Chapters 19-34 Ahab, the Infamous Pipe, Whale Family Trees, and More.

So we've met Ahab, who likes to kick people around with his ivory leg. And we've also gotten to one of the most famous symbolic moments in Moby-Dick - the chapter known as "The Pipe." From what I've read elsewhere, Ahab tossing his pipe into the sea stands for Ahab throwing away his happiness. To me, it's not just Ahab giving in to his obsession, but finally acknowledging it as well. He realizes that nothing of his former life will ever make him truly happy until he's grappled with the massive white whale that took his leg off. Even the pipe, his most cherished past-time, has become more of an annoyance than a pleasure.

I found even more interesting Stubb's dream, in which he envisions Ahab kicking him with his peg-leg. And then Ahab turning into a pyramid, which Stubb then kicks, until a humpbacked dude tells him that it's an honor to be kicked by Ahab, to be noticed by Ahab, and that it's not insulting to be kicked by a pegleg because it's an inanimate object. I'm not really connecting the dots here as to why Ahab turned into a pyramid. Maybe I'm looking too deeply for symbolism here, but... yeah. I can't find any connection.

Ahab is a pretty cranky old dude, but we haven't really gotten into his character much. For the time being, he's pretty much moping around deck and kicking the hands.

And we've sort of switched perspective to Stubb once or twice, whose dialect is a bit harder to read than Ishmael's, but is still pretty easy to breeze through.

And we've begun to delve into the encyclopedia part a bit. I just read through a complete description of all the various categories of whales there are. And you know what? I was bracing myself for dry, boring text, but this was actually ridiculously interesting, and at parts, laughable. He insists that whales are in fact, a species of fish, which Linnaeus' description he cites completely pegs them for the mammals they are. Melville’s language is so wonderful, that the reading is just plain entertaining. This is way better to read than an encyclopedia. He claims that the sperm whale was the largest whale in the sea, even though at the time of writing, the blue whale's existence was known to mankind.

He even goes as far as to name Harbor Porpoises the Huzza breed, since they make people cheer when they're bebopping around the harbor.

Some beautiful description about changing weather, worthy of Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn." "For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misantropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air."

Also: "The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing, redunant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up - flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns!"

Such gorgeous language. It nearly makes me swoon.

I am getting into more difficult chapters, like the Specksynder and the Cabin-Table, wherein websites like www.powermobydick.com are becoming a really big help with looking up little nuances that I've bookmarked on my Kindle.

Still plowing through, though, and it's still pretty darned interesting.