Okay, let's unpack this. I want you to imagine,
just for a moment, that you are standing on the
absolute edge of your life. And I don't mean
that metaphorically. I mean you are standing
right on the precipice of the known world. Behind
you is everything safe, your job, your warm bed,
you know, the predictable, boring rhythm of land.
Oh, my routine. The routine. And ahead of you,
it's just a void. It is a vast, freezing, howling
ocean. And it's filled with monsters that are
quite literally large enough to smash a wooden
ship into toothpicks. That's a terrifying image
when you frame it that way. I mean, most of us,
when we stand on that edge, we take a step back.
Of course. We choose safety. You choose safety.
Exactly. But imagine you don't step back. Imagine
you look at that black water and you think, yes.
That that is the cure. Right. You sign your life
away for three, maybe four years to live in a
floating wooden factory that just smells of blood
and grease just to chase the biggest creature
on Earth. That is the headspace we are entering
today. And that distinction is so vital for the
characters we're looking at today. This leap
into the unknown isn't. It's not a career move.
It's not a gap year. Right. It is a psychological
necessity. It's a survival mechanism. Welcome
to the Deep Dive. Today we are tackling a beast
of a text, a true leviathan. We are looking at
the opening movement chapters 1 through 24 of
Herman Melville's Moby Dick or The Whale. And
I can feel people tensing up already. I know.
But before you have flashbacks to high school
English class and, you know. Dry symbolism. Let
me just stop you. We aren't just retelling a
story about a fish. Not at all. In fact, if you
read these opening chapters with fresh eyes,
you realize the whale is barely even a concept
yet. It's a rumor. A phantom. A phantom, exactly.
What we're really looking at is a singular, incredibly
detailed account of a man named Ishmael. We're
examining the anatomy of a decision. Why does
a man abandon civilization? It's a story of deep
depression, strange economics, and probably the
most beautiful, unlikely friendship in American
literature. And the vibe. We have to set the
scene for you because it is so specific. We aren't
in the modern world. We are in mid -19th century
New England. It's winter. Freezing. It's freezing
cold. The streets are gritty. And the entire
world runs on whale oil. That is the crucial
context we always forget. I mean, we live in
a world of electricity and LEDs. But in 1851,
if you wanted light in the darkness, if you wanted
to read a book after sunset, if you wanted a
lighthouse to function, you needed the whale.
This was the petroleum industry of its day. It
was. But imagine if drilling for oil required
you to row a small boat up to a living, breathing
dinosaur and just stab it with a spear. Yeah,
it puts the danger of modern industry into some
perspective. So our mission today is to unpack
the psychology of the loomings, that initial
urge to go to sea. We're going to analyze the
strange societal mix of whaling port like New
Bedford, meet the cast of characters boarding
the ship Pequod, and figure out why this 170
-year -old story feels so incredibly urgent right
now. And it matters because it's a look at human
nature under extreme pressure. It is about the
confrontation with the other people and things
that are terrifyingly different from us. Right.
And ultimately, it's about how we try to find
meaning in a universe that seems largely indifferent
to whether we live or die. So let's jump right
in. Segment one, the psychology of loomings.
The book opens with, I mean, maybe the three
most famous words in literature. Call me Ishmael.
It is so deceptive in its simplicity, isn't it?
Call me Ishmael. I mean, stop and think about
what that actually means. He doesn't say, my
name is Ishmael. Right. He says, call me. Call
me. It immediately sets up this specific relationship
between the narrator and us, the reader. It feels
like an alias. It feels like a persona he's adopting
just for this story. It's like he's inviting
us into a secret. And the name itself carries
so much baggage. Oh, massive baggage. Biblically,
Ishmael was the outcast. The son of Hagar, you
know, sent away into the desert. The wanderer,
the man whose hand was against every man and
every man's hand against him. So before he even
tells us a single fact about his life, he has
told us his identity. I am the exile. I am the
one who doesn't fit. Precisely. And he tells
us right away why he's doing this. He doesn't
say he wants to get rich or see the world. He
says, it is a way I have of driving off the spleen
and regulating the circulation. Right. And he
describes this very specific, very heavy state
of mind. He talks about finding himself growing
grim about the mouth. I love that phrase. grim
about the mouth. It's such a physical description
of sadness. You can literally see the frown,
the set jaw. It's so evocative. But then he goes
even deeper. He says, whenever it is a damp,
drizzly November in my soul. That is just poetry.
A November in my soul. We've all felt that, right?
That gray, heavy, penetrating feeling where nothing
seems to have color or warmth? Absolutely. It's
a description of clinical depression, really.
And Ishmael describes the symptoms of this soul
sickness with frightening clarity. He says he
finds himself involuntarily pausing before coffin
warehouses and bringing up the rear of every
funeral I meet. That is dark. He's literally
stalking funerals. He's drawn to the imagery
of death. It's very dark. It implies a fascination
with the end. And he admits that his hypos, his
hypochondria or low spirits, get such an upper
hand of him that he requires a strong moral principle
to prevent him from deliberately stepping into
the street and methodically knocking people's
hats off. So he's not just sad. He's aggressive.
He's pent up. He's got this violent impulse he's
trying to control. He is volatile. And this is
the key to the whole opening. realizes he is
dangerous to himself and others and his solution
isn't therapy which didn't really exist and it
isn't medication it's the ocean he calls it his
substitute for pistol and ball precisely which
is so stark he references cato the roman philosopher
who committed suicide by falling on his sword
ishmael is saying very clearly I am suicidal,
but instead of killing myself, I am going to
throw myself into the wildest, most monstrous
environment possible. He quietly takes to the
ship. Yeah, it's a form of passive suicide or
maybe a gamble with fate. You know, if the ocean
kills me, fine. If it spares me, I'm cured. But
he argues he isn't alone in this feeling. He
pivots to this beautiful observation of the water
gazers in Manhattan. This is one of my favorite
passages in the entire book. He describes the
city of Manhattan, belted round by wharves. And
he asks us to just look at the crowds. It's Sunday.
Commerce has stopped. And what do people do?
They go to the water. Thousands of them. Thousands
of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Yeah.
He says they are posted like silent sentinels.
They leave their desks, their counters, their
lath and plaster lives, which I guess means their
artificial indoor lives. Yeah, their sheetrock
lives. And they just go stand at the edge of
the water and they just look out. What fascinates
me here is the insight Ishmael offers on why
we do this. He suggests there is a magic in water.
He says meditation and water are wedded forever.
You can't separate them. He even brings up the
myth of Narcissus. He does. Narcissus, the figure
who fell in love with his own reflection in the
fountain and then drowned trying to embrace it.
Ishmael suggests that what we all see in the
water, in rivers and oceans, is the ungraspable
phantom of life. It's the key to everything.
