Chapters 5-18: In Which Ismael Wanders Around Some, And then Wanders Around Some More

So, what's happened since we left our intrepid narrator in the bed of a cannibal savage? Well, not much. Queequeg ends up being Ishmael's bosom buddy. And I mean buddy.

Our bumbling narrator even goes as far as to say that Queequeg is "George Washington cannibalistically developed." WHAT. The pair even go as far as to get "married" in Queequeg's terms. Seriously.

There's a nice little passage about going to bed with your lover. "...there is no place like a bed for confidential disclousures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning."

I want it to be like this for me and Jon.

Ishie goes to church, and the sermon is frought with sea metaphors and death and dying and whatnot. He sleeps some more with Queequeg, then heads to Nantucket to eat chowder and pick his boat out for whaling. On the way there's a lot of stupid young "saplings" on board that choose to make fun of our typical noble savage character. "I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come." Oh Ishmael. Queequeg then proceeds to toss the dude around, only to have the boat nearly fall apart, and the dumbass nearly drowns. Of course, Queequeg saves him. WHAT NOBILITY.

We also find out that Queequeg is a real live cannibal. As in, he's eaten people before. Specifically his enemies. What. Seriously. I thought the cannibal stuff was a joke.

Nantucket isn't the most exciting place. In fact, "There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper." HOW MUCH SAND? Why don't you go on about it for a million pages, Ishmael?

I don't poke fun, because then I proceed to read those million pages, utterly fascinated.

So Ishmael is tasked with choosing a whaling ship, and he chooses the Perquod, the infamous boat of Moby-Dick lore, helmed by Captain Ahab! The owners, Bildad and Peleg, are pretty nutty.

Okay, so we haven't met Ahab, but we keep hearing about him. This legendary bad-ass whaler dude that got his leg bitten off by a huge whale.

Dying in whaling is so poetic: "Yes, there is death in this business of whaling - a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity." I love that line. It's such a beautiful image. "bundling into Eternity."

Queequeg is sort of a prodigy harpooner. At one point he hits a tiny spot of oil with his harpoon from very far away. What.

Also, "hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling."

And there you have it. Welcome to my world of wonderful reading.

But in all seriousness, I'm enjoying this way more than I have the right to. Moby-Dick is earning its classic status with flying colors.

NOW GIMMIE SOME AHAB.