Reading the Bible: Daniel, Jonah

1/ My summary of the second chapter of the Book of Daniel: 

The king: Interpret my dream.

People: What’s the dream?

The king: I don’t remember, interpret it.

People: Tell us the dream, we will. 

The king: Can’t remember. Fuck you! Interpret my dream. 

It’s a good story, though, about the tyranny of the king: this is Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who besieges Jerusalem. He later orders his people to throw some Israelites into a burning furnace, for not worshipping the same god. 

“Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.

And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.” (Daniel 3:26-27) 

It’s a story about how the God of the Israelites is more powerful than the god of Babylon. I am however more interested in the depiction of a tyrant. 

2/ Daniel is one of the Israelites raised and educated in the palace. Having insight into visions and dreams, Daniel interprets dreams and foretells the future and lives through different kings of Babylon—over and over again, the Book of Daniel depicts the God of Daniel and the Israelites (Yahweh) as stronger and more powerful than the god of Babylon. I suppose it’s meaningful to people of faith; it doesn’t mean much to me. Reading the Book of Daniel is mainly useful for me to know about the fiery furnace, the writings on the wall, Daniel in the lions’ den, the dream of the four beasts, etc.

There are some strange images, such as Daniel’s vision of the four beasts that come up from the sea: 

“The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.

And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.” (Daniel 7:4-8) 

Ten horns sounds very crowded.

If only the whole of the Bible were as good as the Book of Job, or the Books of Samuel, though. I’d like to think of myself as an Appreciationist and often see literary merit even in classics I don’t personally enjoy, but the Bible can be tough. 

3/ The Book of Jonah is important because of the iconic image of Jonah in the belly of a big fish (a whale?), but my interest is mainly because of its influence on Moby-Dick: it’s quoted in Extracts; chapter 9 “The Sermon” is about the Book of Jonah; chapter 83 is titled “Jonah Historically Regarded”; there are numerous other references throughout the novel. 

“‘With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth. […] See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God?’” (Moby-Dick, ch.9) 

Father Mapple tells the story of Jonah to preach about defiance and sin and repentance. There are some parallels between Jonah at the beginning and Captain Ahab: Ahab also defies Heaven, defies God, but does not repent—even to the last. 

“‘I turn my body from the sun. […] 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!...’” (ch.135) 

Ahab may be seen as a kind of anti-Jonah. 

Is it not interesting though that something like Moby-Dick was written by someone not religious, someone who’s not a believer? 

4/ There are echoes of Jonah in Hamlet: Hamlet boards a ship to England and escapes death and returns a different man. 

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will.” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

He is calmer, but more fatalistic.

I’m going to take a break from the Bible to read other stuff, then I’ll decide whether to read Psalms or go straight to the New Testament. 

Reading the Bible: Job

1/ Does anyone read the Book of Job without feeling disturbed by the cruelty and callousness of God? Why does God, for no reason, take everything away from “one that feared God, and eschewed evil” and make him suffer? 

But the writing—on the sentence level—is magnificent.

“Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.” (Job 3:11-26) 

I can see how the Book of Job resonates with Christians who are going through a tough time and longing for death and finding God unjust. 

“Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?

When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.

What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?

And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?

How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.” (Job 7:12-21) 

The Book of Job is very quotable, and depicts well the bitterness of a man who suffers and can’t understand why he has to suffer. 

“The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?” (Job 9:24)

This reminds me of The Brothers Karamazov, especially Ivan’s talk about returning the ticket and rejecting God—the rereading is going to be a very different experience when I have known the Bible.

Like some other parts of the Bible, the Book of Job could be repetitive, but it doesn’t matter because I love the prose, the rhythm of the prose: 

“I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.

I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.

My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.” (Job 29:14-20)

2/ I don’t have a lot to say, so I’m just poking at it from different angles. 

“He putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths.” (Job 33:11)

Was that line in Shakespeare’s mind when he had Cornwall place Kent in the stocks in King Lear?

Job and Lear both lose everything. Job and Lear both experience extreme suffering. Job and Lear both question existence. 

“How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?” (Job 25:6) 

That reminds me of: 

“Is man no more than this? Consider him well.—Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha, here’s three on’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.” (King Lear, Act 3 scene 4) 

Not only King Lear, Job also makes me think of Timon of Athens: together with the change in his fortunes is the change in others’ attitudes. Timon and Lear however are much angrier, and the gods are absent. 

“As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;

They kill us for their sport.” 

(King Lear, Act 4 scene 1) 

Funnily enough, in the Book of Job, God does appear and restore Job’s fortunes but doesn’t answer the questions. 

3/ Ingmar Bergman, who made a few films about human suffering and the silence of God and a crisis of faith, must have loved the Book of Job. 

“But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.” (Job 28:12-13) 

The entire chapter is magnificent. For someone who reads the Bible as a literary—rather than religious—text, the Book of Job is a great read, because of the prose and because of the depiction of someone in great suffering who’s questioning God. It’s more literary than some other parts of the Bible I have read, and in the form of a dialogue between Job and his accusing friends. 

4/ Moby-Dick begins and ends with the Book of Job. 

The second quote in Extracts is “Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be hoary,” which comes from Job 41:32. 

The Epilogue quotes “I only am escaped alone to tell thee”, which recurs 4 times in the first chapter. 

I suppose Melville wants to contrast the humility and patience of Job with the hate and anger of Ahab. 

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” (Moby-Dick, ch.96) 

Can’t help wondering if Melville, when he wrote that sentence, was thinking of the poem on wisdom in the Book of Job. 

Reading the Bible: the Books of Kings

1/ The Books of Kings immediately follow the Books of Samuel: as David is old and stricken in years, his son Adonijah assumes the throne; however, David gets told about it and gives the throne instead to Solomon, his son with Bathsheba.

