Not P but Moby-Dick (85)

[Michael Bailey]

 I think you’re right - it’s the whale, not the terror

The alternative would be that the terror existed before & will outlast the
“humane ages” which doesn’t really make sense since it’s the humans who
feel the terror.


This is one of those passages where I wonder if Melville isn’t being a
little tongue-in-cheek -

If the mere sight of the skeleton arouses terror in him, then how do people
steel themselves into hunting them?

A little higher up I’m sure you noticed Melville having a little joke:

when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to
this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it
said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of
these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of
Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous
lexicographer's uncommon personal bulkmore fitted him to compile a lexicon
to be used by a whale author like me.




- there’s a sprightliness about a lot of his mock-scholastic descriptions.

My guess is that, among his many feelings of awe, fascination, businesslike
hunting details, and even some Aristotelian “pity and terror”, he does feel
a horror or at least a tingle when contemplating whales (etymologically,
“horror” is related to “hair standing on end”) and includes that feeling as
he’s grappling with & conveying mixed emotions.




On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 5:55 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From Chapter 104:
>
> I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the
> unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must
> needs exist after all humane ages are over.
>
> Here, "the unspeakable terrors of the whale" refers to the whale itself, as
> a symbol of terror, is that correct? So "which" actually refers to the
> whale.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>