SPEAKER_01 0:00

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn in the Pacific. Quitting the good city of Old Manhattan, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was on a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer until the following Monday. Now, having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concern where I was to eat and sleep. Meanwhile, it was a very dubious looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious gracknels I had sounded my pocket and only brought up a few pieces of silver. So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the south. Wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular. I'm Meg.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

And call me Johnny, but no more of this blubbering now. We are going a whaling.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

One of the things I'd really like to do is like talk to somebody about the name Pequad, because the name Pequod is from uh the Native American tribe.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

It's a tribe, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Um did you know that that's what they were gonna call Starbucks, the coffee chain? And then the marketing department said absolutely fucking not.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

In never in a million years in your wildest dreams.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Yeah, that's that's true. That's that's not a that's not a that's not a joke. That was actually a thing that was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yes, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Uh the difficulties with pea coffee.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Ah, yes, the the was the fun the best of pea coffee.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Should have been their tagline. Pea quads, the best of pea coffee.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

The best of pea coffee.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Gosh. So I've got a question for you, Johnny. You you well, let's hear it. Now you are uh of an English provenance, but you've got an infatuation, obviously, with Italy, uh having you know devoted a whole uh PhD to Italian literature. So do you drink tea or do you drink coffee?

SPEAKER_03 2:28

Oh, I I don't believe in limiting oneself. I drink both. Um okay I d I I probably I'm slightly more coffee oriented than than tea, but uh I think they have slightly different functions. Coffee first thing in the morning and then maybe tea a bit later in the day.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Okay, interesting. Yeah, uh so I in my soul I am definitely a coffee person, but I I try not to overdo coffee because like living in Italy spoiled me, right? I I can't do American coffee anymore, I can't do drip coffee. It gives me a headache because it's like not it's not concentrated enough caffeine, and it just doesn't generally taste as good. So like for me, it's gotta be espresso if I'm drinking coffee, but I can't drink espresso all day or else I'll have a heart attack. Um so it's tough. So you so typically for me, I'll drink uh uh an English breakfast tea in the morning, and then I do coffee midway through the day as a pick-me-up, like I'm doing right now.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

That's classy. I mean, it is it's 20 to 6 where I am. So I should but by rights, we shouldn't really be having coffee at this point. But hey ho, it does sound good.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

It is, it's very good. And and you you're enjoying a hot beverage, Meg. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

A very hot over microwave breakfast cup of you cooked the cup. I know, can you believe it? Um yeah, it just means that she lasts longer. This is my handy Zabars mug, uh, which I bought when I get their um chocolate babka around Christmas time. This is a Taylor's Scottish breakfast tea. I like black tea that could um fill a pothole, basically. So I steep it for like two, three hours. You know, you make it, you forget it, and then you come back and you have to kind of tend to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

It's really, really girthy mug as well. It looks as if you've got about three liters of tea in it.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

I got a lot to do. I got a lot of thinking.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Busy day, out comes the Zebar.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yes, yeah, the Zabars mug for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Danny, uh, do you have uh opinion? I I feel like uh Brits have opinions on microwave tea. Do you have opinions on this? Or is this a listen?

SPEAKER_03 4:40

We we don't we don't tea shame on this podcast. I wouldn't reheat a cup of tea myself, but I'll defend to the death Meg's right to do it. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I don't microwave it to make the tea. I want to be clear about that. I have a nice kettle, but you know, you oh you sip and then vulgar and borish and gum.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

You know, I wasn't I wasn't suggesting that that you do that. No.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

We have some standards here at this jolly inn. We don't microwave the water for the tea, but we do to reheat it. So it's all about the container, it's inside, it's all about the circumstance. Anything can be made um classy if you gotta you just gotta frame it the right way. As our friend learns when he really wants to go inside, but keeps stopping himself.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, yeah. Uh I think what he says about Queekweg later is that anything done coolly is done gentely. Yes, very nice.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

And Queekweg is so he's the coolest.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Oh, he's just the Zenist guy. Oh, yes, it's when he's it's when he's eating um steaks with his harpoon, isn't it? But yeah, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Really genteel. Oh yeah. So today, today we're on chapter two of the carpet bag. Oh, I've forgotten what happens in carpet bag.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Not much, but also a lot.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

He he drastically he drastically underprepares to go on a whaling voyage, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah, it's like I'm not gonna need a couple of shirts.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