“And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.” (1 Kings 11:3) 

Even worse than Genji. Much worse. 

(Where does Solomon get the energy?) 

As “his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God”, God is angry and rends the kingdom away from Solomon. After his death, his son Rehoboam becomes king but the people depart him, all except the tribe of Judah, so Rehoboam is king of Judah; Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon, becomes the king of Israel and rules over ten tribes, though after a while he also displeases God. The narrative then tells us about various kings of Judah and kings of Israel—how they worship false idols and break the commandments and anger God—it must be no surprise to you, considering what I wrote in the previous blog post, that I find most of 1 Kings rather repetitive and tedious. 

2/ The book however has my interest with the appearance of king Ahab. 

“And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.

And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.

And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30-33) 

Melville gives the name Ahab to the captain of Pequod, the madman who sees all evil personified in a white whale and drives the whole crew to their deaths in pursuit of a dumb brute, the heretic who hangs out with a fire worshipper and tempers his harpoon in human blood, the one who says “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me” (Moby-Dick, chapter 36). Knowing the biblical story of king Ahab helps me see another layer of meaning in Moby-Dick. 

Not only so, Melville gives the name Elijah—the man of God who tries to warn king Ahab in the Bible—to the sailor who tries to warn the narrator and Queequeg about Ahab and the expedition. Chapter 19 “The Prophet”. Both fail.

The biblical story of Ahab isn’t particularly interesting on its own though: we don’t know Ahab’s thoughts; we don’t know the thoughts of his wife Jezebel. The Bible tells us that David is a good king who keeps the commandments (and only displeases God in one thing), and Ahab is a bad king who “did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him”, but when Jezebel sets up a trial and gets false witnesses to have Naboth killed so that Ahab can have his vineyard, that to me isn’t particularly different from David arranging the death of Uriah so that he can possess his wife Bathsheba. 

3/ The end of 1 Kings and the beginning of 2 Kings talk about many miracles of God/ Elijah the prophet/ Elisha the prophet: bringing back the dead, making fire appear in wet wood, making poisonous food harmless, curing a leper, striking the Syrians blind when they invade, and so on. Quite fun to read.

My favourite image is possibly at the end of the leper story—Naaman offers gifts to Elisha for curing him of leprosy and the prophet refuses, but his servant Gehazi gets greedy and runs after Naaman and lies to him and receives gifts in Elisha’s name, and Elisha knows. 

“The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.” (2 Kings 5:27) 

Striking image. And strange. 

4/ After narrating the miracles, the Bible returns to telling us about the kings and I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t care less about any of them. All these names are blurred together—Jeroboam and Rehoboam and Jehoram and Joram and Jehu and Joash and Jehoahaz and Jehoash and so on—after a while, I don’t know and don’t care who’s who, who’s related to whom, who does what.  

The Books of Kings are also very repetitive, the same phrases used over and over again: “and he did that which was evil/ right in the sight of the LORD”, “and [king’s name] slept with his fathers” … over and over again, which I suppose is to reinforce and emphasise the point. Then once in a while, the Bible breaks the monotony with some shocking violence. 

For instance, Jehu, appointed king of Israel, kills Ahaziah, the king of Judah. 

“So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining.

[…] Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king and the children of the queen.

And he said, Take them alive. And they took them alive, and slew them at the pit of the shearing house, even two and forty men; neither left he any of them.” (2 Kings 10-11-14)

But no, he doesn’t stop there: he lays a trap to kill all the Baal worshippers. 

“And the LORD said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” (2 Kings 10-30) 

That’s very disturbing, is it not? 

I’m going to take a break from the Bible and read something else for a while.  

Reading the Bible: Genesis

1/ Not only did I not grow up in a (culturally) Christian country, I grew up in Vietnam, a communist and thus anti-religious country—I only knew about Adam, Eve, Noah, and Jesus—all the biblical references in classic literature and art flew over my head. It’s a big hole, I know. That’s why I’m now reading the King James Bible. 

Honestly if you’re a Christian, you might want to skip all these Bible posts so as not to read the thoughts of a bumbling idiot. 

2/ Is it not fascinating that multiple ancient texts mention a great flood that destroys civilisation, as an act of divine retribution, or purifying humanity of corruption? We all know about the Great Flood in Genesis and I’ve now read it, but there’s also one in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and, as I’ve been told, in some other ancient texts. 

3/ I’ve finally encountered Ishmael! 

Abram (later Abraham) has a son with his Egyptian slave Hagar, named Ishmael, and a son with his wife Sarai (later Sarah), called Isaac. Isaac has two sons with his wife Rebekah, named Esau and Jacob (later renamed Israel). Ishmael has I don’t even know how many children. 

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” (Genesis 16:12)

Hagar and Ishmael are cast out when Sarai has her own son. Is that how the narrator of Moby-Dick sees himself? 

My next revisit of the novel is going to be interesting when I have known the Bible (and hopefully Paradise Lost), the way my second reading last year was more enriched when I had several years immersed myself in the works of Shakespeare. 

4/ A lot of stories in Genesis are quite disturbing: Abram being wiling to sacrifice his own son Isaac; Jacob deceiving his father Isaac and stealing the blessing meant for his brother Esau; Jacob getting tricked by Laban into sleeping with Leah when he only wants Rachel; God’s interference into Jacob’s family “And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:31); Jacob’s other sons selling Joseph (son of Jacob and Rachel) to merchants; Judah (son of Jacob and Leah) having sex with Tamar, his daughter-in-law… 

Thanks to Himadri for sharing this poem though: 

“The Parable Of The Old Man And The Young”

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

And builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

(Wilfred Owen) 

5/ The story of Jacob and Laban is referenced in The Merchant of Venice, when Shylock tells the story to justify usury.  