We are looking for something deep within ourselves
that we can't quite catch, and we feel like the
answer is in the deep. So Ishmael decides to
go. He's going to chase that phantom. But he
makes a point of saying he doesn't go as a passenger.
He goes as a simple sailor. This is a critical
distinction in the text about status and pride.
He notes that passengers pay, but sailors are
paid. He calls it the difference between paying
and being paid. And he has this little riff on
how weird it is that we look down on being paid.
He says the act of paying is an infliction. It
hurts to part with money. But being paid, that's
urbane. That's sophisticated. He's flipping the
whole class structure on its head. He mentions
he was a schoolmaster before this. Right, he
was a teacher. Making the tallest boy stand in
awe of you. And now he's going to have to jump
when some captain says jump. He calls it the
universal thump. The universal thump. It's a
very stoic philosophy. Everyone gets thumped
by someone. He says, who ain't a slave? Tell
me that. By submitting to the discipline of the
ship. By giving up his ego and just being a set
of hands, he's actually finding a weird kind
of freedom. He's letting go of the burden of
being someone. Exactly. But there's also this
sense of destiny here. He talks about the fates.
Yes, the invisible police officer of the fates.
He imagines his whaling voyage as just a brief
interlude in a grand cosmic playbill he listed
out like a theater program. Grand contested election
for the presidency, whaling voyage by one Ishmael,
bloody battle in Afghanistan. It's so funny that
he puts his little trip right between these huge
world historical events. It suggests he feels
like a puppet. He thinks he's making a choice,
but he suspects he's being cajoled into it by
the stage managers of the universe and the motivation
they use to cajole him. The whale. The great
whale himself. He is obsessed. He talks about
the portentous and mysterious monster and wild
and distant seas. And that one specific image,
one grand hooded phantom like a snow hill in
the air. That is Moby Dick. though he doesn't
name him yet. That white mountain of whale is
the magnet pulling him out of his damp November
soul. He wants to see the thing that nobody else
has seen. So, driven by this phantom, he packs
his carpet bag and heads to New Bedford. And
this is where the atmosphere gets really, really
thick. Segment two, the spider inn and the atmosphere
of New Bedford. We have to talk about the setting
here. Ishmael arrives in December. He describes
it as... bitingly cold. Not a welcoming tourist
town. No, he talks about blocks of blackness
instead of houses. It's gritty. It's industrial.
And Ishmael is broke. He is looking for the cheapest
place possible. He passes the crossed harpoons
and the swordfish in, but they look too jolly
and expensive. He says the windows are glowing.
Right. They look warm. He needs somewhere grim
that matches his wallet and his mood. And he
finds it, the Spouter Inn. And the landlord is
named Peter Coffin. You just can't make that
up. Peter Coffin feels like a bad omen from the
jump. It's certainly on the nose. The building
is described as gable -ended and leaning, standing
on a bleak corner where the wind, which he calls
uroclodon, is just howling. And uroclodon. That's
a reference, isn't it? A deep one. It's from
the Bible. It's the name of the storm that shipwrecked
St. Paul. So again, Melville is just layering
on the doom. He goes inside, and the first thing
that grabs his attention, and the listener's
imagination, is this painting in the entry. He
spends pages on this painting. This painting
is a masterpiece of confusion. Ishmael calls
it chaos bewitched. It's so besmoked and defaced
by years of whale oil fumes and time that he
can't tell what it is. He's just staring at it,
trying to figure it out. He spends all this time
analyzing it, coming up with theories. He asks
if it's the Black Sea in a gale, a blasted heath.
The unnatural combat of the four primal elements.
But eventually he figures it out. It's a whale.
It is. It depicts a ship in a hurricane, half
-foundered, and an exasperated whale purposing
to spring clean over the craft. Impaling itself
on the mastheads. It's a picture of mutual destruction.
The whale destroys the ship, but the ship kills
the whale. My God. It's the entire plot of the
book hanging in the lobby. Exactly. It's the
thesis statement hanging right there as a warning
sign that nobody reads. And then he moves to
the bar, which is just as ominous. It's shaped
like a right whale's head. The actual jawbone.
Yes. The vast arched bone of the whale's jaw,
so wide a coach could drive through it. And inside,
the landlord, Peter Coffin, whom Ishmael calls
Jonah, is serving up drinks. And Ishmael says
he sells deliriums in death. Not rum and gin.
Deliriums and death. So Ishmael needs a bed.
But the inn is full. This is the classic travel
nightmare. This is the accommodation crisis.
The landlord tells him he has to share a bed.
And not just with anyone. With a harpreneur.
And the landlord starts teasing him, right? He
knows Ishmael is a greenhorn. He says the harpreneur
is dark complexioned. He eats only rare steaks.
And this is the part that freaks Ishmael out.
He's currently out peddling his head. Which Ishmael
takes completely literally. Completely literally.
He thinks the man is out selling shrunken human
heads. He is terrified. He imagines some kind
of maniac. He tries to sleep on a bench in the
common room, but it's too cold, too hard. So
he gives in. He resigns himself to the room.
He goes up, looks around. He sees a savage's
equipment, a harpoon, a hammock. And then he
sees this poncho thing that looks like a doormat.
And he tries it on? He does and says he looks
like a sight, but the tension is building. He
gets into bed, trembling. And then late at night,
the harpooner returns. This brings us to segment
three, the meeting of Ishmael and Kwee Kwee.
And honestly, this scene plays out like a horror
movie that slowly turns into a sitcom. It really
does. Ishmael is pretending to be asleep, peeking
out from the sheets. The stranger enters and
Ishmael gets a look at him. The face is purplish
yellow and it's covered in these large black
squares. Tattoos. But Ishmael has never seen
Polynesian tattoos before. He thinks the guy's
been in a fight or is sick with some horrible
tropical disease. Then the man takes off his
beaver hat and he has no hair, just a little
scalp knot. Ishmael realizes this is a savage
from the South Seas, a cannibal. In Ishmael's
1850s worldview, this is the ultimate other,
the most terrifying thing you could imagine sharing
a bed with. And then the ritual starts. This
is what really pushes Ishmael over the edge.
The guy takes out a little wooden idol. Yo -Yo.
And he builds a small fire in the fireplace with
shavings and starts praying to it. Ishmael is
watching this from under the covers, just petrified.
He's watching a pagan ritual in a Christian inn
in Massachusetts. And then the cannibal Kwee
Kwee gets into bed. And not just that, he brings
his tomahawk pipe with him. That's the last straw.
Ishmael loses it. He just starts screaming, landlord,
watch, angels, save me. And Queequeg is just
as scared. Imagine you get into your own bed
and the blankets just start screaming at you.
