/lit/ - Literature

>>23055469
and

Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.

>“I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!”

>The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.

>>21910992
I forgot how good that chapter is.

The greatest tale of the sea ever told.

>pure fucking kino

And what was his crew's problem that drove them to follow this literal schizo to the grave?

>>20683403
Ahab was a hero and in fact a man that could be looked up to as a figure to emulate.
He probably died with a smile

>On the second day, a sail drew near,
nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her
retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.
My God what a book

He was right about everything

Ishmael is right, the sea exerts a strange attraction to all men. So, what is your favorite book about the sea, /lit/?

Whales.
They are fascinating creatures of goliath proportions that roam the Earth’s oceans, occasionally sighted by people breaching the water or blowing water out. They’re big, harmless, lovable creatures who only act on their nature and their instincts. Who could hate whales? Or even a single whale?
Captain Ahab could.
The most famous character from Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, Ahab is one of my favorite characters in literature, and I think he is one of the most nuanced and human characters to ever be written. He is a paradoxical character: he can be admired but should not be emulated. He is cruel and cold but he shows that he is capable of sentiment and affection. He is deceptively straightforward and deceptively complex. He is, in other words, human.
Ahab’s most admirable quality is also probably his only admirable quality: his monomaniacal passion and lust for revenge against the whale who chewed off his leg. Everyone aboard the Pequod knows that Ahab wants to kill Moby-Dick, and that becomes their goal as well, to take down the legendary sperm whale. Ahab is absolutely hell-bent on killing this whale: he gradually rejects more and more of his humanity in his chase for the whale, starting from something as small as throwing his smoking pipe away to having a new harpoon made for the express purpose of killing the whale to refusing to aid another ship in searching for sailors they lost fighting the whale. (1/2)

So now that the dust has settled, we can all agree that the whale was the embodiment of death, right?

>>17862140
>Sing O Muse, you blithering bitch, your profane song
>that has so many times led the righteous and the just
>along the path which goes down to annihilation.
>Sing of all the good sons you murdered, Whore,
>For the glory of no god in particular.
>Sing them down to their doom to the tune of so many sailor-songs,
>To the undersea, where so many mothers
>Would give their lives to lay them down.
>Sing my doom if you like, you heartless bitch, I couldn't care less what you do.

what are some books similar to Moby Dick? more along the cosmic horror/meaningless search for truth aspect

I cannot decide for the life of me if this is good of bad philosophy.

"Another of it's vestigial limbs carried over to other, more complex societal forms ways is physical currency, which changes the perceptive nature of desire still contained in the act of seeing the desired object present in barter economies to a perception of possibilities of desire uncontained in the object-in-itself, but represented by other objects, i.e. currency. This brings a change in the dialectical process of the desiring being (that which is to say, man) and the desired object. Desire shifts from the imaginable possibilities of the object to the perceived possibilities of it's representative signifier - an abstraction of an abstract desire which paves the path to further abstractions, such as the one of digital currencies. The problem the state once had with the desire of it's population is then overstepped, as the system shifts from a linguistical perspective of imaginative desire to a logical-numerical one, choice becomes binary - either the subject works to obtain the representative forms of it's desire (by actively ignoring other abstract desires) or he remains with his desires unfullfilled, which in case of baser ones, such as the desire for the continuation of life, results in death. Under neoliberalism the contemporary subject became akin to captain Ahab, who without the understanding of it's real desires searches for symbolic compensation of the unsublimated in a physical object that embodies the projection of it's desires, a hunger to consume and destroy that ends only in death. Only that in this time, the whale is also illusory."

So, having read everything from Travelogues of the 16th and 17th century to Hugo's Workers of the Sea and everything and anything related to Sunless Sea, is there anything remaining to nautical literature, anons?

Besides Melville, that is.

Is Moby Dick really an example of "queer literature".
I understand that Queequeg and Ishmael were pretty close and that there was an awkward scene where the crew were enjoying squeezing lumps out of the spermaceti oil.......but is it really faggotry?

Who's the best lit character?


For me it's ol' captain Ahab. I feel he is almost the ultimate description of the human condition. When I read Moby Dick, I feel compassion for him, although he doesn't do the right thing.

>Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!

>“Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e’en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whenceso’er I came; whereso’er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there’s that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.”

>“I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can then grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling in some stunning ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I worship thee!”

I think I've read this passage so many times I've got it memorized

>>13878365
Based, what was your favorite part of the book anon?

The novel has no future.
The prose-poem however...

>>12992713
Literally and unironically me, except instead of the captain of a whaler, I'm a janitor.

>>12988726
Though the digressions may test your patience, it's all part of the hunt, building the anticipation that pays off in a finale that is one the most sublime moments in all of literature.