“ANTONIO This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for, 

A thing not in his power to bring to pass, 

But swayed and fashioned by the hand of heaven. 

Was this inserted to make interest good? 

Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams? 

SHYLOCK I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast. 

But note me, signior—

ANTONIO Mark you this, Bassanio, 

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose…” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

People can argue about these characters’ interpretations of the story, but the interesting thing to me is that Jacob cheats Laban but Laban has been trying to trick and exploit him, not different from the way Shylock tries to trick the Christian characters who have been using and abusing him; it’s also interesting to see that Jacob is not a morally good and passive character, but a trickster.

Let’s hope I’ll have some more interesting thoughts later on. 

Moby-Dick: “like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee”

1/ Moby-Dick is full of symbolism. I must thank Tom of Wuthering Expectations for pointing out that Ishmael is identified with water, and Ahab, with fire. 

“Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove?” (ch.1)

Ahab’s shadow and his closest companion—his Mephistopheles?—is Fedallah, a Parsee, a fire worshipper. The fire imagery—the association of Ahab with fire—is most obvious in Chapter 96 “The Try-Works”, and the rest of the book is filled with fire imagery. 

“I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what’s made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell’s probable.” (ch.108)

To kill Moby Dick, Ahab wants a new harpoon. To destroy what he sees as the embodiment of all evil, he turns to witchcraft. 

“… “No, no—no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?” holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered.

“Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!” deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.” (ch.113) 

This is something I didn’t notice in my first reading: Ahab rejects water; he’s later killed by water. 

The quote in the headline comes from chapter 119. 

2/ This is a rather odd passage:  

“It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep.

Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.” (ch.132) 

Moby-Dick is a very strange book. 

3/ I don’t know what it means, but I’ve noticed the bird motif in the last chapters of the novel. 

“… But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes; the long hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with his prize.

An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin’s head, removing his cap to replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen accounted good. Ahab’s hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.” (ch.130) 

And when the ship goes down, a hawk goes down with it: 

“A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.” (ch.135) 

I finished rereading the book yesterday, after over 7 weeks. Shakespeare took possession of Melville, and created Moby-Dick.  

Moby-Dick: “That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate”

“Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will.” (ch.86) 

It often puzzles me that lots of readers don’t seem to notice that there are two quests in Moby-Dick: a physical quest (Ahab’s pursuit of Moby Dick) and a metaphysical quest (Ishmael’s search for meaning). Ahab is not the only obsessive: he’s obsessed with a whale; Ishmael is obsessed with the whale. 

For what is the whale? Leviathan? A sea monster? A personification of all that maddens and torments? A dumb brute? A dish? A poor animal murdered to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men? Some inscrutable, unknowable thing? 

“‘All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.’” (ch.36) 

Even Ahab does not know—the whale is beyond his reach. 

Thus Ishmael seeks to know the whale, to learn everything he can—from head to tail, from blubber to skeleton—so as to grasp the meaning of Moby Dick, of the chase, of his own survival. Ahab is mad, but is Ishmael not, too, a madman? 

“Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire—by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be—what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,—all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go.” (ch.41) 

What’s the White Whale to them, indeed? But Ishmael too was part of the chase. Ishmael too went down with the Pequod—and yet he survives. What’s the meaning of that fatal chase? And his own madness? And what does it mean that he alone lives? 

But Ishmael isn’t free; his soul continues to be possessed by the madness of the old man. 

“Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. […] These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable.” (ch.68) 

It was only when I got to the chapter “The Doubloon” that I realised that Ishmael’s obsession with meaning—with signs and wonders—came from Ahab. 

"But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them." (ch.99) 

Ahab seeks meaning in a doubloon; Ishmael sees hieroglyphics on the skin of a whale. 

“‘There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg—all tattooing—looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy in the back country…’” (ibid.) 

Ahab sees signs and wonders on the surface of a doubloon, and on the skin of Queequeg. That remark on Queequeg might only be a passing thought for Ahab, but Ishmael later repeats it: 

“Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.” (ch.110) 

What are these mysteries in the tattoos of Queequeg, and on the skin of the whale? Do they contain answers? But Ishmael can never know, and the entire book is his quest for meaning, his attempt to strike through the mask. 

Moby-Dick as my Bible

For a few years after I read Moby-Dick the first time, I often picked it up to reread certain chapters or passages. I stopped after a while—there were other books—but continued to carry some passages with me over the years. 

“Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.” (ch.68)

This for instance has long been part of the blog.

Moby-Dick is one of the books that mean the most to me partly because it’s three books in one: a novel about the obsessive pursuit of a whale, a whale and whaling encyclopaedia, and a philosophical book.

“All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” (ch.41) 

O man, beware of becoming Ahab! 

“Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!

[…] Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.” (ch.96) 

Great works of art such as Moby-Dick should not be reduced to self-help, but we love some books more than others not just because of literary merit, but because they resonate with us, because they reach something in us, because for some reason they stay with us over the years. Moby-Dick speaks to me. 

PS: Speaking of the Bible, about last month or so, I bought the King James Bible. Going to have to read it at some point.

Rereading Moby-Dick: “so noble and so sparkling”

Not a comforting thought to an ignorant and slow reader like me, but Tom (Wuthering Expectations) was right when he said there’s no reading deeply without reading widely. Moby-Dick feels different—and even better—now that I have read (and immersed myself in) Shakespeare. The influence is obvious: the language, the madness and grandeur of Ahab (in whom we find the rage of Lear and Timon), the play-like chapters, the references, and so on. 