He flourishes the tomahawk yelling, The landlord
has to come in and calm everyone down. He explains
Queequeg is harmless. He wouldn't harm a hair
of your head. And here is the pivot point. This
is where the entire story shifts. Ishmael looks
at Queequeg, who is now just sitting there calmly
smoking his pipe. And he thinks, Better sleep
with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
That is a profound shift in perspective. It's
massive. He's realizing that civilization isn't
about appearance or dogma. It's about behavior.
He's contrasting this palm sober man with the
rowdy, dangerous sailors he's seen in the port.
So he turns in. The next morning is hilarious.
Ishmael wakes up and Queequeg has his arm thrown
over him. In a matrimonial embrace. Ishmael says
he couldn't tell Queequeg's tattooed arm from
the patchwork quilt. They're blended together
visually, which is a great metaphor for how their
identities are going to merge. And the tomahawk
is sleeping between them like a baby. It's such
a tender image for two grown men, one a supposed
cannibal and one a former school teacher. Queequeg
wakes up and he is incredibly polite. He gets
dressed and he puts his boots on under the bed
for privacy. I love that detail. And then he
shaves with his harpoon. Shaves with his harpoon.
That is a detail that sticks with you. It establishes
his toughness, sure, but also his practicality.
It's his multi -tool. But the bond really forms
when Ishmael watches Queequeg later in the day.
He sees him just sitting there, counting pages
in a book, whistling, looking just completely
content in his own skin. And Ishmael says, you
cannot hide the soul. Right. He sees that underneath
all the tattoos and the savage exterior, there
is an honest, kind heart. He decides, I'll try
a pagan friend, since Christian kindness has
proved but hollow courtesy. That is a stinging
indictment of his own society. And they get married.
Ishmael uses that word. In Queequeg's culture,
they become bosom friends, which involves smoking
the tomahawk pipe together and splitting all
their money. Queequeg just gives him half his
silver $30. It's a total unconditional commitment.
They're a team now. They're a team and they share
a bed again that night. But Ishmael has this
moment of theological doubt. He's a good Presbyterian.
Queequeg worships a little wooden idol. Can he
join in? Can he participate in this pagan ritual?
It's a real crisis of faith for him. But he works
through it. This is a theological compromise.
It's one of the most generous humanistic moments
in the book. Ishmael reasons. What is worship?
It is to do God's will. And what is God's will?
To treat my neighbor as I would be treated. To
do unto others. Exactly. So he thinks if I want
Kwee Kwee to join my worship, I should join his.
So to be a good Christian, he has to participate
in idolatry. He kisses the idol's nose. It's
beautiful logic. He essentially says, I'll be
an idolater so I can be a good Christian. It
creates a bond that transcends culture, race,
and religion. He prizes the human connection
over dogmatic purity. So who is this guy? I mean,
who is Queequeg? Segment four. Queequeg's biography
and character. Because he's not just some random
sailor. No, he's royalty. He is the son of a
king on the island of Rokavoko. Which is not
down in any map. True places never are. I love
that line. It's a classic Melville line, isn't
it? Queequeg's backstory is fascinating. He had
this burning desire to seek Christendom. He wanted
to learn the arts of civilization so he could
go back and help his people improve their happiness.
So he stowed away. Basically. He climbed up the
side of a visiting ship and just refused to get
off. He demanded to be taken. But he gets disillusioned
pretty quickly. Very quickly. He observes the
sailors, the whalers, the Christians. He sees
that they can be just as wicked and miserable
as any heathen. So he decides not to return home
yet because he has been stained by Christianity.
He feels he's not pure enough to ascend the throne.
There's a funny story about the wheelbarrow that
illustrates his confusion with our arts. Yes.
When he first got to Sag Harbor, he didn't know
how to use a wheelbarrow. So he strapped it to
his chest and then carried his... heavy sea chest
on top of it. And people laughed at him. They
did. But Queequeg counters this with a story
of a white captain visiting his island for a
wedding feast. The captain washed his hands in
the communal punch bowl. It cuts both ways. Manners
are relative. Civilized is in the eye of the
beholder. Precisely. Melville is constantly forcing
us to question what civilized actually means.
But the real test of Queequeg's character comes
on the little schooner they take to Nantucket.
There's a bumpkin on board who starts mocking
him. Mimicking him behind his back, making fun
of his appearance. Queequeg, who's this incredibly
powerful guy, just flips him over, handles him
with ease, but doesn't actually hurt him. Then
a moment later, the main boom of the sail swings
loose and knocks that same bumpkin overboard
into the freezing water. Karma. Does Queequeg
say serves you right? Not at all. He acts instantly.
First, he secures the boom, saving the ship first,
which is the professional thing to do. Then he
dives into the freezing water, swims to the bottom,
saves the very man who was mocking him and hauls
him up. He's just totally cool about it. Totally
cool. He treats it like a minor inconvenience.
And then he delivers his philosophy. It's a mutual
joint stock world, he says. We cannibals must
help these Christians. Oh, that line is just
dripping with irony. The savage is the one acting
with Christian charity to save the so -called
Christian. It's the core message of these early
chapters. Moral superiority has nothing to do
with your origin or your religion. It has everything
to do with your actions. So they finally arrive
in Nantucket, segment five. And Ishmael describes
Nantucket with such reverence. He calls it a
hillock and elbow of sand. He says the inhabitants
are sea hermits who own the oceans like emperor's
own empires. He talks about how they've divided
up the whole globe. Let America be the garden,
but the sea is ours. And before they ship out,
they go to the whaleman's chapel. This is a heavy.
heavy scene it is it's a stormy sleety day the
chapel is filled with silent sailors and widows
and ishmael looks at the tablets on the walls
they're all memorials to men lost at sea the
inscriptions are brutal towed out of sight by
whales lost in a typhoon stove by a whale it
drives home the stark reality there is death
in this business this is not a game it's a total
reality check you aren't just going on an adventure
you are going to a place where there are no gravestones
and then father Mapple enters. The preacher.
And he's a former harpooner himself. A giant
of a man. And the pulpit. We have to talk about
the pulpit. It's shaped like a ship's prow. And
it has no stairs. It has a rope ladder. And Mapple
climbs up the ladder hand over hand like a sailor.
And then, this is the key detail, he pulls the
ladder up after him. He cuts himself off from
the congregation. He is spiritually isolated
in his little Quebec, as Ishmael calls it. He
is alone with God and the truth. And he delivers
the sermon. The topic, of course, is Jonah. Jonah
and the whale. It had to be. But Mapple's interpretation
is very specific. He says Jonah's sin wasn't
just fear. It was disobedience, a willful disobedience.
He tried to flee from God's command. He tried
to go to Tarshish when he was ordered in Nineveh.
He tried to run away from his duty. And the whale
was the punishment, but it was also his salvation.
Mapple talks about the nature of repentance.
He says true repentance is being grateful for
the punishment, not just clamoring for a pardon.