That'll do, surely. Um so Meg, you've been doing a fantastic job with these uh little synopses of what these chapters or uh various uh extracts and whatnot are. Do you would would you be my uh would you mind uh giving us a brief summary of what we what we've got here today?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I would love to. We haven't gotten too metaphysical yet, so these are these are still pretty easy. Um trying to ignore you know the sound of thunder coming from down the the horizon. In any case, chapter two, the carpet bag. Um Melville begins uh the chapter through the depiction of uh a universal frustration, which is what a pain in the ass it is to get to Cape Cod. Um Ishmael has missed his boat, so he cannot get to Nantucket, which is an island. So he stuck a new bed fruit for the night, uh, which is coastal, obviously, um, but not uh on the Cape. So he's like, well, okay, I've got a little bit of money. I have two shirts. He's a light packer. Um, there are some of us who pack as if we're gonna have some sort of attack of the gut twice a day. This has never happened, but what if it did? Ishmael is of the other one where he's kind of like, they have shirts there.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

Two shirts for a years-long whaling voyage.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

It's what you know, he's like a 19-year-old guy. You can't tell him anything. In any case, he has a little bit of money. Uh, so he's walking through the dark, uh, cold streets Saturday night in December, uh, trying to find an inn. And the thing is, is that there seem to be a lot of places where he could go, but he keeps um rejecting them as like too nice. The word he uses is jolly. It's too jolly inside, seems to be equating warmth and like niceness with it's too pricey. So he prices himself out of going into a couple places. He takes a few steps inside what he thinks is gonna be um maybe like a cheaper looking place. It's kind of smoky, trips over something, and everyone turns around and he realizes he has inadvertently stumbled inside uh an African-American church, like during service, and he kind of like backs out, and he's like, Well, that's not that's not for me. Um, and finds uh then a sign hanging, very cinematic, like hanging in the creaking in the air is what it says. It says the spouter in, which is um managed by one Peter Coffin. Um, and he goes, Well, that sounds a little ominous, as if he's in a book. Um, but as he says, and as is true, um, Coffin is a common name in those parts and is not necessarily denotive of anything. Um, and he says, Well, I'm gonna try, I'll I'll try this place. He thinks about Lazarus for a minute, which we can discuss. I would love to know what that means. And then um, he kind of is like, Well, enough of that, enough of this storytelling, let's get on with the book. I'm gonna go inside and see what this hotel is like.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah, yeah. Um, so let's go back to that very first line for a second. And I I think you're right. I think some of us young men, um I I I actually don't have any idea how old you two are. So I'm 29, so I'm still, you know, I'm I'm still youthful. I still uh I'm not quite the the the next year up. Uh which I in which case I assume I'll drop dead instantly at the age of 30.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Um I feel like your knees stopped working, which at least is something I would say.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Does that make me the dusty old man of the podcast, being 30 and therefore, by Tristan's logic, dead? I suppose so yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

I'm the old maid, I'm the oldest person in this Zoom, which I just realized, and we won't talk about it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

All right, perfect. Um, yeah, so uh uh being the the the picture of youth from the perspective of the podcast. Yeah, young men don't pack very much. Representative young man. Yeah. Um yeah, uh young men don't pack much. But one of the things I thought was interesting, uh, and as always, I always have my uh religious studies hat on, is so he specifically packs uh let's see, let me pull it up because I think I thought it was interesting. I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet bag, which again we have this ambiguity like we had in chapter one, right? Where it's like, is it little money or is it no money? Um is this your name? And so we have this ambiguity again. And then specifically, um, if we go to the New Testament, right? So we've got a couple different uh so in in Mark, Luke, and Matthew, so our synoptic gospels, we have the same story um where Jesus uh commands them they should take nothing for their journey save a staff. So in Mark we have save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, be but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. So like don't bring an extra coat with you when you're going off to uh evangelize. Um and uh it's kind of interesting. Uh I'm gonna go on this tangent. So when we get to Luke and Matthew, you've got uh a little bit of a change, right? So he said, uh and he said unto them, take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor pack, neither bread, neither money, neither have two coats of a piece. Um and Matthew does the same change where uh so Matthew and Luke don't take a uh a staff with you. Mark says, Yeah, go ahead, take a staff with you.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