I forgot, for example, that there’s a Shakespeare quote in the “Extracts”: 

“Very like a whale.”—Hamlet. 

References abound, like the chapter titled “Queen Mab”, or: 

“… But I omit them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.” (ch.32)

And plenty of others. 

Sometimes it’s less obvious: 

“Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.” (ch.26)

Does that not make you think of Hamlet?

“HAMLET […] What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” (Act 2 scene 2)

Both are about the contradiction in man, but Ishmael’s quote is the inverse of Hamlet’s. 

He goes on: 

“That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!” (ibid.) 

That makes me think of that moment in King Lear when Lear asks “Is man no more than this?” and realises the shared humanity between himself and a beggar, and wants to take off his lendings. But Melville—shall I say Ishmael?—isn’t just talking about shared humanity; he talks about the dignity of each individual and all humanity. He makes a stronger, more emphatic point about equality. 

____________________________________

I still don’t understand why there’s a hyphen in the title. 

Anyway, reading Moby-Dick, I get that bliss from every line as I get reading Shakespeare. One doesn’t experience that with every writer. Dickens is another one, Bleak House most of all. Nabokov. But especially Shakespeare and Melville. Much as I love Tolstoy, Chekhov, or Cervantes, there’s some barrier, some distance as I read them in translation and don’t have their exact words.  

The Odyssey: “won’t you ever […] abandon your deceptions and the lying tales you adore from the very ground up?”

A Grecian vase depicting Odysseus and the Sirens (why is Odysseus naked though?). 

1/ Here is something interesting Homer does in the Odyssey: we first see Odysseus with Kalypso and know he has been held captive there for 7 years; we see him try to survive in the sea till he gets to the island of Alkinoos (better known as Alcinous) and Nausicaa (Alkinoos’s daughter); Odysseus tells his own story of the journey home over the past 10 years (Books 9-12); after all the hospitalities, the king Alkinoos helps Odysseus go home; upon setting foot on his homeland Ithake (better known as Ithaca), which he doesn’t recognise after being away for 20 years, Odysseus sees a man, who he doesn’t realise is Athene, and makes up a story about himself, only for Athene to reveal herself and tease him. The quote in the headline comes from that scene (translated by Peter Green). 

Note that. Not only does Odysseus make up a story on the spot—who asks?—but it’s richly detailed. 

Does that not make you see the Odyssey in a different light? All the adventures are narrated by Odysseus himself: all the encounters with the Lotus-Eaters and the Kyclopes (Cyclops) and Kirke (Circe) and the spirits and the Sirens and Skylle (Scylla) and Charybdis and the sun god Helios. “Unreliable narrator” may be a modern concept but “liar” is not—perhaps Sophocles and Euripides thought that too as they didn’t seem to like Odysseus (though they also had other sources apart from Homer). I’m not saying that Odysseus makes up everything—this is a world in which gods and nymphs and monsters exist—but surely he embellishes his tales and makes himself look better.

(I should probably read the Iliad before saying much nonsense about Odysseus though). 

2/ Apart from being the greatest works of Western literature, what do the Odyssey, Don Quixote, and the plays of Shakespeare have in common? They all feature some kind of transformation: metamorphosis or disguise or acting. (Almost) every single Shakespeare play has some disguise, some acting or pretending, some version of “I am not what I am”: women dressing up as men, noblemen disguising as commoners, sane men acting mad, women pretending to die, and so on; and of course, some characters play a role without putting on any disguise, like Edmund or Iago. In Don Quixote, a hidalgo named Alonso Quixano decides to become an errant knight and transforms himself into Don Quixote; some other characters wear disguise and make up stories to trick him, or play pranks on him and Sancho. In the Odyssey, Athene assumes different shapes as she guides Odysseus and his son Telemachos on their journeys (I didn’t realise till now that the word “mentor” came from the Odyssey); Odysseus famously disguises himself as a beggar upon his return to Ithake, to figure out what’s going on in his household (which reminds me of Henry V), but before that he already pretends to be someone else a few times, such as in his trickery of the Kyclopes. 

Odysseus is an actor as well as a storyteller. 

It probably adds to the vitality and complexity of these characters that they transform themselves, reinvent themselves. 

3/ Speaking of storytelling, I have never understood readers who complain about things which don’t advance the plot or which don’t have anything to do with the main character. That complaint I have seen many times over the years about many of my favourite novels; now I see it in some reviews of the Odyssey. 

Why such a hurry? Take your time, enjoy the journey, get to know the people you meet on the way. 

Moby Dick is such an exhilarating masterpiece because of those digressions, because of those meditations on whales, because of Ishmael’s quest to understand the whale and understand life. War and Peace feels so rich and full of life because Tolstoy fleshes out all the characters, because he gets us to know even the most insignificant characters. The Odyssey feels so vast because all the characters that Odysseus or Telemachos comes across have their own adventures and their own stories. 

4/ One thing that makes me feel uncomfortable—if that’s the right word—about the Odyssey is how much the gods interfere with human affairs and how much is fated. I know it’s the ancient Greece. I know it’s their belief. But I can’t help feeling uneasy—perhaps even slightly cheated—that the protagonist doesn’t come up with everything himself: it’s Athene who tells Telemachos to set sail in search of his father; it’s Athene who guides him along the way; it’s Athene who later tells Telemachos to come back; it’s Athene who gets Zeus to help Odysseus leave Kalypso; it’s Athene who appears as a little girl and guides Odysseus on the island of Nausicaa; it’s Athene who gives advice and disguises Odysseus as he’s back in Ithake; and so on.