You have to embrace the consequences. And the
final lesson. The lesson for the pilot, which
is Mapple, and by extension, any moral leader,
is to preach truth to the face of falsehood,
no matter how hard it is. Woe to him who seeks
to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed
them into a gale. That is a powerful, dangerous
line. It means do not offer false comfort. Do
not try to smooth things over when reality is
a storm. You have to face the storm. It's a perfect
foreshadowing of the hard truths the Pequod is
about to face. You can't pour oil on Captain
Ahab's gale. Speaking of the Pequod, let's get
to the ship. Segment six, the ship and the owners.
So Queequeg's idol, Yojo, insists that Ishmael
has to be the one to choose the ship. Queequeg
says Yojo has told him the selection must be
made by the white man, so... Ishmael has the
responsibility. So Ishmael tours the docks. He
looks at three ships, the Devil Dam, the Tipit,
and the Pequod. And he chooses the Pequod. And
what a ship. Ishmael calls it a cannibal of a
craft. It's old, weather -stained, melancholy,
but the details are just gruesome. It is decked
with whale bones. The tiller is a whale's jawbone.
The pins for the ropes are polished whale teeth.
It's a ship made of death. It's a machine built
from the bones of its previous victims. It's
ancient and scarred. And on deck, he meets the
owners, Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad. These
two are a great pair, a real comedy duo. They
are a study in contrast. Peleg is gruff, profane,
practical. He literally uses his leg to kick
people to make them move faster. Bildad, on the
other hand, is a Quaker. He's pious. He's always
reading the Bible. He doesn't swear. But he's
the stingy one. Oh, extremely. He's a hard taskmaster.
Ishmael says he's shed tons of Leviathan gore
in his life but pretends to be this man of peace.
The negotiation for Ishmael's pay his lay is
hilarious. Okay, explain the lay for us again.
What is that? So whalers weren't paid wages.
They were paid a fraction of the net profits
of the voyage. If the trip failed, if you came
back with no oil, you got nothing for three years
of work. Wow. So it's commission only. The ultimate
risk. The ultimate risk. So Ishmael, being naive,
hopes for maybe the 275th lay Bildad. The pious
one suggests the 777th lay. He cites scripture
to justify. He does. He says, lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth. He uses the
Bible to try and scam Ishmael out of a fair wage.
It's a brilliant critique of how religion can
be used to justify capitalism. Peleg, the bad
guy, fights him on it. He's actually fairer,
and they settle on the 300th lay. Which is still
tiny, but better than the 777. Then Kwee Kwee
has to sign up. And the owners are skeptical,
because he's a savage and a cannibal. They want
to know if he's a Christian. And Ishmael tries
to argue that Queequeg belongs to the first congregational
church of the world, which he says is the human
race. But the owners aren't buying it. Until
Queequeg acts. He spots a tiny drop of tar floating
on the water. Just a little speck. He jumps into
a whale boat, stands up, throws his harpoon right
over Bildad's head, scaring him to death, and
hits that tar spot dead center. Dead whale, he
says. That shuts them up immediately. Peleg says,
quick, Bildad, get the ship's papers. Competence
just overrides prejudice in that moment. They
sign him immediately. He signs with an X, which
is actually a copy of a tattoo on his arm. But
there's someone missing this whole time. Segment
seven, the mystery of Captain Ahab. We're 20
-something chapters in, and we haven't even seen
the captain of the ship. He's in his cabin. He
is the void at the center of the story so far.
Peleg is the one who describes him to Ishmael.
grand ungodly godlike man what a paradox isn't
it ungodly yet godlike it suggests this incredible
power this charisma but also a total lack of
christian morality peleg tells ishmael that ahab
has been in colleges and among cannibals he's
seen deeper wonders than most men and the injury
we have to talk about the leg yes on the last
voyage he lost his leg to a Monstrousest parmeseti,
a sperm whale. It just crunched it right off.
Peleg says Ahab is moody, savage, and in constant
pain. He calls it his bleeding stump. But he
defends him. He says Ahab has his humanities.
He has a young wife and a child back home. It's
a plea for sympathy. Peleg is trying to convince
himself as much as he's trying to convince Ishmael.
He knows Ahab is unstable, but he respects his
incredible skill as a whaler. But then we get
an even darker warning. We meet Elijah. The prophet.
This ragged, pox -marked stranger who accosts
Ishmael and Queen Quig on the street. He asks
if they've signed their souls away. He warns
them about Old Thunder. That's his nickname for
Ahab. He drops these cryptic, terrifying hints.
He asks, did you hear about him lying like dead
for three days? Or the deadly skirmish in Santa?
Or the silver calabash that he spits into? These
are all these dark rumors, but they build a mythology
of a man who has touched death and come back
wrong. He's not entirely human anymore. Elijah
acts like the chorus in a Greek tragedy, right?
He's the guy on the side of the road warning
of doom. Exactly. Ishmael dismisses him as A
humbug, just a crazy person. But we, the listener,
we know better. This isn't going to end well.
And Elijah keeps following them, just heightening
this sense of dread. Finally, it's Christmas
Day, segment eight. Departure and the Advocate.
And it's a short, cold Christmas. There's no
joy, no presents. They are just hauling anchor
in the bleak midwinter. And the hypocrisy of
the owners is on full display. Peleg is kicking
the men to make them work faster, cursing at
them. And Bildad is singing hymns. It's this
chaotic mix of violence and piety. And the farewells
are just funny. Bildad gives them last -minute
business advice. Watch the butter. Don't waste
the molasses. He's worried about his profit margin
right up to the very last second. And as they
leave, we get this quick, strange glimpse of
Bulkington again, the guy we saw briefly at the
Spouter Inn. This is a short chapter called The
Lee Shore, but it's philosophically dense. Ishmael
sees Bulkington at the helm, and he realizes
this man just got back from a four -year voyage,
and he's leaving again immediately. He hasn't
even spent a week on land. Why? Why not stay
on land? Rest. Because for Bulkington, the land
is scorching to his feet. Ishmael uses this concept
of the lee shore. In a storm, the land, the lee
shore, is the most dangerous place for a ship.
The wind blows you onto it and it wrecks you.
To survive, the ship must flee away from land
to the open ocean, the howling infinite. So safety
is actually in the dangerous place. Metaphorically,
yes. Ishmael suggests that for the independent
thinker, the land convention safety comfort dogma
is the real danger. It wrecks your soul. You
have to push out into the truth, even if it destroys
you. In landlessness alone resides the highest
truth. Wow. That is heavy. And it sets up the
stakes for the whole journey. They are leaving
the Lee shore. And then before we really get
going, Ishmael pauses the whole narrative to
defend his profession. The chapter is called
The Advocate. Right. He knows people look down
on whalers. They think they're butchers, that
they're dirty and unglamorous. And he argues
that they provide the light for the world. He
almost breaks the fourth wall here. He says,
you know, you're reading this book by the light
of whale oil. He brings up the economics. A $7
million annual harvest. 700 American vessels.
