down on tomb-stones
>>>>>> [even some] so old
>>>>>> as to have green damp mould on them....
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 6:49 AM Mike Jing <
>>>>>> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> From Chapter 96:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing
>>>>>>> grave-yards,
>>>>>>> and would rather talk of operas than hell;  calls Cowper, Young,
>>>>>>> Pascal,
>>>>>>> Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men;  and throughout a care-free
>>>>>>> lifetime
>>>>>>> swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that
>>>>>>> man is
>>>>>>> fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould
>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>> unfathomably wondrous Solomon.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What does "passing wise" mean here?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Also, I assume "break the green damp mould with" means to "break
>>>>>>> bread
>>>>>>> with", but since Solomon is long dead, so there's only mould on the
>>>>>>> grave,
>>>>>>> is that correct?
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>