I don’t mind that Kirke advises Odysseus how to survive the Sirens, or how to escape the dangerous path between Skylle and Charybdis—how would Odysseus know otherwise?—and Odysseus and his men still have to do everything they can to fight the monsters and survive in the sea. But it makes me feel uneasy nevertheless about the belief and depiction of human beings as so insignificant, so helpless, unable to escape their fate and unable to fight against the caprices of the gods.  

5/ The poster doesn’t make me particularly hopeful about Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of the Odyssey. The tagline is “Defy the gods.” 

The BBC’s 100 greatest British novels, and some top 5

What’s up with me and lists these days? I don’t know. Getting listless, I guess. But once in a while, I think it’s good to look at some lists and see the holes in one’s reading. 

The premise: “What does the rest of the world see as the greatest British novels?” 

I use a strikethrough for the books I have read. The tick is when I have seen a screen adaptation. 

100. The Code of the Woosters (PG Wodehouse, 1938)

99. There but for the (Ali Smith, 2011)

98. Under the Volcano (Malcolm Lowry,1947)

97. The Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis, 1949-1954) ✔

96. Memoirs of a Survivor (Doris Lessing, 1974)

95. The Buddha of Suburbia (Hanif Kureishi, 1990)

94. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (James Hogg, 1824)

93. Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954) ✔

92. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons, 1932) ✔

91. The Forsyte Saga (John Galsworthy, 1922)

90. The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins, 1859)

89. The Horse’s Mouth (Joyce Cary, 1944)

88. The Death of the Heart (Elizabeth Bowen, 1938)

87. The Old Wives’ Tale (Arnold Bennett,1908)

86. A Legacy (Sybille Bedford, 1956)

85. Regeneration Trilogy (Pat Barker, 1991-1995)

84. Scoop (Evelyn Waugh, 1938)

83. Barchester Towers (Anthony Trollope, 1857)

82. The Patrick Melrose Novels (Edward St Aubyn, 1992-2012)

81. The Jewel in the Crown (Paul Scott, 1966)

80. Excellent Women (Barbara Pym, 1952)

79. His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman, 1995-2000)

78. A House for Mr Biswas (VS Naipaul, 1961)

77. Of Human Bondage (W Somerset Maugham, 1915)

76. Small Island (Andrea Levy, 2004)

75. Women in Love (DH Lawrence, 1920)

74. The Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy, 1886)

73. The Blue Flower (Penelope Fitzgerald, 1995)

72. The Heart of the Matter (Graham Greene, 1948)

71. Old Filth (Jane Gardam, 2004)

70. Daniel Deronda (George Eliot, 1876)

69. Nostromo (Joseph Conrad, 1904)

68. A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962) ✔

67. Crash (JG  Ballard 1973)

66. Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen, 1811) ✔

65. Orlando (Virginia Woolf, 1928) ✔

64. The Way We Live Now (Anthony Trollope, 1875)

63. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark, 1961) ✔

62. Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945)

61. The Sea, The Sea (Iris Murdoch, 1978)

60. Sons and Lovers (DH Lawrence, 1913)

59. The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst, 2004)

58. Loving (Henry Green, 1945)

57. Parade’s End (Ford Madox Ford, 1924-1928)

56. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson, 1985)

55. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)

54. NW (Zadie Smith, 2012)

53. Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966)

52. New Grub Street (George Gissing, 1891)

51. Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy, 1891)

50. A Passage to India (EM Forster, 1924)

49. Possession (AS Byatt, 1990)

48. Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis, 1954)

47. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Laurence Sterne, 1759)

46. Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie, 1981)

45. The Little Stranger  (Sarah Waters, 2009)

44. Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel, 2009)

43. The Swimming Pool Library (Alan Hollinghurst, 1988)

42. Brighton Rock (Graham Greene, 1938)

41. Dombey and Son (Charles Dickens, 1848)

40. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865) ✔

39.  The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes, 2011)

38. The Passion (Jeanette Winterson, 1987)

37. Decline and Fall (Evelyn Waugh, 1928)

36. A Dance to the Music of Time (Anthony Powell, 1951-1975)

35. Remainder (Tom McCarthy, 2005)

34. Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005) ✔

33. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)

32. A Room with a View (EM Forster, 1908) ✔

31. The End of the Affair (Graham Greene, 1951) ✔

30. Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe, 1722)

29. Brick Lane (Monica Ali, 2003)

28. Villette (Charlotte Brontë, 1853)

27. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719)

26. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954) ✔

25. White Teeth (Zadie Smith, 2000)

24. The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing, 1962)

23. Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895) ✔

22. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Henry Fielding, 1749)

21. Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899)

20. Persuasion (Jane Austen, 1817) ✔

19. Emma (Jane Austen, 1815) ✔

18. Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989) 

17. Howards End (EM Forster, 1910) ✔

16. The Waves (Virginia Woolf, 1931)

15. Atonement (Ian McEwan, 2001)

14. Clarissa (Samuel Richardson,1748)

13. The Good Soldier (Ford Madox Ford, 1915)

12. Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949)

11. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813) ✔

10. Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848)

9. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)

8. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1850) ✔

7. Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847) ✔

6. Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853)

5. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847) ✔

4. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1861) ✔

3. Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf, 1925)

2. To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf, 1927)

1. Middlemarch (George Eliot, 1874) ✔

Just about a quarter. But I don’t really feel much guilt, as many titles here are recent and therefore of little interest to me.  

If I were to name the 5 greatest British novels, I would probably say: 

• Bleak House 
• Wuthering Heights 
• Middlemarch 
• Emma 
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (as one book—yes, I’m cheating) 

These are all 19th century novels, I know, that’s my century. Perhaps my picks will be different when I have read Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy—we’ll see. But my choice for the greatest British novel, contrary to consensus, would be Bleak House. I know people praise Middlemarch for its psychological insight, rightly so, but my vote goes to Bleak House for its language, for its metaphors and motifs and patterns, for its multiple strands of stories and the two narrators, for its large canvas and intricate plot—Bleak House is, in my opinion, more inventive and artistically more interesting than Middlemarch. 