But he also argues for the prestige of exploration.
He says whalers explored the charts before Cook
or Vancouver. They opened up Australia and liberated
South America. He said they are the liberators
of Peru, Chile and Bolivia. Because they broke
the Spanish monopoly. He positions whaling not
just as a job, but as this heroic, empire -building,
world -changing enterprise. He says even Job
wrote about Leviathan. Alfred the Great wrote
about it. Edmund Burke praised it in Parliament.
He's saying we matter. We are the heroes of this
age. He's saying we are the engine of history.
And he needs to believe that because he's about
to sail directly into hell. So here we are. The
Pequot is plunging blindly into the lone Atlantic.
The land is gone. We have a cannibal, a schoolmaster,
a mysterious one -legged captain, and a prophecy
of doom. And we are headed for the deep. The
setup is complete. The tragedy has begun. That's
where we'll leave it for today. We've unpacked
the loomings, the psychology of the port, the
friendship, and the launch. It's a journey from
depression to obsession. I mean, Ishmael started
out wanting to knock people's hats off in Manhattan,
and now he's chasing the ultimate monster. He
has traded the damp November in his soul for
the howling infinite of the sea. So here's the
final thought for you to chew on. Think about
that lee shore concept we just discussed. Ishmael
says we have to flee the safety of land to find
truth in the howling infinite. It really raises
the question for all of us. What is the lee shore
in your life? What is the safe, comfortable place,
the routine, the easy opinion, the safe job that
is actually threatening your ability to really
live or to think freely? And the harder question,
are you brave enough to push off? Are you brave
enough to steer into the storm? Because that's
where the truth is supposed to be. Something
to mull over. We'll see you on the next Deep
Dive. Welcome to the debate. Today we are boarding
the Pequod. We're tackling the opening movement
of what some call the American Bible, Herman
Melville's Moby Dick or the whale. And we're
going to look strictly at the first. 24 chapters.
So from the moment Ishmael gets to New Bedford,
right up to the point the ship just plunges blindly
into the Atlantic winter. And it's a massive
text, right? It's often misunderstood as just
a fishing story. But the question we're wrestling
with today is actually quite sharp, and it really
concerns the very soul of the narrator. When
Ishmael signs his life away on that ship, What
is he actually doing? Is he embarking on some
grand metaphysical quest for the ungraspable
phantom of life? Or is he, as I'm going to argue,
joining a suicide pact? Is this a noble pursuit
of truth, or is it a grim industrial descent
into madness that's just masked by, well, flowery
language? I'm here to defend the voyage. My take
is that this journey is, to use Ishmael's own
phrase, a grand program of providence. It's a
heroic necessity. I mean, the sea here isn't
just water. It's the only force capable of liberating
the human soul from the crushing, gray dullness
of the land. And whaling, in this view, is a
high imperial profession that literally and metaphorically
lights the world. And I'm here to strip away
that romance. This narrative is, and he says
it quite explicitly, a substitute for pistol
and ball. It is a flight from what sounds like
clinical depression into a brutal, exploitative
industry run by hypocrites and completely shadowed
by doom. Ishmael isn't running towards God, he's
running away from the urge to kill himself. Well,
let's look at that urge right at the start. Chapter
1, Loomings. Call me Ishmael. It's the most famous
opening in literature. Sure, but look at why
he leaves. He talks about a damp, drizzly November
in his soul. He finds himself pausing before
coffin warehouses. Exactly. Coffin warehouses.
I mean, that is not the behavior of a man seeking
enlightenment. That is the behavior of a man
seeking an end. Catch the nuance there. He doesn't
succumb to that November. He takes action to
cure it. He says that meditation and water are
wedded forever. This is a profound psychological
insight. not a death wish. He observes that in
all rivers and oceans, we see the image of the
ungraspable phantom of life. So he isn't seeking
death. He's seeking the cure for the stagnation
of the spirit. He calls it a way to drive off
the spleen and regulate the circulation. It's
a philosophical necessity. The land is static.
The sea is dynamic. He wants to touch the infinite,
to experience what he calls the magnanimity of
the sea, which will permit no records. It's a
clean slate. You call it a clean slate? I call
it a desperate alternative to murder. You're
sort of glossing over the violence in his motivation.
Ishmael admits his dark moods, his hypos, get
such an upper hand of him that he requires a
strong moral principle to prevent him from, and
this is a direct quote, methodically knocking
people's hats off in the street. I mean, that
is a man who is barely holding it together. He
compares his going to sea to Cato throwing himself
upon his sword. That is a some phantom of life.
He's fleeing his own violent impulses. And look
where he runs to. He runs to New Bedford, the
wailing capital of the world. He runs to a frozen
hellscape. He gets there in December. It's bitingly
cold. The wind, which the text calls Eurocliden,
a biblical reference to a disastrous storm, is
howling. The streets are dreary blocks of blackness.
This isn't liberation. It's a punishment. I mean,
if this were a grand program, wouldn't it start
with a sunrise or something? Instead, it starts
with black frost and a bed at the spouter inn
that he has to share because the town is so crowded
with other desperate men. But that harshness
is the crucible. You can't have the transformation
without the pressure. And that brings us to the
first major piece of evidence that this is a
journey of redemption, not doom. Queequeg. If
this were a suicide mission, Ishmael would die
alone in that cold room. Instead, he finds the
most profound human connection of his life. He
finds a bedmaid because the landlord Peter Coffin,
I mean, again, the name is Coffin, is cheap and
overbooked the inn. He finds a bosom friend.
That's the chapter title. Look at the sociology
here. You have Ishmael, a Presbyterian schoolmaster,
and Quiqueg, a pagan cannibal harpenier. By all,
you know, 19th century standards, they should
be enemies. Or at the very least, there should
be a master -servant hierarchy. But what happens?
They share a bed. They share a pipe, the tomahawk.
They share money. Ishmael says, I felt a melting
in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened
hand were turned against the wolfish world. This
soothing savage had redeemed it. That is the
key word right there, redeemed. The voyage creates
a space where prejudice just dissolves. I think
you're mistaking trauma bonding for genuine enlightenment.
Let's look at how that relationship actually
starts. It starts in absolute terror. Ishmael
is paralyzed in that bed under the quilt. He
thinks this head -peddling purple rascal is going
to kill him. He's shouting for the landlord,
praying to angels to save him when Queequeg flourishes
that tomahawk. It's a scene of horror that plays
as comedy, but the underlying emotion is fear.
And this redemption you're talking about, it
leads Ishmael into absurdity. Look at chapter
17, the Ramadan. A difficult scene, I grant you,
but one that shows Ishmael's loyalty. It's not
just difficult, it's proof that this savage simplicity
isn't always noble. Kwee Kweg sits stiff as a
pike staff for 24 hours in a freezing room, balancing
his wooden idol, Yo -Jo, on his head. He goes
into a catatonic state. Ishmael has to break
down the door because he thinks Kwee Keg is dead.