But going back to this idea of that's controversial.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, we're me pointing that out. We're we're probably doomed as a podcast now. Um all of our audience on the evangelical right is gonna hate us now. Um, but so like in this case, you know, uh Jesus is saying, don't bring two two shirts, right? Just stick with the one. And so like to me, uh there's an ambiguity there. Yeah, I feel like I got you know, Melville is such a close reader of so many things. Uh I think the ambiguity is intentional, especially when we get some other to some other parts of the chapter where I see like pretty either explicit or implicit religious allusions. So, like, is Ishmael following this like uh like you know this Christian uh or like this this command from Jesus to like when they're traveling to uh to to not bring extra stuff? Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? Um so is he following that or not? Um, with his bringing one or two shirts.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

One or two shirts.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

One or two shirts.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

That's that's fun. I I I have such a non-um biblical as literature background that everything I I just I sounds great. I'll believe anything you say. Um if I say it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Kristen came out the gate with something absolutely fantastic, a gorgeous piece of sort of theological analysis. And I'm still sat here thinking that the phrase carpet bag just makes me think of Mary Poppins. Because she has that magic carpet bag, right? With uh with and she gets the lamp out and the and the mirror, and then there's the reflection that sings back to her. I suppose we could say that like Mary Poppins' carpet bag, there is a lot to unpack in this chapter. That's how that's how I'll bring it back round. But I love it.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

No, let's talk about that too. So there's uh um a class component to this, right? So like uh uh I wasn't very familiar with like uh the idea of a carpet bag until I was doing some research for this episode. But like it's specifically kind of like uh it's not a trunk, right? It's not like something that you're gonna have your porter carry for you. That's like a nice piece of luggage. This is a carpet bag. This is like when you're roughing it when you're like this young guy, and uh it's it's not necessarily the nicest of bags ever.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

No, and it's designed for somebody traveling light as well. So it comes back to that real strangeness of okay, why are you packing so little to go on this voyage, which is going to take years and years?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

No, definitely. Um yeah. So, Meg, what are your uh observations? Like uh uh, you know, taking a glance at the chapter, what what stood out to you?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Just taking a glance. Um, I'm seeing some uh fun. Um I like when he I like the shirter too. I'm looking at it less like literally Z only bringing two shirts and more of just kind of like a casualness with which he's telling us what happens, which I think is really sweet. Um, I'm gonna try to not talk about JD Salinger too much, but we could just sort of the way he's like, or something, or kind of. And it's like there, I I think there are some authors who don't like that. And fair enough, if you kind of want your prose, there is something to be said for being incredibly specific. I think there's another version of this opening paragraph where he likes, I brought these two shirts, and one was like this, and one was like this. And we could get a lot of joy out of like, what kind of shirts were these guys wearing? Because I don't know, he could say anything. But I I like the idea that he stuffs a shirt or two into my old carpet bag and it started for cap horn. Of course, he doesn't start for cape porn, he's trying to get to that tuck it. But that's a cute way of saying, like, and I began my journey by getting stuck overnight because I missed my train. And you're like, Ishmael, what what are you, what can you do? Um, which I think is sweet. But the um, yeah, yeah, I think it's it's I think it just makes him sound young and not dumb like he's bad at packing, but more just like, just threw some stuff in my suitcase and just kind of went out the door. Like he's just full of like vim and vigor, which I think is I really like this paragraph where he's saying, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna get it on an Antucket ship. If it's not an Antucat ship, it's like, well, then what are we doing? He says, uh, for my mind was made up to sail in no other than an Antucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that island, which amazingly pleased me.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I like he can say almost anything, but he says a fine, boisterous something, which I think is such a good way to describe something where you're just like, I just love, I don't know, I just love it there. It's got a boisterous something. And you're like, yeah, it's boisterous.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Tristan is a fine, boisterous something. Thank you. I appreciate that. I've always said it.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

One of the things, like uh taking a you know, uh going uh digging into Melville's biography a little bit. So when he wrote Moby Dick, he had never actually had uh visited uh Nantucket.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

He'd never been, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

I think it's kind of fine, boisterous something about it, right? You know, um, and he did eventually visit, like after he had written the book. But yeah, um, I don't know. Uh I feel like he's uh good enough at describing things he hasn't seen, but maybe that's why there's this uh you know, there's this shit as a qua about Nantucket that I can't really describe into the same thing. Nantucket.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

If you know, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Yeah, yeah. Well, wait till we get to the chapter that's called Nantucket, which opens Nantucket, take out a map and look at it. That's all Melville has done. I love it. That's one of my talking about.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

I'm like, yes, yeah, I've been there. He's been to a hotel though, like he's been cold before. You can kind of tell where he's like, Oh, here's how you take apart a whale, and where he's kind of like zooms back. You're like, fair enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