As we’re here, I might as well name my choices for 5 greatest Russian novels:

• Anna Karenina 
• War and Peace 
• The Brothers Karamazov 
• Dead Souls 
• The Gift 

The last one is subject to change— I haven’t read Eugene Onegin, I haven’t read Demons, I haven’t read Oblomov, I haven’t read The Master and Margarita, I haven’t read Platonov, I haven’t read Andrei Bely, etc.—we’ll see. But the two Tolstoy novels and The Brothers Karamazov are going to stay there. 

I haven’t read enough to talk about French novels, so here are my 5 greatest American novels: 

• Moby Dick 
• Lolita 
• Invisible Man
• The Sound and the Fury 
• The Age of Innocence 

This is an uncertain list, at least the last two. Moby Dick however is one of the three novels with which I’m most obsessed, and my pick for the Great American Novel. Planning to sail again with Ishmael this year. Lolita and Invisible Man are both great. For the last spot, on a different day, I might swap The Age of Innocence for The Portrait of a Lady, or The Scarlet Letter. But also, there are quite a few important American novels I haven’t read. 

Give me your top 5. We’re talking about greatest novels, not favourites. 

Also tell me about other countries too. 5 greatest Indian novels. Spanish. Italian. French. Japanese. Chinese. Whatever.  

Exemplary Novels, the last 8 tales—is Cervantes a one-book wonder?

This is the Edith Grossman translation of Novelas ejemplares (my post on the first 4 stories). 

5/ “The Novel of the Glass Lawyer”: 

Ah, a madman! This must be Cervantes’s specialty. At first it took me some time to re-adapt to Cervantes after Chekhov—Cervantes also took a while to set things up—but afterwards, what a delightful story! Here is a man who gains wisdom in madness, like Lear. More than the protagonists of previous “exemplary novels”, he is a memorable character, combining the madness and knowledge of Don Quixote and the wit of Sancho Panza. 

Tomás Rodaja in his madness believes himself to be made of glass, and is known as Vidriera. 

“A wasp once stung him on the neck and he did not dare brush it away for fear he would break, but even so he complained. One man asked him how he felt the wasp if his body was glass. And he replied that the wasp was probably a gossip, and that the tongues and mouths of gossips were enough to shatter bodies of bronze, let alone glass.”

“The Novel of the Glass Lawyer” is the second best tale in Exemplary Novels.  

6/ “The Novel of the Power of Blood”: 

If you read this tale as a realistic story, and think of the moral aspect, it’s going to be hard to stomach. The only way to approach it is as fairytale, but even then it’s difficult. The 17th century is a foreign country indeed.

(On a side note, I am so done with the theme of the woman’s honour in Spanish literature). 

7/ “The Novel of the Jealous Extremaduran”:

Cervantes is trying me again. 

““This girl is beautiful, and according to the appearance of this house, she cannot be rich; she is a child, and her youth can assuage my suspicions. I shall marry her, keep her in seclusion, train her to my habits and customs, and in this way she will have no tendencies other than those I teach her…”” 

Like Genji and Murasaki. 

The speaker, Felipo de Carrizales, is the jealous Extremaduran of the title. By my calculations, he is 68, though confusingly near the end of the story, he says he’s nearly 80. The girl—wait for it—is 13-14. 

Did I mention I was ill last week? This wasn’t helping. 

The jealous man imprisons his young wife Leonora in the house, giving her no view of the streets and allowing her to go nowhere but to Mass. Except for the black eunuch at the gates, everyone else in the house is female—apart from seeing her parents at Mass, all her companions are the duenna, the maidservants, and the (female) slaves.   

“Whoever thinks he is more perceptive and circumspect can tell me now what other precautions for his security old Felipo could have taken, for he did not even consent to having any male animal in his house. A tomcat never chased the mice, and a male dog was never heard barking; all the animals were of the female gender. By day Felipo would think, by night he did not sleep; he was the night watch and sentry of his house, the Argos of what he loved dearly. No man ever passed through the door to the courtyard; he did business with his friends on the street.”

Most of the story is enjoyable as one watches the young and handsome Loaysa break through the fortress, with his musical talent and his wit, to get to Leonora. Carrizales is a tyrant! But one reads the ending and again thinks, with vexation, that the 17th century is a foreign country. These novelas are ejemplares apparently because there are some moral lessons, or at least they reflect the moral standards of the day, but the moral values of 17th century Spain are rather dubious, if not downright revolting.  

(It also didn’t help that on 30/7, the same day I read these two morally disturbing tales, I watched The Ballad of Narayama from 1983, one of those films that made me feel like I needed a good long bath afterwards). 

8/ “The Novel of the Illustrious Scullery Maid”: 

Cervantes seems fascinated by the act of transforming, of reinventing oneself: 

“Here it is: we now have—may it be the right time to recount it—Avendaño turned into a servant named Tomás Pedro in the inn, for that is what he said his name was, and Carriazo, with the name of Lope the Asturian, turned into a water carrier; metamorphoses worthy of being placed ahead of those by the sharp-nosed poet, Publius Ovidius Naso.”

Looks like I will have to read Ovid—Shakespeare loved Ovid after all. 

This story also has a pair of friends, but Avendaño and Carriazo are not interchangeable like Rinconete and Cortadillo: both come from rich families but Carriazo is an experienced rogue, drawn to adventures and tuna fishing; Avendaño just steps out in the world and finds himself enamoured of Costanza, the scullery maid. 