He nearly kills himself through religious observance.
Ishmael tries to reason with him, tries to explain
that this is torture, but Kwee Keg is, well,
unreachable. This suggests that the alien world
Ishmael is entering isn't liberating. It's potentially
self -destructive and, frankly, irrational. But
you're focusing on the ritual and missing the
humanity. Who saves whom? In Chapter 13, on the
schooner to Nantucket, a bumpkin mocks Queequeg.
He mimics his movements behind his back. Then
the boom swings and that same bumpkin is swept
overboard. Does the savage let him drown? No.
Queequeg dives into the freezing water to save
the very man who insulted him. That is moral
superiority. Ishmael says all hands voted Queequeg
a noble Trump. He compares him to George Washington.
He says it's a mutual joint stock world. We cannibals
must help these Christians. The voyage creates
a democracy of spirit that simply does not exist
on land. It's a democracy of the desperate. And
consider the cost of admission to this joint
stock world. Ishmael has to abandon his own identity.
He ends up worshipping the wooden idol Yojo with
Quigreg. He says, I must turn idolater. He justifies
it with some, you know, logic about the will
of God. But essentially, he is melting, as you
said, but he's melting away his own culture and
his own grounding because of his isolation. And
if we want to talk about grounding or the lack
of it, we have to talk about the spiritual center
of New Bedford, the Whaleman's Chapel. A crucial
moment, yes. This is where the metaphysical stakes
are set. Father Mapple. Father Mapple, you want
to talk about a grand providence? Well, look
at the walls of that chapel. I see the walls,
but I also see the pulpit. Chapter 9, The Sermon.
I mean, this is one of the most powerful speeches
in American literature. Father Mapple, a former
harponeer, climbs a rope ladder into a pulpit
that's shaped like a ship's prow, and then he
drags the ladder up after him. Which isolates
him completely. He cuts off his connection to
the congregation. which symbolizes a spiritual
withdrawal to find strength. He is cutting himself
off from the world to speak the truth. And what
is that truth? The lesson of Jonah, the ultimate
submission. He says, delight is to him who against
the proud gods and commodores of this earth ever
stands forth his own inexorable self. It's a
call to conscience. It's a rejection of easy
comfort. The voyage is a path to this top gallant
delight. It's about facing the truth of God,
even in the belly of hell. Okay, but you are
cherry picking the delight and ignoring the woe.
The sermon begins with woe. Woe to him who seeks
to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed
them into a gale. Maple is preaching that the
only path to God is through the destruction of
the self, through being swallowed. And look at
the context. You ignored the walls. The chapel
is lined with marble cenotaphs. Memorials. Empty
tombs. A cenotaph is a grave for a body that
was never found. These are memorials to men towed
out of sight by whales. Men lost in the Isle
of Desolation. The congregation sits apart in
insular and incommunicable grief. Maple is preaching
to widows. He is telling them that their husbands'
deaths were a form of spiritual correction. It's
a terrifying omen for a ship hunting the very
creature that swallowed Jonah. It's not a moral
compass, it's a death sentence read aloud. And
yet Ishmael hears it, he sees the cenotaphs,
and he still goes. He is not deterred. That is
courage, not madness. He commits to the Pequod,
and here we have to discuss the vessel itself.
Chapter 16 describes the Pequod not as a factory,
but as a noble craft. She is appareled like any
barbaric Ethiopian emperor, decked in trophies
of sea ivory. She has a history. She has fought
typhoons. This is a warrior ship. A warrior ship?
It's a charnel house. It's described as a cannibal
of a craft. It's adorned with the teeth of its
enemies. It's a machine made of death, steering
by death. The tiller is made from a whale's jawbone.
But if you want to shatter the romantic illusion,
just look at the management. Look at the owners,
Peleg and Bildad. They are Quakers, fighting
Quakers, admittedly. They are absolute hypocrites.
This is the most biting satire in the early chapters.
You have Bildad, the pious Quaker, sitting there
reading the Bible, telling Ishmael to lay not
up for yourselves treasures upon earth. And in
the very next breath, he is grinding Ishmael
down on his wages. It's a standard negotiation
for a green hand. It is robbery. Let's explain
the lay for a second. In whaling, you don't get
a wage, you get a share of the profits. Ishmael,
being new, expects maybe the 275th lay. Bildad
offers him the 777th lay. That is one 777th of
the net profit. If they make $100 ,000, Ishmael
gets about $120 for three years of work. And
Bildad claims he's doing it to protect the widows
and orphans who own shares? He uses religion
to justify greed. It's disgusting. It's sharp
business, certainly. But Peleg steps in. Peleg
plays the bad cop. He kicks Ishmael, literally
kicks him on the deck and screams profanity.
Then Bildad plays the saint. But they're working
together to squeeze every drop of labor for the
lowest possible cost. They provision the ship,
sure, but the hypocrisy is suffocating. Aunt
Charity loads the ship with pickles and a spare
Bible, while the owners are practically stealing
wages. This isn't a noble imperial profession.
It is a grind run by tyrants in broad -brimmed
hats. It is a grind, but Ishmael accepts his
eventual 300th lay with philosophy. He sees it
as part of the universal thump passed around.
He isn't bitter. And frankly, the owners are
just the logistics. The soul of the ship is the
captain. The captain who isn't there. But his
presence is felt. Captain Ahab. Peleg defends
him vigorously against the charge of being a
wicked man. He admits Ahab is a grand, ungodly,
godlike man. He tells Ishmael if Ahab has been
in colleges as well as among the cannibals. He
has depth. And most importantly, Peleg reminds
us that Ahab has humanities, a young wife and
a child. His moodiness is just the weight of
his command and the pain of his lost leg. He's
a tragic figure, not a villain. a tragic figure
who is already signaling disaster. You cannot
ignore chapter 19, the prophet. A ragged man
named Elijah stops them on the dock. A madman
on the dock. A prophet. He warns them about old
thunder. He asks if they have sold their souls.
He reveals that Ahab once lay like dead for three
days and nights off Cape Horn. He mentions Ahab
spitting into a silver calabash. These are specific,
terrifying details of a man unhinged. Elijah
explicitly tells them that their souls are just
a fifth wheel to a wagon. In other words, they
are just cargo for Ahab's madness. Even Peleg
admits Ahab is desperate moody. You're calling
it providence. Elijah calls it a pact with the
devil. But the danger is exactly what elevates
the profession. If it were safe, it wouldn't
be sublime. In chapter 24, The Advocate, Ishmael
breaks the fourth wall to defend whaling against
critics like you. He knows people think whalemen
are butchers, so he argues that whaling is responsible
for exploring the globe. He says the whale ship
is the pioneer, the mother of colonies. He mentions
that whalemen liberated Peru, Chile, and Bolivia
from the Spanish yoke. That is a very generous
reading of history. But it's a powerful one.
