APS TOGETHER
Day 21
Moby-Dick by Herman MelvilleChapters 89-93
April 9, 2022 by Yiyun Li
“What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?” What dreadful comfort to know that a book, having been written, is a Loose-Fish, which, if read, becomes a Fast-Fish belonging to the reader.
“Man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought.” Flashback to chapter 40. Pip with his presentiment: “Who’d go climbing after chestnuts now? There they go, all cursing, and here I don’t.”
“It will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself.” “The Castaway” ends with Ishmael speaking as a future castaway. Sometimes I cannot help but think: who among us has not been thus abandoned?