You know, it's interesting, especially because you know, of uh the the importance of New Bedford to all things Melville. You know, they they've got the marathon, Moby Dick reading, which we we're locking it in. We're going, we're going this to this next one. I'll see you. We'll we'll be there like the stones. I'm I'm speaking it into existence. We're gonna go to the Moby Dick Marathon, it's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Manifest, manifest.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yeah, I'm manifesting it. Uh, but New Bedford does not get like a good rap from Herman Melville, considering it's like this epicenter of all things mobile. He does not seem to think very much of New Bedford.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Well, I think I think it's it's funny that um again, I think I think it's worthwhile to everyone so well remember be like, this book was ripped in, you know, it's and thinking about less of it as the finished thing. He could have easily had Ishmael not miss his boat and then it did take part from Antiochate, or he could have been like, and I really wanted to get on a new Bedford boat, and then that worked out. But rather that he um the thing that that happens, which is he wanted to go to this place, but he couldn't, so he was stuck here, and then it turns out that the momentum for that is gonna is gonna actually take us to sea. But the idea that um the entirety of uh the enormity of the ship that he does get on is a product of he was late and missed like the ferry, basically. And a lot of you know, we could make a list of like really good like movies that are like, whoops, I gotta get a taxi and there's a stranger in there, like, oh, I have to wait for the next train, and that the idea of all of this is is the product of like um a 30-second time jump or like a I got off on the wrong bus stop, and now I gotta, you know, the idea of like it wasn't, especially when we're thinking about fate. Oh, well, what if I had gotten on that ferry at the right time? And what was it preordained? Was that my preordainment going on the ocean that I could see leaving without me, or was it to be here? I think that's really funny coming off of the stuff we've we've already said.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Uh you know, uh though I cannot tell why this was exactly yet now that I recall the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives, which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises induced me to set apart performing the part that I did. Here's one of those springs you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Springs and motives. Absolutely. It's wonderful though, because the chapter actually does that in several different ways. It seems to me that actually there are quite a few moments where Melville offers us several alternative plots. So, yeah, exactly. How how how things might have turned out differently. What if, yeah, what if he had managed to catch his bow? What if he picked one of the expensive Jolly inns rather than actually settling on the spout train? There's kind of a sense that any number of things could have happened and therefore the plot could have turned out differently. Uh, it's but it just seems, uh as as you've both been intimating, that there are there's a the hand of fate is marshalling him kind of ineluctably towards the Pequad and towards the Voyage. And and yeah, and and and to what you were saying, Megla, Melville doesn't have to show us that mechanism. It's not serving the plot as such. So it's it's really interesting that he's that he's making that so explicit for us, yeah, uh precisely as a uh a part of the way that the narrative is working here.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah. Um, so let's let's dig into um this contrast between New Bedford and Nantucket for a minute. Uh so one of the things that like, you know, part of this fine voice or something, and and also um some of our first uh like racialized language, um, like that's very explicit that we get in uh Moby Dick comes with like this uh um idealization of Nantucket, right? So um Nantucket's supposed to be the the the tire of New Bedford's uh Carthage, but then also uh where else the the place where the first dead American whale was stranded, where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the red men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan. Um and so I think like uh you know part of this um like keenness to specifically sail out of Nantucket comes from like this pedigree that he uh ascribes, like this sort of aboriginal pedigree of whaling, which he pinpoints in Nantucket. So if he's going to go whaling, he has to go whaling from here, but um, where like this is like the source, like the the you know, the the the well springs of uh uh whaling.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

And it's interesting as well that uh it's the the dead American whale uh as as the post first of all, we ought to say that's almost certainly not true. Um, but also the fact that it's it's uh a dead American whale. There's a sense that a nationality is being imposed upon the animal because it's landed on the shores. But actually, as we've sort of started actually to say in other episodes, the the whale is kind of of everywhere and nowhere. Um it's certainly not uh, you know, the the whale is certainly not an American product, or at least, you know, it's it's only that in the way that. The American whale fishery kind of turns, objectifies it, and turns it into a series of different products, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yeah, yeah. And I think we see here uh where we we do get like a throughout the book, like a strong national chauvinism from Melville on whaling. And then relatedly, you know, Melville is very uh self-conscious of like the idea of developing a an American literature that's like separate or like you know, like not just like an extension of like uh English literature. So I think that is important to him. Um like he takes great pride in like specifically the American whaling uh industry, or like he, you know, uh uh to what extent like he necessarily feels that way, but like you know, he he has like this chauvinism towards American whaling and like an American whale boat.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