He compares whalemen to Alexanders conquering
the watery world. He connects the profession
to Perseus, St. George, even the god Vishnu.
He's building a mythology to counter that butcher
label. He asks, is all this agony so vain? And
he references Bulkington, the man who just returned
from a four -year voyage and immediately turns
back to the sea. Bulkington is a tragic figure
who disappears almost instantly in the text.
But his philosophy remains. Chapter 23, The Leashore.
The idea that the land, the Leashore, is safety,
but it's also slavish. It's where you drift to
die comfortably. The landlessness is truth. The
danger enhances the glory. To push off into the
deep is to seek the apathosis, the highest point
of the soul. That is beautiful poetry, truly.
I love the Leigh Shore chapter, but poetry doesn't
stop a harpoon, and it doesn't change the grim
reality of the departure. Look at chapter 22,
Merry Christmas. They sail on Christmas Day,
a new beginning, a birth. It's freezing. The
ship is covered in ice like polished armor. It's
not a glorious parade. It's bleak, and the hypocrisy
follows them to the very last second. Bildad
is singing hymns about sweet fields beyond the
swelling flood, while Peleg is kicking the men
and screaming, blood and thunder. And what is
Bildad's final spiritual instruction to the crew?
Is it God be with you? Is it come back safe?
No, it's don't waste the spare staves and don't
keep the cheese too long. Practical advice for
a long voyage. It's the reduction of the human
soul to a ledger entry. It is a commercial enterprise
painted over with a thin varnish of religion.
As they plunge into the lone Atlantic, Ishmael
admits they are plunging blindly. He says the
fates cajoled me into the illusion that it was
a choice. He realizes, maybe too late, that he's
a puppet. Blindly, yes. But all acts of faith
are blind. Ishmael finds the hymn sweet. He finds
hope in it. He says that despite the frigid winter
night, there seemed many a pleasant haven in
store. You see the hypocrisy of the owners? I
see the resilience of the human spirit that can
find living green amidst the ice. Ishmael is
not naive. He knows he is a butcher. He admits
that in chapter 24. But he transforms the shabby
part of a whaling voyage into a magnificent part
in high tragedies. Transforming it in his mind
doesn't change the reality on the water. You
mentioned the tiller earlier, the jaw of the
whale. Think about that image. To steer the ship,
you have to hold the jaw of the monster that
wants to kill you. That isn't mastering chaos.
That's being consumed by it. They're steering
by death, toward death. I disagree fundamentally.
To steer by the jaw of the whale is to take the
very thing that threatens you and turn it into
the instrument of your direction. That is the
essence of the Grand Providence. Ishmael and
Kequag, the Presbyterian and the pagan, the intellectual
and the savage, united against the howling infinite.
You call it suicide. I call it the apotheosis.
As the text says of Bulkington, up from the spray
of thy ocean perishing, straight up leaps thy
apotheosis. We are left with a ship run by tyrants,
one present and loud, Peleg, one absent and brooding,
Ahab. It is staffed by desperate men, sailing
into a freezing ocean on Christmas Day, chasing
a monster that has already maimed the captain.
The die is cast, certainly, but I fear they have
boarded a ship of fools, not a vessel of destiny.
And I maintain that whether for doom or glory,
the striving itself is the victory. They've left
the damp, drizzly November behind. They are out
where the unconscious power of the whale resides.
Well, the anchor's up. They are certainly out
there now. Indeed. Welcome to the ship. Hello
and welcome back. We are looking at a massive
submission today, a draft manuscript for a nautical
adventure novel titled Moby Dick or The Whale.
It's a first -person account of a sailor, Ishmael,
on a whaling voyage out of Nantucket. There is
a lot here, so let's just dive right in. And
when you say a lot, you mean that quite literally.
I opened this thing expecting an adventure story,
and I immediately felt like I hit a brick wall.
You're talking about the opening pages, right
at the very start. The very start. I mean, it's
a barrier to entry unlike almost anything I've
ever seen. Before we even get to chapter one,
before we even hear the name Ishmael, we have
to get through these two incredibly dense academic
sections. The etymology and the extracts. Right.
Supplied by a late consumptive usher, and a sub
-sub -librarian. It's a bold choice. You can
see what the author is trying to do, I think.
He wants to establish the... the sheer scale
of the subject right away. Oh, for sure. The
ambition is clear. He wants us to know the whale
is this mythic, historical creature. But as a
reader, it's just alienating. Yeah. I'm looking
at a list of the word whale in 13 different languages.
Hebrew, Greek, all the way to... What is this,
Erem Ongoan? It's a linguistic museum exhibit.
It's not a story. And then after that, the extract
section is just pages and pages of quotes. It's
like the author just emptied out his research
notebook directly onto the page. Exactly. It's
a commonplace book. We're jumping from Genesis
to Hamlet to Pilgrim's Progress. It's interesting
maybe for a scholar, but for a reader who picked
up a book about a whaling voyage, it stops you
cold. It absolutely buries the lead. Because
when you finally get past all that, that painstaking
burrowing, you hit chapter one, and it has one
of the best opening lines I've ever read. Call
me Ishmael. It's so good. It's so punchy and
iconic. Mysterious, direct. It sets the tone
instantly. But that line is buried under ten
pages of, um, encyclopedic clutter. You have
this beautiful, moody setup where Ishmael talks
about the damp, drizzly November in his soul.
And that emotion is completely undercut because
the reader is already exhausted from reading
snippets of Paradise Lost. So the fix here seems
pretty straightforward. Yeah. Get it out of the
way. If the author absolutely loves these quotes,
fine. Put them in an appendix. Let the story
start with the story. Or, here's a thought. Integrate
it. Oh, I like that. Instead of just dumping
it on us, let Ishmael discover this stuff. He's
a schoolmaster, right? He has this kind of academic
voice. So have him find the books in the spouter
end. Exactly. Have him pull down a dusty Bible
to read the story of Jonah. That way you're showing
us his obsession with the whale through his actions.
You're not just handing us a reading list. That
would be so much stronger. It would actually
be... character development. We'd learn about
him, not just about the author's research habits.
Right. It keeps things moving. Which, speaking
of momentum, the tone of these early chapters,
I felt a little whiplashed. Whiplash is a good
word for it. Yeah. We have this set up for a
dark, dangerous voyage. But then we spend a couple
of chapters in what feels like a slapstick comedy.
The spouter -in and counterpane chapters, I mean,
I have to admit, I did laugh. Oh, me too. The
setup is pure farce. Ishmael has to share a bed
with this terrifying stranger, and in walks Queequeg,
this tattooed cannibal harpooneer. It's funny,
but does it fit? The whole scene with the doormat
poncho or Queequeg shaving with his harpoon?
