Kontextmaschine

13th November 2022

Post reblogged from David J Prokopetz with 18,116 notes

elodieunderglass:
prokopetz:
Everything Tumblr has told you about Moby-Dick is absolute bullshit, and everything that Tumblr has told you about Moby-Dick is 100% true. It’s a travelogue fantasy. It’s proto-science fiction. It’s cosmic horror. It’s shockingly original and it’s shamelessly plagiaristic. It’s a misotheistic Christian parable in which the whale is the mask of a cruel, uncaring God and Ahab is Satan himself, not as trickster or as tempter, but as doomed hero. It’s the most gripping thing you’ll ever read. It’s boring as shit. But above all else – and I cannot emphasise this enough – it is filled with Facts About Whales.
Some of which are even true.
I’d argue that the wrong Whale Facts are much more interesting than the correct ones. Every time you run into an incorrect Whale Fact, you’re left with several options:
It’s something which was believed to be true at the time of the work’s authorship, and later proved not to be.

It’s something which was understood to be a popular misconception at the time of the work’s authorship, and Melville’s research failed him.

It’s something which was legitimately an unsettled question at the time of the work’s authorship, and Melville just happened to come down on the wrong side of the debate. (This is most likely to be the case when the Whale Fact in question relates to taxonomy; e.g., the whole “what is a fish?” business.)

It’s something which has no known precedent outside of the work itself, seriously, where the fuck did Melville get that?
Each of these options has a potentially fascinating story behind it. Basically, when Melville gets a Whale Fact right, that tells you a thing about whales – but when Melville gets a Whale Fact wrong, that tells you something about the context of the work’s authorship. And frankly? I’ve got better sources available to me if I just want to know things about whales!