He I think um Ishmael certainly does. Um Ishmael will in in some of the coming pages put great stock in being an American whaleman as opposed to uh the way that the Dutch did it or the British whale boats, like the French, and he's like, no, we're the we're certainly best. I think in other um Melville works, we'll see how he um again, this will be in two, three years, um, when we'll all be in our decrepit 30s. Join me. Um uh the way that he feels kind of complicated about um in what ways are uh do Americans sort of like puff themselves up. But certainly in this paragraph, he at least has Ishmael discuss how it's in the, it's like it's in the air, the um the the instinct towards um um this great whaling tradition on Nantucket.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Certainly there were um Native Americans doing what they could with the sea creatures everywhere, but on Nantucket is where he wants to go. So he's already, what is Ishmael doing at least? Or Melville is having Ishmael sort of put himself again, like he was doing on Manhattan, in this T. Richardson pedigree of the seagoer and the whaler. We know he hasn't done, or do we know it yet? There we're we'll know it soon. He hasn't whaled before, but he's like, if you're not waiting to do it, yes. I'm gonna go to if you're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right. And I'm gonna start from Nantucket, and I'm not gonna do this like off-brand nonsense from like New Jersey. He's gonna go to the best place. And um maybe that's part of why he's packing light because he wants to start like totally fresh, and this is all I need. And he's been to sea, but he hasn't done it in this way. So putting himself in this, um, as you've said, like um necessarily very racialized language of like, oh, the people who were, you know, even those people who like didn't have our beautiful huge whaling ships and the buckets and the tar or whatever, they were still um doing it in this uh in this fantastic way. And I want to be part of that lineage that we have sort of like um annexed and and made it even greater than it could have possibly been. I'm gonna be a part of it. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it there.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Yeah, and that's so that feeds back into something that we were saying when we were talking about loomings, right? The fact that we see the Ishmael to whom the events of the narrative are happening mediated by the Ishmael who has been through all of those events. Yeah, but we what part part of that process involves him being kind of sublimated into a whaling community, but it does seem to be one actually that Ishmael himself is constructing. It's remarkable how quickly he starts using phrases like we whalemen, you know, how he staked his claim to a part in that community so so quickly. Maybe that feeds back into the in into that kind of youthfulness that we were talking about, and again, something else that we were talking about when we're when we were talking about our first impressions of Ishmael in loomings, that that sense that he's got this really strong desire to belong, but also to be an individual.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

That's good. Yeah, so until then, though, we're stuck in New Bedford, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Um Bedford and uh with all these expensive jolly inns.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, um, and it becomes so religious studies hat back on, uh, becomes a matter of concern where I was to eat and sleep, which to me, uh, very like much so like the the first line we get in this chapter instantly makes me think of Jesus, right? Um, and so specifically, you you had mentioned it earlier, so uh Matthew chapter six, uh therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment. Um, and um once we get to Matthew 6:34, which is my favorite uh verse in the entire Bible, take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, which is words I live by, sufficient unto the day. But uh Ishmael can't do that, right? He can't live by the words of Jesus. He's gotta it's it is becoming a matter of concern where he's gonna eat, where he's gonna sleep. Um all he's got is uh these these few pieces of silver, which again is is gonna hit me right in the head. Uh, what's Judas compensated for when he betrays Jesus? A few pieces of silver.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

30 pieces of silver, which is the combined total of money that Quequeg and Ishmael have when they're in the spout inn.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Oh my goodness, I did not just hit on that. That makes that even more perfect. So, yeah, like it he uh here again, like like we had in Loomings, uh Ishmael's not able to live up to like these uh commandments of Jesus, right? And he has to in order to live in this uh uh deeply unromantic world, this deeply uh capitalistic world, he has to betray this. And like you get, like like she just said, beautifully um a direct parallel there.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