The harpoon shaving is a great visual, but it's
on the edge of being cartoonish, isn't it? It
is, and my worry is that it just undermines the
stakes. Later, we get these incredibly dark,
prophetic moments. We meet Elijah, the prophet.
We hear Father Mapple's sermon about ribs and
terrors. But just before that, we have Queequeg
crawling under the bed to put his boots on. That
was the bit for me, too. And then later, in the
wheelbarrow chapter, he carries the wheelbarrow
instead of rolling it. Right. And you think,
okay, this is supposed to be a master harponeer,
a man who's traveled the world, a prince. Is
he really this naive? It turns him into a caricature,
a noble savage trope instead of a grounded character.
And if he can't figure out a wheelbarrow, how
am I supposed to believe he can face down a 60
-ton sperm whale? Exactly. The author is clearly
trying to build this interdependent brotherhood
between them, which is vital for the story. And
that part works. It does. But you can do that
without the slapstick. I think you keep the scene
where they share the pipe and split the money.
The marriage scene. That's genuinely moving.
It's powerful. Agreed. So keep the bond, lose
the buffoonery. Make Kwee Kwek dignified, sharp.
If he's the best harpooner on the Paquad, let
him act like it. And grounding him makes that
transition to the darker stuff feel so much smoother.
When the prophet Elijah steps out and warns them
about old thunder, it won't feel like he walked
in from a different novel. Old thunder. Which
brings us to the next big pacing problem. The
logistics. If the comedy distracts from the pacing,
the logistics, they just murder it. I called
it the shore bounce log in my notes. That's perfect,
because there's this huge block of chapters,
what is it, 16 to 22, where the story just stops?
We're ready to go to sea, and instead we get
stuck in administrative hell. It's all the conversations
with Captains Peleg and Bildad. And they're great
characters, don't get me wrong. The whole fighting
Quaker dynamic is fun. But we spend pages and
pages haggling over the lays. The prophet shares,
yeah. It's a five -page debate about whether
Ishmael gets the 275th lay or the 300th. And
Bildad is quoting scripture to justify paying
him less, which is, you know, a funny little
bit of satire. But does it need to go on that
long? No. It drags. And then Aunt Charity. Oh,
Aunt Charity and her pickles. And the flannel
and the spare Bible. It's just lists. It's a
shipping manifest. The reader signed up for a
high seas adventure, not an inventory check.
The real danger here is that the author is just
deflating all the suspense he's built up around
Captain Ahab. Who we still haven't met. Not once.
It's all hearsay. Peleg calls him a grand, ungodly,
godlike man, which is a fantastic line. It gave
me chills. But then we just sit on the dock for
five chapters. So I think the fix is twofold.
First, you condense all that negotiation. We
get it. Peleg is gruff, Bildad is cheap. Cut
that dialogue in half and get the ship in the
water. And secondly? Give us a glimpse of Ahab.
Yes. Even if he doesn't speak? Exactly. Let Ishmael
see a shadow in the cabin window. Let him hear
the pacing of that ivory leg on the deck. Just
a little sensory detail to anchor the threat.
Because right now the admin is so heavy, I almost
forgot we were even waiting for a mad captain.
We need to feel the pull of the ocean, not the
drag of the anchor. Which brings us to the final
hurdle. The ship finally launches. We are out
on the howling infinite. We are ready for the
hunt. And then the author stops the story cold
to give us a lecture. Chapter 24, The Advocate.
The Advocate. For me, this was maybe the most
jarring interruption in the whole manuscript.
It's not a chapter of a novel. It's an essay.
It's a defensive essay, yeah. It feels like the
author is deeply insecure about his subject matter.
He totally breaks character. Ishmael stops being
Ishmael and starts sounding like a defense attorney
giving his closing statement. He literally addresses
a reader. He says, And then he starts listing
historical figures who supported whaling. Alfred
the Great, Edmund Burke. He claims whaling is
the true mother of Australia. It's a history
lesson, and look. Some of the facts are interesting,
but do I need to know them right after the dramatic
Christmas night launch of the Pequod? No, it
kills the mood completely. You have this incredible
image of Bulkington at the helm, driving into
the storm, and then, bam, we're reading statistics
about Dutch admirals. The author is telling,
not showing. He's arguing that whaling is noble
instead of just showing us. Right. He's comparing
the butchery of whaling to the butchery of war.
Saying that generals get medals, but whalers
get ignored. It's a valid point. I actually agree
with him. But you don't make that point by shouting
it at me. You make it by showing the crew's bravery.
Exactly. If you want me to respect these men,
show me Starbuck's steady hand. Show me Queekegan
action. Don't give me a list of kings who invested
in blubber. I call it the essayist intrusion.
The author just can't seem to help himself. But
the irony is, by stopping the story to demand
our respect, he loses our engagement. So the
advice is pretty simple. Cut chapter 24. Just
cut it. Or, if he really loves those facts, put
them in dialogue. Have the crew debating their
own worth on a night watch. Make it organic.
But whatever you do, do not break the fourth
wall to cite your sources. We've covered a lot,
and I don't want to sound too harsh, because
there is something. undeniable, and powerful
in this manuscript. Oh, absolutely. I want to
be really clear, the bones of this story are
incredible. So let's just recap the main points
for the rewrite. First, that barrier to entry.
Tear down the wall, move the etymology and extracts
to the back, or weave them into the narrative.
Don't make the reader pass a test to get to the
story. Second, the tone. Tighten up the comedy.
The bond between Ishmael and Queekeg is the heart
of this opening, but the slapstick undermines
the seriousness. Keep the bond, lose the cartoon
sound effects. Third, pacing and logistics. Condess
the haggling. We don't need to see every receipt.
Get us to the water faster. And give us a taste
of Ahab sooner. A shadow, a sound, something
to build that dread. And finally, the essayist.
Stop lecturing. Cut the advocate. Trust that
the actions of the crew will prove the nobility
of their profession far better than an essay
ever could. If the author can make those changes,
if he can just prune back this academic and administrative
overgrowth, I honestly think he could have a
masterpiece on his hands. The voice is there.
Ishmael is a fantastic narrator. The atmosphere
of the Pequod is so visceral. I can smell the
oil. I'm genuinely excited to see where it goes.
I mean, we haven't even seen a whale yet. Not
one. And we haven't met the white whale. I'm
dying to see how he handles the action. Does
the essayist come back to explain the anatomy
of a fluke mid -chase? What's hope not? We are
inviting the listener to submit the next draft,
presumably covering that first chase and Ahab's
proper introduction. I am ready for it. Just
maybe leave the dictionary at home this time.
That's it for this critique. Keep writing, keep
refining, and remember, the best stories are
the ones that don't let the reader go. Until
next time, this has been The Critique.