If I’m allowed to be a bit petty, I’d note that the ending rather goes against the point about female autonomy that Cervantes makes multiple times throughout Don Quixote. But overall, I enjoyed this story. It’s got a few tropes of Romances, but Cervantes is inventive and a great storyteller—he’s good at captivating the reader’s attention. 

9/ “The Novel of the Two Maidens”: 

Guess what this one is about. Correct! A woman’s honour. Or rather, two women’s honour. 

The one interesting thing I have to say is that clearly Shakespeare and Cervantes are both inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but if Shakespeare is generally more interested in disguise, acting, and manipulation, Cervantes is generally more fascinated by the act of renaming and reinventing oneself, though this one is an exception. In this tale, Cervantes largely still refers to Teodosia as Teodosia whilst she’s in disguise as Teodoro (a man), whereas in “The Glass Lawyer”, “The Illustrious Scullery Maid”, “Rinconete and Cortadillo”, and of course Don Quixote, the narrator switches to the new names, the new identities the characters give themselves.  

This tale of Teodosia and Leocadia makes me think of the subplot of Dorotea and Luscinda in Don Quixote, though of course it is different—Cervantes is inventive with plot. The resolution, as in “The Jealous Extremaduran”, feels like an attempt to be “exemplary”, but one could say the untangling of the Marco Antonio – Leocadia knot is unexpected—at least to me. 

Without saying who’s who, so as not to spoil the ending, I’d say I feel second-hand embarrassment for one of the maidens. Before everyone! I just wouldn’t go out in public again if I were her. 

10/ “The Novel of Señora Cornelia”: 

Between the 9th and 10th tales, I took a little break and read “The Displaced Person”, the final story in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.

It feels very strange to jump from the 17th century to the 20th century, then back to the 17th, and find Cervantes still treating the theme of a woman’s honour. How many times are you going to do this, Miguel? I have nothing to say—it feels rather pointless a story. 

It is worth noting though that a) Cervantes portrays with sympathy and doesn’t seem to condemn the women who have premarital sex; and b) there is no Don Juan in Don Quixote and Exemplary Novels—the men are either one-time rapists or passionate men who have sex before marriage but do keep their vows.

11/ “The Novel of the Deceitful Marriage”: 

This tale is rather short and under-developed, but it is fascinating for a few reasons. First of all, after numerous strikingly beautiful, good, and chaste women, who all seem alike, we now encounter a woman who is not very beautiful and who turns out to be manipulative. Secondly, it leads to the next—and last—story. And thirdly, a character raises a question about truth and reliability, which brings it closer to Don Quixote. 

12/ “The Novel of the Colloquy of the Dogs”: 

Now this is the height of Exemplary Novels. The story is a conversation between two dogs, Cipión and Berganza— it is closer to Tolstoy’s “Kholstomer” than to Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog, though Cervantes’s dogs are a bit more human than Levin’s dog Laska in Anna Karenina. 

Berganza talks about his life, about his different masters and diverse careers, thus painting a rather rich and vivid picture of Spanish society in the 17th century. Cervantes’s gift for dialogue, as we see in Don Quixote, is at full strength here. The brilliance and wit and humour of Don Quixote, the double layers of narration and stories within the story can also be found here. 

“CIPIÓN: You call gossip philosophizing? Well, well, well: applaud, applaud, Berganza, the accursed plague of gossip! Call it whatever you like, it will call us cynics, a word that means gossiping canines; and by your life, be quiet now and go on with your story.

BERGANZA: How can I go on with it if I’m quiet?

CIPIÓN: I mean just go straight ahead, without making the story look like an octopus with all the tails you keep adding to it.

BERGANZA: Speak properly; the appendages of an octopus are not called tails.” 

It is wonderful! 

So, is Cervantes a one-book wonder? Just so you get a clearer idea, I shall digress and say that Herman Melville, often assumed to be a one-book wonder, is not one—his novellas and short stories are magnificent, especially “Bartleby”, “Benito Cereno”, “Billy Budd”, and “The Encantadas”; his novels The Confidence-Man and White-Jacket are also brilliant, even if they cannot compare to Moby Dick (but what can?). Cervantes, I would say, has one masterpiece—the funniest and also saddest novel I’ve read—but if you are curious about his other works, “The Novel of the Colloquy of the Dogs” and “The Novel of the Glass Lawyer” are worth reading. 

Reading Redburn

I’ve been to sea with Herman Melville a few times: on a whaler (Moby Dick), on a man-of-war (White-Jacket), and now on a merchant ship. 

Redburn is one of the two books Melville wrote for money after Mardi and (2 years) before Moby Dick, but it’s not an angry book like White-Jacket. Compared to both Moby Dick and White-Jacket, it is plainer, more straightforward, with more of a plot. 

“It was early on a raw, cold, damp morning toward the end of spring, and the world was before me; stretching away a long muddy road, lined with comfortable houses, whose inmates were taking their sunrise naps, heedless of the wayfarer passing. The cold drops of drizzle trickled down my leather cap, and mingled with a few hot tears on my cheeks.” (Ch.2) 

And: 

“Talk not of the bitterness of middle-age and after life; a boy can feel all that, and much more, when upon his young soul the mildew has fallen; and the fruit, which with others is only blasted after ripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom and bud. And never again can such blights be made good; they strike in too deep, and leave such a scar that the air of Paradise might not erase it. And it is a hard and cruel thing thus in early youth to taste beforehand the pangs which should be reserved for the stout time of manhood, when the gristle has become bone, and we stand up and fight out our lives, as a thing tried before and foreseen; for then we are veterans used to sieges and battles, and not green recruits, recoiling at the first shock of the encounter.” (ibid.)

