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Bianca Sommerland

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“The heroic and often tragic stories of American whalemen were renowned. They sailed the world’s oceans and brought back tales filled with bravery, perseverance, endurance, and survival. They mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, sang, spun yarns, scrimshawed, and recorded their musings and observations in journals and letters. They survived boredom, backbreaking work, tempestuous seas, floggings, pirates, putrid food, and unimaginable cold. Enemies preyed on them in times of war, and competitors envied them in times of peace. Many whalemen died from violent encounters with whales and from terrible miscalculations about the unforgiving nature of nature itself. And through it all, whalemen, those “iron men in wooden boats” created a legacy of dramatic, poignant, and at times horrific stories that can still stir our emotions and animate the most primal part of our imaginations. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme,” proclaimed Herman Melville, and the epic story of whaling is one of the mightiest themes in American history.”

HistoryOceanAmerican HistoryWhalesMelvilleWhaleMoby DickWhalingHarpoon
Book:Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America
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“American whale oil lit the world. It was used in the production of soap, textiles, leather, paints, and varnishes, and it lubricated the tools and machines that drove the Industrial Revolution. The baleen cut from the mouths of whales shaped the course of feminine fashion by putting the hoop in hooped skirts and giving form to stomachtightening and chest-crushing corsets. Spermaceti, the waxy substance from the heads of sperm whales, produced the brightest- and cleanest-burning candles the world has ever known, while ambergris, a byproduct of irritation in a sperm whale’s bowel, gave perfumes great staying power and was worth its weight in gold.”

HistoryOceanAmerican HistoryWhalesShipMoby DickWhalingHarpoon
Book:Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America
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“It is a curious thing that in whaling vessels the Church of England Prayer book is always employed, though there is never a member of that Church among officers or crew. Our men are all Roman Catholics or Presbyterians, the former predominating. Since a ritual is used which is foreign to both, neither can complain that the other is preferred to them, and they listen with all attention and devotion, so that the system has something to recommend it.”

ReligionWhalingThe Captain Of The Polestar
Author:Arthur Conan Doyle
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“Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm, and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when--There she blows!--the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.”

LifeEternityWhaling
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there.' For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing over the weather-bow, I perceived that the ship, swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing toward the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see. 'Well, what's the report?' said Peleg when I came back; 'what did ye see?' 'Not much,' I replied - 'nothing but water; considerable horizon though, and there s a squall coming up, I think.' 'Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where you stand?”

HumorThe WorldWhalingThe Ocean
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knotholes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.”

MaliceWhaling
Book:moby dick, or, the whale kindle - Annotated : "Moby Dick, or, The Whale Kindle: Navigating Obsession and Nature's Majesty in Herman Melville's Epic Tale."
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