Moby Dick Club: Meeting 2: Chapters 1 - 25

• Were you surprised by any of the locations described in this portion of the book? What did you think of the descriptions of the locations?

• In chapter 1, Ishmael talks about the appeal that bodies of water have to him and to humanity more broadly. He says that they contain “the ungraspable phantom of life.” What do you make of this statement? Do you agree? If so, what about water attracts us to it? 

• We learn in Chapter 12 that Queequeg is in fact royalty on his home island of Kokovoko. Were he to return, he would be king. However, he chooses the life of a whaleman instead. Why? What does sailing at sea offer to Queequeg? Can we see any connection between his reasoning and that expressed by young people/college students in the present? 

• In Ch. 23, we briefly learn about a sailor named Bulkington. This character originally filled the role of companion to Ishmael that Queequeg occupies in the published book. Bulkington is described as a man who desires a life at sea, who cannot bear the land and all the clear comforts and solid, routine living it affords. The sea, by contrast, is vast, mystical, and indefinite. It attracts the souls of the restless and inquiring (like many of our characters). What sort of activities or lifestyles attract the “restless and inquiring” in the present, when whaling isn’t an option? 

• We’re going to learn a lot about the practice of whaling in chapters to come. However, in Chapter 24, Ishmael takes some time to act as “advocate” for whaling. He argues that whaling has had more influence and impact on the development of the modern world than perhaps any other activity. Why so? 

• In the novel, Melville draws from many different Christian parables (Lazarus and the dives) and other world religions (myth of Narcissus). Are there any religious metaphors or allusions that particularly stood out to you? If so, why? What effect does all the religious mentions have on the reader?  

• We don’t know a lot about our narrator Ishmael. We know that he’s a bit depressed and likes to sail, but we also know the things that he’s interested in like whaling, philosophy, and religion. How do you think Ishmael learned about all these things? What type of person do you think he is?  

• Chapter Three has a somewhat fun inner monologue from Ishmael, who is worried about sharing a bed with a stranger – we soon learn that the stranger is Queequeg! Ishmael is a bit afraid of him at first, but when he sleeps beside him, he says that he has “never slept better in my life.” What did you think of the two men's relationship? What do you think will happen to them throughout the rest of the book?  

• The Chapel, The Pulpit, and The Sermon are all kind of odd chapters. They follow Ishmael as he goes into the chapel and listens to a sermon from Father Mapple. This is kind of the most religion-heavy section before our brave sailors go off to sea. It talks about the story of Jonah and describes it as a story of sin.  

• In Chapter 3: The Spouter Inn, Ishmael becomes sort of fixated on a painting in the inn. How does Ishmael describe this image? Did this description stand out to you as important or interesting?  

• Were there any other images that stuck out to you? or to Ishmael? 

• What did you notice about how the chapel was decorated?  

• Did you all read the beginning section by the Sub Sub Librarian? What did you make of it? 

• Did these chapters leave you yearning for some delicious chowder? 

The Painting described in the Spouter Inn as described in Chapter 3:

 On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.- It’s the Black Sea in a midnight gale.- It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.- It’s a blasted heath.- It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.- It’s the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

How would you interpret this painting? How do you envision it?

A few interpretations found online:

Meeting Three: Week of November 17th (Date TBD)

Chapters 26-50