They say it’s the most famous first sentence, but if you’re starting with Call me Ishmael, you’re skipping a few pages of pleasure. I never thought of Melville as a jokester, but he seems to be having fun by leading off with the Etymology section and this introduction of his source:
The pale Usher- threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.
The Extracts are worth the viewing. Two stick out for me. This one, from Boswell’s Life of Johnson, quoting Oliver Goldsmith:
"If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales."
Then this, from a work called Currents and Whales (and which I cannot trace), that seems to be a metaphor for the book you are about to read:
"It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage."
Thx for that. Yes, he's really giving credit there to his inspirers, isn't he: the bit about the beast who "fixed jav'lins in his side he wears," and the other bit about finding a whale entirely white...
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at November 11, 2005 09:57 PM