That of course is not plain prose—we’re talking about Melville—but place it next to Moby Dick and you’ll see what I mean. The first passage however reminds me of “a damp, drizzly November in my soul”. Moby Dick fans may like this: 

“But though I kept thus quiet, and had very little to say, and well knew that my best plan was to get along peaceably with every body, and indeed endure a good deal before showing fight, yet I could not avoid Jackson’s evil eye, nor escape his bitter enmity. And his being my foe, set many of the rest against me; or at least they were afraid to speak out for me before Jackson; so that at last I found myself a sort of Ishmael in the ship, without a single friend or companion; and I began to feel a hatred growing up in me against the whole crew—so much so, that I prayed against it, that it might not master my heart completely, and so make a fiend of me, something like Jackson.” (Ch.12)

“A sort of Ishmael”! As for Jackson, that’s an important character in the novel, I may blog about him later.  

Some of the best passages in Redburn are about the ocean: 

“And truly, though we were at sea, there was much to behold and wonder at; to me, who was on my first voyage. What most amazed me was the sight of the great ocean itself, for we were out of sight of land. All round us, on both sides of the ship, ahead and astern, nothing was to be seen but water—water—water; not a single glimpse of green shore, not the smallest island, or speck of moss any where. Never did I realize till now what the ocean was: how grand and majestic, how solitary, and boundless, and beautiful and blue; for that day it gave no tokens of squalls or hurricanes, such as I had heard my father tell of; nor could I imagine, how any thing that seemed so playful and placid, could be lashed into rage, and troubled into rolling avalanches of foam, and great cascades of waves, such as I saw in the end.

As I looked at it so mild and sunny, I could not help calling to mind my little brother’s face, when he was sleeping an infant in the cradle. It had just such a happy, careless, innocent look; and every happy little wave seemed gamboling about like a thoughtless little kid in a pasture; and seemed to look up in your face as it passed, as if it wanted to be patted and caressed. They seemed all live things with hearts in them, that could feel; and I almost felt grieved, as we sailed in among them, scattering them under our broad bows in sun-flakes, and riding over them like a great elephant among lambs. But what seemed perhaps the most strange to me of all, was a certain wonderful rising and falling of the sea; I do not mean the waves themselves, but a sort of wide heaving and swelling and sinking all over the ocean. It was something I can not very well describe; but I know very well what it was, and how it affected me. It made me almost dizzy to look at it; and yet I could not keep my eyes off it, it seemed so passing strange and wonderful.” (Ch.12)

Wellingborough Redburn is no Ishmael, but in such passages, he does sound like Ishmael, in his sense of wonder and his love of the ocean. This is even better: 

“Yes! yes! give me this glorious ocean life, this salt-sea life, this briny, foamy life, when the sea neighs and snorts, and you breathe the very breath that the great whales respire! Let me roll around the globe, let me rock upon the sea; let me race and pant out my life, with an eternal breeze astern, and an endless sea before!” (Ch.13) 

That passage would fit right in Moby Dick. Ishmael’s voice is one of the reasons I love the book. 

“I must now run back a little, and tell of my first going aloft at middle watch, when the sea was quite calm, and the breeze was mild.

The order was given to loose the main-skysail, which is the fifth and highest sail from deck. It was a very small sail, and from the forecastle looked no bigger than a cambric pocket-handkerchief. But I have heard that some ships carry still smaller sails, above the skysail; called moon-sails, and skyscrapers, and cloud-rakers. But I shall not believe in them till I see them; a skysail seems high enough in all conscience; and the idea of any thing higher than that, seems preposterous. Besides, it looks almost like tempting heaven, to brush the very firmament so, and almost put the eyes of the stars out; when a flaw of wind, too, might very soon take the conceit out of these cloud-defying cloud-rakers.” (Ch.16) 

I love that: “tempting heaven”. 

Now look at this passage about fog: 

“What is this that we sail through? What palpable obscure? What smoke and reek, as if the whole steaming world were revolving on its axis, as a spit?

It is a Newfoundland Fog; and we are yet crossing the Grand Banks, wrapt in a mist, that no London in the Novemberest November ever equaled. The chronometer pronounced it noon; but do you call this midnight or midday? So dense is the fog, that though we have a fair wind, we shorten sail for fear of accidents; and not only that, but here am I, poor Wellingborough, mounted aloft on a sort of belfry, the top of the “Sampson-Post,” a lofty tower of timber, so called; and tolling the ship’s bell, as if for a funeral.

This is intended to proclaim our approach, and warn all strangers from our track.

Dreary sound! toll, toll, toll, through the dismal mist and fog.

[…] A better device than the bell, however, was once pitched upon by an ingenious sea-captain, of whom I have heard. He had a litter of young porkers on board; and while sailing through the fog, he stationed men at both ends of the pen with long poles, wherewith they incessantly stirred up and irritated the porkers, who split the air with their squeals; and no doubt saved the ship, as the geese saved the Capitol.” (Ch.20) 

Redburn is more straightforward and Melville himself didn’t think much of it, but in passages such as these, the book approaches the greatness of Moby Dick. 

10 favourite novels and some other lists about books

- 10 favourite novels (updated): 
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu 
Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy
War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 

- 3 favourite writers: 
Jane Austen 
Murasaki Shikibu 
Lev Tolstoy 

- 10 novels I feel worst for not having read:  
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman 
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Hunger by Knut Hamsun 
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 
The works of Emile Zola 

- 10 novels I very much want to read though won't read any time soon: 
Ulysses by James Joyce
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust 
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 
Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac 
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk 
The Red and the Black by Stendhal  

Compare to my lists from 4 years ago.

Update on 27/12/2020: Less than half a year later, my top 10 favourite novels have been updated.