I've been reading Moby Dick. And know that when I say I've been "reading" Moby Dick, what I actually mean is that I've been sleeping with Moby Dick.
Over the past few weeks of this less than exciting Melville English class, my roommates have gotten used to not seeing me in the evenings.
"What are you doing tonight?" they ask.
"GETTING DICK!" I bellow obnoxiously, thumping up the stairs to my bedroom with an 8-pound book under my arm. I am always very ladylike and mature.
But most of the time I don't "get dick." My honeymoon phase with Moby is quite over, and most of the time I end up just going to sleep.
To that one guest-lecturer who looked like Bryan Cranston and cried with passion while discussing Chapter 42: I'm sorry. I'm sorry if my dirty mind and blasé attitude seem to desecrate this Great Work of maritime fiction. But I'm not the only one with a dirty mind when it comes to Moby Dick. Nineteenth-century American novelist Hermann Melville, I'm looking at you.
For those of you who have never read it, Moby Dick is about a bunch of SEAMEN hunting for a SPERM whale. (Children, stop reading this.) These seamen run around with long harpoons they like to poke in people and things. They are constantly on the lookout for spouting blowholes and, according to Melville, they "ejaculate" words of surprise whenever they see one.
Here's some more hard evidence:
I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but from what I gather, somebody's pole went down after they had filled several tubs with (fragrant?) sperm. Then something queer happened, and some guy lost his grasp on the tackles suspending the head, and it was all very oozy.
Want to know what happens next? No? You're throwing up? I'll tell you anyway.
Next, one of the seamen falls into a GIANT HOLE inside the head of a dead whale. The men watch it happen: "Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea" (Melville, 1159).
This is Fifty Shades of Grey shit. How are we allowed to read this in school?
The plot continues to thicken. Lots of boring-ass paintings are described, Melville claims that whales are fish, and a crazy guy with one leg yells a lot. Then this happens:
Sorry for giving away all the good parts.
I have to write a paper on this novel, but somehow, I don't think my "Moby Dick is an allegory for gay sex" thesis will go over well. Because for several weeks now, I have sat inside a dreary little classroom listening to men in scarves talk about Melville's manipulation of language through metaphor. I entertain myself by doodling whales, giggling at the word "sperm," and imagining Melville looking down from heaven and mocking us. He wrote this Great Work of American Homoerotic Fiction, and nobody gets it.
Melville, I get you. Squeeze those oozy tackles and do yo' thang.
https://www.facebook.com/AnnamalCrackersBlog
@AnnamalHalligan
Over the past few weeks of this less than exciting Melville English class, my roommates have gotten used to not seeing me in the evenings.
"What are you doing tonight?" they ask.
"GETTING DICK!" I bellow obnoxiously, thumping up the stairs to my bedroom with an 8-pound book under my arm. I am always very ladylike and mature.
But most of the time I don't "get dick." My honeymoon phase with Moby is quite over, and most of the time I end up just going to sleep.
To that one guest-lecturer who looked like Bryan Cranston and cried with passion while discussing Chapter 42: I'm sorry. I'm sorry if my dirty mind and blasé attitude seem to desecrate this Great Work of maritime fiction. But I'm not the only one with a dirty mind when it comes to Moby Dick. Nineteenth-century American novelist Hermann Melville, I'm looking at you.
For those of you who have never read it, Moby Dick is about a bunch of SEAMEN hunting for a SPERM whale. (Children, stop reading this.) These seamen run around with long harpoons they like to poke in people and things. They are constantly on the lookout for spouting blowholes and, according to Melville, they "ejaculate" words of surprise whenever they see one.
Here's some more hard evidence:
Want to know what happens next? No? You're throwing up? I'll tell you anyway.
Next, one of the seamen falls into a GIANT HOLE inside the head of a dead whale. The men watch it happen: "Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea" (Melville, 1159).
This is Fifty Shades of Grey shit. How are we allowed to read this in school?
The plot continues to thicken. Lots of boring-ass paintings are described, Melville claims that whales are fish, and a crazy guy with one leg yells a lot. Then this happens:
Sorry for giving away all the good parts.
I have to write a paper on this novel, but somehow, I don't think my "Moby Dick is an allegory for gay sex" thesis will go over well. Because for several weeks now, I have sat inside a dreary little classroom listening to men in scarves talk about Melville's manipulation of language through metaphor. I entertain myself by doodling whales, giggling at the word "sperm," and imagining Melville looking down from heaven and mocking us. He wrote this Great Work of American Homoerotic Fiction, and nobody gets it.
Melville, I get you. Squeeze those oozy tackles and do yo' thang.
https://www.facebook.com/AnnamalCrackersBlog
@AnnamalHalligan
I had to read good ol Moby freshman year...there's a whole theory about how Meville wrote it as a love letter to Nathanial Hawthorne.
ReplyDeleteThat certainly makes sense! And yet I wonder if Hawthorne would have preferred just a traditional perfumed love letter... and not a massive whaling epic.
DeleteThis would make the most interesting paper. Turn it in.
ReplyDelete