That's so funny. You're talking, you're seeing Christ everywhere, and I'm just like, he's holding caufield, it's cold. Um, yeah, I think it's funny that um Jolly seemed expensive in Jolly. He uses it at least, he he repeats himself. He says again, he repeats himself um consciously. Um, I think something that to jump to um jumping to the end when he talks about um the way in which you become warm is important. Um he was to go in amongst these rich people that that warmth has like a like there's like an ethics behind it that is different than if he could warm himself or if they let him go in for free. We'll get into it. Um but he does try to go in somewhere, he thinks he finds a nice place and then he falls down. Ishmael, do you accomplish a task in this chapter? It seems like he does not.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Well, to be fair, I think it's it would be difficult to style out the kind of Prattfall that he has and and actually then go into that particular place. Like he surely I I would have to walk away from that situation as well. I find that very, very relatable.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, uh, so uh so like I was trying to figure out what's going on in this scene, right? And so the first thing after so like he stumbles up the ash, then he asks, are these the ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? Um, and then specifically something that blew me away was that uh um it seemed the great black parliament sitting in Toffit, and I didn't know what Taffit was. Uh, but Taffit is uh where uh children were sacrificed via fire uh to Moloch in uh the Old Testament. Um and so specifically Ishmael, who I I really view as like being, if not entirely a child, definitely like a youth of some kind, right? He stumbles over this ash box uh and he's entering this place, and there's a uh a direct mirroring of that imagery to like the way children were sacrificed at Toffit, where they are like put into this uh like a this this burning brasier. Um and so I view this as being like uh kind of what we get repeatedly is like Ishmael as like this kind of cast off, sacrificed, rejected child, basically, that's like kind of devoured by the world.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Um and I another orphan. I mean, that is is how he will at a certain point in the novel, no spoilers, will that's how he will refer to himself.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

What did you think of that section big?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Oh, I I was just gonna say uh looking at um this annotated version of the chapter um on Power Moby Dick, a website I like a lot. It says, just because I didn't know this, I could be useful to say that what the ash box is, is this basically what they would use to we would now salt the road where when it gets icy um or put rocks out if you live in Oregon where they didn't use salt. Um uh but they're spreading ash, it's to put on the road so you can walk on it. So it's what the ash box is like doing there. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that like every person who went to church was like, that's the ash box, don't step in it. Um, but Ishmael is a he's a little confused, you know, it's dark, he he has not eaten uh for a while, perhaps. Um likewise, the black parliament that he's saying is sitting in topic, he's using a never accuse him of not mixing a metaphor. Um, but the black parliament here, it says on this uh on this um reference page is a reference to like Parliament, Parliament in um in the UK, either that's the Scottish or the English King's Parliament. So um that's like an established thing that a reader may or may not have been familiar with, but he's mixing those two things, those two different um uh what do you call it? Communities is not the right word, but like these two completely different like uh national mythologies, uh, when he's in that one line when he's blending people. Then he makes a huge noise and everyone looks around at him and he's like, my bad, and just kind of like exits slow, slow backs away. Yeah, it is. And like, um I know we're about to talk about it, but I this is um another place that he self-un communityzes himself. Like he's trying to find a place where he can go. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that even this like white guy could have been like, sorry, um, does anyone have any heart attack? I'm trying to find a place to sleep. Can I sit here until you're done? Like, there's not there's another version of this chapter where he speaks up and he's like, My bad, um, can we do something? And maybe even a few chapters down the road where he feels more comfortable with himself amongst the town, he might have done that. But they look at him, he's like, I don't belong here either, and leaves. He absents himself. So um, this is another community where he has decided without asking anybody that he can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

So it's an interesting way that he feels like he still does not quite belong here. It's issues of of race and class. So he can't belong to any of the people who, in theory, he can. This is like a regular town. The his money would have worked at those rich places for a you know, fewer knights, but he could have done it. Um, he could have sat in that church and just been like, Yes, I am a Baptist, and like it would have it worked, it would have been fine, but he has decided that he can't in his own mind, based on whatever stories he was already telling himself about himself. So when he's like at the end of the chapter, well, enough of this, let's go inside this in, he's decided this place meets his like criteria for the box of place that I can stay the night. And these other places fail by whatever, by whatever measures he's decided are important.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

He's built a narrative for himself, and this doesn't really seem to be a part of it. And of course, and and it and and and it's characterized by barriers being up, and in a couple of chapters' time, in fact, actually from the next chapter onwards, we will start to see those barriers actually start to come down. And yeah, we we will start to get what what what turns out I think to be quite a beautiful sense of belonging in several different ways in in Israel.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah, um, and so specifically what I found interesting about this uh like uh this uh turn here, right? So he's got he leaves the the um the African-American church where the the preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness and the weeping and wailing and teeth gnashing there. So he's leaving the blackness of darkness, and what is the the the sign of the spouter in? It's uh uh there's a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it. So like that you get this both this color imagery, but also like uh racial imagery, right? So he's like very specifically he's yeah, yeah. He goes from the blackness of darkness to specifically where there's like a white painting.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Um here are my people.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Yes, yes, and of course, that anticipates beautifully the whiteness of the whale, both the the fact of Moby Dick's being white, but also the chapter, the beautiful kind of rhapsodic meditation on the whiteness not just of Moby Dick, but also of just anything that Melville can think of that is white. It's uh and we get the makings of that foundational tension here. Yeah, like you were saying, Tristan, between between uh white and black. There's a wonderful kind of sense of chiaroscuro that that underpins the entire text, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Let's talk about the spouter in. So um, Johnny, what do you think of the spouter in?

