[With my blog post ] Seven Fascinations of the Hyper-Intellect , a commitment to explain the over- all form of Melville's MobyDick was advanced as an exercise to demonstrate and convey this in super-sensible terms. I have little doubt that anyone reading this claim might think it absurd to assert that this is possible. With a good sense of humor, I won't answer to cat calls of bogus, I will however answer to the moniker Humphrey Bogus' , I also won't respond to those of sophomoric, I will however to that of Sophia-more 'r' less.
Here's the basic position: The over-all form of MobyDick , consists of the Beginning, the End and everything contained in between those points. Points treated allegorically, but which are also in reality the technical limits under which human, concept based fiction is bound. It's impossible to ignore that there is always a head a body and a tail. Mellville's treatment of this follows a general argument he develops philosophically over the course of the entire book thus reinforcing a transcendent nature for the work as a whole. An argument I describe being used to clarify a common, individual human position in the Universe. With that stated, allow me to take up this track in a different fashion.
Let's say there were two boys playing one-ups-man-ship,in a make believe battle of literary daring. The first went on, speaking a fairly good tale, woods full of Indians behind every tree, strong arms,smoking flintlocks,human character in conflict and under the sword of moral judgment up to the concluding drum roll. Then the second began saying "this is not really a story , it begins with many steps, enough miles to wear out skin,the soul and boots, then a question. Why?, why after looking into the hungry eyes of obscurity, crossing paths with phantoms, and seeing a grey fog following ones shoulder: why are you warmed, fed, lighted and welcomed as a brother into the stream of human agency.It cannot pass without saying: no two tales are exactly the same, and some are set so differently that simple fascination doesn't meet the demand which requires you to participate. This assertion certainly applies to Melville's novels.
Two initial ideas, which together, lead to a third will here be used to continue.
------------"The beginning of any fiction is a long extensive history;and the ends of history are impossible to reach for even nothingness is significant in this regard."
"The notion that a book begins or ends with its first and last words is overturned when the inclination an individual brings to and takes away from the moment and place of this encounter is observed."
This is a mystery applying to any chronology,real or imagined. The mystique, of unknown and preconceived forces, engaged with a body of information in a process that is trans formative on a conceptual level.
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In 1851, the first reception given the epic novel MobyDick, did not generate enough interest to sell the first printing of 3,000 copies. Much of what distinguishes its latter resurgence, seems to be a veneration for learned interpretations, as if some intercession of expertise could make up for the obscurity it suffered during the authors lifetime. Attempts to build a sophisticated national literature coupled with the showmanship of critical erudition play no small part in the novels general reputation. Added to academic regards,cinematic adaptions of the drama have also contributed mythic status to this work. In writing for a general readership with more knowledge of the novel's inspiration of film narrative; an approach to discussion can easily begin here, with its mystique.
Mystique, the mysterious related impressions we have of a thing interpenetrated with actual knowledge of it. As something conceptual they are not the thing itself, but a useful picture of how we choose to relate awareness of it to our self. It could be described as the personal fiction of our understandings. Even the "Unknown" has mystique and begins to transform as soon as even a single concept seeks to define it. Ironic as it seems that even something which has no known quality has the mystique of a perceptual equivalent,it is just as ironic that this mystique (subjective prestyling) of the "Unknown" is so often dark and vacuous. I simply ask why? If you need a reference,why not shining and penetrating, or an idea suggesting the possibility of a more fearless,honest embracing of this quality inherent to consciousness.
Mystique, the mysterious related impressions we have of a thing interpenetrated with actual knowledge of it. As something conceptual they are not the thing itself, but a useful picture of how we choose to relate awareness of it to our self. It could be described as the personal fiction of our understandings. Even the "Unknown" has mystique and begins to transform as soon as even a single concept seeks to define it. Ironic as it seems that even something which has no known quality has the mystique of a perceptual equivalent,it is just as ironic that this mystique (subjective prestyling) of the "Unknown" is so often dark and vacuous. I simply ask why? If you need a reference,why not shining and penetrating, or an idea suggesting the possibility of a more fearless,honest embracing of this quality inherent to consciousness.
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Two stray side bar notes:The possibility of objective individual discernment is preceded by progressing through these types of distinction.
Generally impressions attributed a thing, can be of two degrees. One based on methods of personal experience and speculation , the other of such knowledge arrived at indirectly from other sources. -------------
Returning now to this tale of the whale fisheries: Melville himself seeks to dispel certain types of dogmatic thought regarding his work. In a chapter titled The Affidavit our author makes reference to what this book is and is not, "So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or worse still and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory." a disclaimer not easily overlooked. He also begins the first paragraph of the same chapter as follows. "So far as what there may be of narrative in this book... the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair." suggesting throughout the work a fact based fiction of a high order, as he again states, "...this is one of those disheartening instances where the truth requires full as much bolstering as error."
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a stray paragraph: working title, The Bug up My Ass, until it grows to big to fit any more.
