Truly a travelogue here. Journaling too; complete with time-tracking. Ishmael heads off to Nantucket in search of adventure and a connection to its a-whaling history, "the place where the first dead American whale was stranded." But prior to room and board on the way from Manhatto (of course Manhattan). I must say, that I think that Wings was and remains a very underrated TV sitcom, speaking of Nantucket.
"A very dark and dismal night." This a mere 21 years on the heels of the prototypical showpiece of 'purple prose' in Bulwer-Lytton's "It was a dark and stormy night..." opening of mass ridicule. Oh, the melodrama. The rolling poetics. I hope there's Dramamine in that carpet-bag. Ishmael is a budget traveler who might well have busted his said budget on whatever emo kids of his day over-spent their money on. First, "The Crossed Harpoons," an inn deemed too happy and above that, too pricey.
Then another of the same variety of moody dismissal. Before long, we appear to have followed Ishmael and his worn-out footwear into and further into the wrong part of town. All the way to a 'negro church' and not all reading is easy reading, for sure. Then we find The Spouter Inn. The name of Peter Coffin. Dead Dick? A lovely Dickensian-style name. A house "palsied" on one side (a great bit of imagery). A biblical reference (Lazurus) and a mention of tobacciana via corn cob pipe and I feel myself settling right in.
Here, at The Spouter, Ismael claims the journey's onset. Fueled in part by pea coffee. Not just any pea coffee, but a cup that our narrator feels might well garner a quite decent Yelp review. But what is pea coffee? Probably a cheap coffee substitute made from, you guessed it--broken dreams, empty pockets, and peas. I like to think of Spouter as a faux dive, however. Brewing up Peaberry pour-over coffee to travelers wearing boots bought stylishly distressed at exorbitant prices.
That's not the case here, though. We are enveloped in impoverished despair. Speaking of drinks and despair, the tears of orphans are mentioned as and in such. Again, Charles Dickens (what thoughts I have of you tonight*). Always too, a sense of Whitman's long-line free verse. Ever bravely walking the line of over-doneness, and with mad self-indulgence beckoning him on either side as he walks these well-portrayed settings via highfalutin and meandering morosely-rollicking inner monologue.
A concluding thought. Whitman and Melville it feels informed one-another to some as-of-yet explored by me extent. Although I immediately feel each (moreso Whitman) begat Allen Ginsberg. But particularly, I wonder about the link between Moby Dick--its travelogue sections--and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Jack and Allen. Herman and Nathaniel Hathorne. Ishmael and Queequeg. A clutter-cluster of a concluding thought, that. Swing your partner round and round.
*[paraphrase] A Supermarket in California, by Allen Ginsberg. "What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman..."
Previously: Kaplowitz Media. Commentary on Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851) by Herman Melville (Etymology, Extracts, & Ch. 1 Loomings)
Next: Kaplowitz Media. Commentary on Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851) by Herman Melville (Ch. 3 The Spouter-Inn)
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