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Well, I mean, we don't quite get in, do we, uh, in in this particular chapter. Um, I feel like it's the kind of place I'd like to be for an hour and like two drinks.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

And then I think I would uh I would be somewhere you meet before you go to the real place that you're feeling, which is the harpoon place, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

Yeah, naturally, naturally, a more a more expensive, jollier place.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

You're sort of in like the Disney version of it. He's like standing on the outside, does a thing with a sweater where he makes like a perfect clear circle in the uh, you know, and like the it's it's so warm inside it's like fogged over, and he like presses his little nose against it, and they're like dancing like a jig inside, and there's like a suckling pig, and he's like, I I can't do it. And then he's like, Where are my people drinking the off-brand coffee? Yes, here Ishmael can stay the night.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

So uh what do we think of poor Lazarus and Dives at the dive?

SPEAKER_00 36:12

At the dive, yeah, it's true. So I'll give you my perspective of someone who had to read this a couple times. Uh-huh. Um it seems like the thrust of it is that uh Lazarus is on the the steps outside. He's using the curbstone for his pillow and he's very cold. And Dives is I that I suppose that's how we're pronouncing it. Um is inside saying what a lovely cold night it is. I feel warm, but it's so beautiful outside and so cold. And he and Ishmael is saying, you know, it's it's different for the man who observes the cold versus the man who is cold. Um, give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. This is something that the rich people can do, and he's about to burn in hell for having the audacity of of doing of doing this sort of thing, those rich people in their in their jolly hotels.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah, so uh so specifically this is we're gonna go back to yet another uh um like New Testament illusion here. So um, so this is gonna come from uh Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 31. And I'll I'll briefly read this. Um, so so Jesus is giving a parable, uh, and this is what Jesus is saying. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. So that's our dives, okay? Um and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his swords. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bos uh bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, uh he, this the he being dives, the rich man lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeing Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. Um, and so yeah, so basically, uh you know, Dives is going to hell. But we'll get it. What's I think is interesting here is uh Melville is basically saying, But yeah, wouldn't Lazarus right now want to be in hell, right? Um, as he's like freezing, wouldn't doesn't even the Lazarus here freezing to death, uh doesn't hell sound kind of nice to him?

SPEAKER_03 38:45

And it's interesting because uh there is another figure in the Bible who is also called Lazarus, right? Who is the one who is resurrected. That's not the Lazarus that's being invoked here. I'm looking at Tristan as our resident theologian, he can correct me on anything, but I think it's interesting that you in in raising the one narrative, I think the other is also kind of underpinning potentially a little bit of what's going on here. After all, you know, minor spoiler, but Ishmael ends up functioning in this story as a Lazarus, but of the other ilk.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see that. If you want to be extremely pedantic about it, and we do on this podcast, we love being extremely pedantic about it.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

That ship has sailed and we didn't miss it.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um technically, uh Lazarus was resuscitated, not resurrected. So uh if you're brought back to life but you're gonna die again later, you're resuscitated. Uh, like from a theological perspective.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

He had to die again.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

That's yeah, yeah. Yes. If you're if you're resurrected like Jesus was, you uh are brought back and you don't die again. So to be extremely pedantic from a theological perspective, there is a no that's not good.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

That's fun. That's fun. There is a different word, I think, for um we should tack this on to episode zero, cannibalism when you do it to survive versus cannibalism when you're doing it like cannibal lector style. There's another word for it.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

That's bringing it back to my wheelhouse. All right, I don't know about those Lazarus stuff. Yes, the Lazarus who gets um re revitalized is the one that I was familiar with. Could Christ have come up with a second name?

unknown 40:25

Could Christ?