Where fact is so easily obscured by mystique, elaboration,and interpretation, what is to be believed? In searching for an answer to the causality determining one or more aspects of humankind's place in the universe,all schools of thought and belief have developed. In this sense they all have a connection to a common truth, However this connection, even if it can be followed in reverse to its source rarely answers the question why a belief is relevant. Its scope of knowledge. small or vast, may not provide modes of expression to meet needs in the present moment, or directions for assimilating new unknowns encountered. The beginning and the end of knowledge are the assumption and the action. Saying that the causal force is knowledge may not be far off the mark if the definition of knowledge used is redefined to separate conceptual elements and hold them aside as contingencies under critical scrutiny.
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Back to Melville's quotes:
These are paradoxical arguments to tender. Looking at basic definitions of the words Fable and Allegory, it could be reasoned...
fable/ n. [ME, fr. MF fr. L fabula conversation, story, play fr. farl to speak- more at BAN]:
a fictitious narrative or statement : as, a1. a legendary story of supernatural happenings
b: a narration intended to enforce a useful truth; esp. one in which animals speak and act like
human beings. c. FALSEHOOD, LIE
allegory/ n. [ME, fr. L, fr. GK allegorein, to speak figuratively fr. allos+agorein, to speak publicly, fr. agora, assembly- more at Else, Gregarious] 1. a: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human conduct or expression. b: an instance of such
expression 2: a symbolic representation: EMBLEM
...it could be reasoned that Melville may have claimed the work to be none of the above This is the paradox ? what does this demonstrate.
It could be put forth that both pure fiction, as well as fictional variations of factual information and personal experience cannot escape the defined bounds of fable and allegory, simultaneously on both conscious and unconscious levels.
What then is the leading truth of this matter?
This novel does not exist as a pure documentation of a continuous process on a level of objective facts.
?Can the documentation of process contain fabrications without becoming an allegorical metaphor for a subjective state of individual sentience? No, and further, if fiction is not to be allegorical it would exist as what could only be described as irrational allegory, an impersonal non-symbolic randomization, which would include all higher elements of form and also redirect an irrational assigning of primary nouns and other language functions, eliminating observation of any regard to fable and allegory.
In the human mind, fictional constructs and pure historical documentation are twin tracks of ideas which form human outlook and guide action. Their appraised value must be evaluated not only in terms of applied effect and outcome, but by measuring both the ignorance and understanding under which they have been conducted. On one hand there is fact and on the other fiction. There is also a middle ground where they are also joined in one body of reason, partly of systematized proofs of pure thought and partly relevant conceptual motives and quasi-predictable provisions. This inter-work of touching on each other indicates a participatory value , a separation of individual function in unified form ,which in this instance set the bounds of humanized reason.
The effective relevance of knowledge is the single tangible attribute which ordains it with a deep personal worth. Orders of personal values are similar to semantic occurrences documenting sets of rules. Sequences such as [ Memory/Purpose/Survival ] have relevance of form following function.
They can be expanded syntactically:
Memory Purpose Survival ?
Idea Impulse Existence ?
Assumption Desire Satiation ?
Mystique Fortuity Blessedness ?
Tendency Relation Realization ?
I won't pretend to be well versed in such matters, used here to illustrate how open ended systems are implied by certain semantic orders. They can imply a beginning-less beginning, stretching back as far as the source and origins of information reach, they connect in a merged field of real factors, relevant choices and comprehension, they progress to states of related effect , yet remain unstable and not totally free of unpredictable change as they combine with a universe of circumstances.
Here is our habitation enforced, this places us in the oceanic midst of the shared individual condition. Form following function, but not as an end in itself, but as a tendency toward inter-related,ongoing temporal function.
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Under these circumstances, it's quite obvious Melville was in effect lying, or in a very subtle way urging the reader to look beyond outward apprehension, beyond both facts presented and implications of the creative distortions offered, in order to understand what he was communicating by doing so.
It can be inferred that he was willing to undertake this action regardless of the consequent risk he faced in our comprehension of the expressions intent.
This complexity is indicative of higher relations; advancing a case that the intent was to leave a general impression of mutual awareness, a developing sentience, a real quality of individuality shared within the whole of all awareness.
This is an Invocation of a Mystic Universal in terms which a thoughtful human being may appreciate.
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Yes, Moby Dick, the novel is foremost an objectified work of art, and is so in the same way that a painting is an object and also a work of art. In this sense Melville was a Muralist, the detail, perspective, its breadth of action and leading implications reach far-far beyond the subject being depicted. He did write a book with no beginning and no conclusive end except in its turning to involve us again in the continuous affair of the present. Inviting and welcoming us here as intimate acquaintances and equals. He opens to us a family we can join and promote or one we can divide and destroy, if through selfish obsessions we ignore and abuse the nature of our common universal relations and dependencies.
The book is a fable, simply not a monstrous one, and an allegory, but not hideous and intolerable. Thus in the end Melville wasn't lying; it was his adjectives which revealed, entertained and supported the deep mystical validity of his hidden creative gesture.