SPEAKER_03 40:26

It's uh it's it's poor narrative writing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 40:29

It's like everyone was named Miriam. It's like let's there were truly there was like a Tiffany back there somewhere we could have talked about.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

There's probably so many names back then. You got there's multiple Jesuses, multiple Marys. There's so many Marys. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 40:42

It's like Sinner the poet in Julius Caesar who gets torn for his bad verses, not because they ever they think he's sinner the conspirator, he's not, but they kill him anyway. There can't be more than one sinner in the in the in that play.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah, uh, but I I do like Meg that you're really leaning into your role as our resident uh cannibalism expert. We do need to have a resident cannibalism expert on the show for sure.

SPEAKER_03 41:05

Every podcast has one.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Yeah, now so do we can I mention one interesting thing? Please, please, you can mention several place. Oh, great. When he's talking about the front of the spouter, and we don't go in, but he's looking at it. Um, and he's writing about the wind that's tossing Paul's craft, which is fun.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

And then he starts to quote Eurocliteron kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Yeah, sounds like a really beautiful little dinosaur. But then he starts to quote something, and judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclodon, says an old writer of whose works I possess the only copy extant. Then the quote goes on. What's up with that? We're we're back to that's Melville, right? Like that's not a real book.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Well, we're we're back to the extracts, we're back to from something unpublished.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

He's creating like an encyclopedia that's not real. And so, us, our job is to say, one that's cute, that you know, that's interesting. Um, what what is this quote doing superficially just for this um thing that he's talking about, the wind? But then why does Melville feel the need to create a pretend source? What are we doing by making this library out of things that really it's just him? Where he could just say, Hey, isn't this thing cool? He has to say, I've got this rare book. Along with my two shirts, I have a rare book. Um what do you guys think about that? What's up with that?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah, uh, Johnny, I want to hear from you about that. I I do have something to say about the uh your Euroclidon, uh, but I want to hear what you think about this uh this literary device.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

It's absolutely fascinating, and I think it really adds so many layers to this text relationship with Verisimilitude, right? We spent a long time when we were talking about the extracts, talking about okay, what gives Melville or slash Ishmael the the authority to sit down and and sort of regale us for 700 pages about about whaling. Um and this is adding just such a fascinating thread to that. Um, I suppose we could call it an example of um of what we'd call historiographic metafiction, which is to say a text that claims to be historically true, but which has uh lies threaded through it. And it just it's such a so obviously what's going on. He's not Melville is not burying the lead at all here. He he seldom does. CF coffin about a rather ominous in that particular connection, thought I. You know, he's so much of what's going on is so surface level. And this is and and this is an example of of precisely that, I think. And I don't think this is even the last time that Melville will do this throughout the course of the text. I think there are further are further instances of this, if I'm remembering rightly. So it's clearly something that's an important device for for something on the kind of the larger textual level.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah, and uh at uh to specifically talk about the Euroclidon, right? So this is the the wind. So like a lot of uh in classical times, lots of the winds uh based on the direction they're coming from are named. And so this is the wind that's supposed to uh wreck Paul, the Apostle Paul's ship, right? So even here we have another allusion to shipwrecks um with uh with the specific wind that's being discussed. Um and you know, to to go from Paul to Peter, we also have a Peter, right? So he's Peter Coffin. So this is uh a doubly, a triple, like with the spouter in, but like doubly, like a morbid name for Coffin, obvious, right? But Peter, uh the apostle Peter is supposed to be uh the the one at the pearly gates that like uh lets you in or not, right?

SPEAKER_03 44:55

I wonder what he's going to be standing under in the next chapter. Could it be a whale's jaw, which is a parodic version of the of the pearly gates?

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Yeah, oh wow, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

Bit of sizzle for the next step, bit of sizzle.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Uh tune in, find out what happens.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Yeah, no, this is great. Um, wonderful. Uh well, we we will have a lot to talk about um on chapter three, the spout are in. We're actually gonna break it up into two episodes um because it's a meaty chapter. There's too much. Uh we already fill like an hour with like some of these uh what what what I expect to be. Oh, is this gonna be is it is there enough content in chapter two for a whole episode? Yeah, there's uh an hour's worth of uh things we can discuss. But uh this has been great. We'll see you all then. Um, and thank you all very much for uh tuning in to Pequad Pod.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

You've been listening to the Pequod Pod with Tristan Babel Marquise, Meg Francher, and Johnny Wiles. You can support the show by visiting patreon.com forward slash pequadpod, throw us a tabloon or two for some bonus content and to help to keep the show going full sale. Thank you for listening, and until next time, call us the Pequod Pod