I'm also reminded of one of my favorite lines in popular song, from Lightfoot' s THE WRECK OF THE RFMUND FITZGERALD: ""Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours...?"
Boze, this is a tour de force on the immense impenetrability of mystery. Like a great cubist artist, you look at this reality from many angles--penetrating insights from Melville, Job, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton . . .
Indeed, as you quote Einstein, “Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations."
The rest methinks is silence.
Thanks for this very erudite, deep, wide reflection on the limits of our knowing and understanding.
Interesting thread to bind all these stories together.
A couple of notes:
1) "ago" means from the present moment - the word you were looking for is "earlier" although the use of the dates makes this redundant
2) "whence" means "from where" so the use of "where" in that sentence is redundant
3) Would've been nice to distinguish Matilda Fitzroy (the drowned daughter) a little more clearly from (the future) Empress Matilda, whose mother was also named Matilda LOL
4) Sorry to hear about that Sharon lady!
5) No mention of the Biblical origin of the name Ahab? Quite a bit of 7th century Judah propaganda coming through, that - real-life Ahab was actually quite a boss
6) Moby Dick is a messy slop of a book - are there some amazing passages? Absolutely. It only lands because the ENDING is so good. But it is badly in need of editing, including the veer from 1st person to 3rd person and all the "wikipedia" bits in the middle. Even small details like whether Ahab has one peg leg in his possession or a "whole quiver full of them" are contradictory.
7) Speaking of which, Moby Dick might be famous now, but it was universally reviled during Melville's lifetime - his other "travel" books were much more popular (a sentiment which I fully concur with)
8) I was waiting for you to tie in the fact that Satan's only appearance in the OT is in the Book of Job, but it never came.
9) Speaking of which, nice to know that one's wife and kids are just possessions and can easily be replaced :P
10) Don't even get me started on all the conspiracy theories related to that Pleiades and Orion reference hehehe
Just in the midst of reading Moby-Dick, and it’s a fever-dream of a novel! Very experimental, and the prose might be the most gorgeous English prose I‘ve read so far.
"The fragile vessel couldn’t hold their weight. Within moments it had capsized, sending Matilda, William and everyone else aboard to their deaths."
That can't be right, because as you note in the next paragraph, King Henry named Matilda as his heir following William's death.
(I was just listening to the story of the White Ship a few days ago in episode 73 of the History of English podcast. It mentions William turning the lifeboat back to try to rescue some other passengers, but does not say who the other passengers were.)
I'm also reminded of one of my favorite lines in popular song, from Lightfoot' s THE WRECK OF THE RFMUND FITZGERALD: ""Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours...?"
Boze, this is a tour de force on the immense impenetrability of mystery. Like a great cubist artist, you look at this reality from many angles--penetrating insights from Melville, Job, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton . . .
Indeed, as you quote Einstein, “Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations."
The rest methinks is silence.
Thanks for this very erudite, deep, wide reflection on the limits of our knowing and understanding.
Boze, all this amazing piece of literary musing is lacking is a section on Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN.
You know, I was just thinking the same thing.
Interesting thread to bind all these stories together.
A couple of notes:
1) "ago" means from the present moment - the word you were looking for is "earlier" although the use of the dates makes this redundant
2) "whence" means "from where" so the use of "where" in that sentence is redundant
3) Would've been nice to distinguish Matilda Fitzroy (the drowned daughter) a little more clearly from (the future) Empress Matilda, whose mother was also named Matilda LOL
4) Sorry to hear about that Sharon lady!
5) No mention of the Biblical origin of the name Ahab? Quite a bit of 7th century Judah propaganda coming through, that - real-life Ahab was actually quite a boss
6) Moby Dick is a messy slop of a book - are there some amazing passages? Absolutely. It only lands because the ENDING is so good. But it is badly in need of editing, including the veer from 1st person to 3rd person and all the "wikipedia" bits in the middle. Even small details like whether Ahab has one peg leg in his possession or a "whole quiver full of them" are contradictory.
7) Speaking of which, Moby Dick might be famous now, but it was universally reviled during Melville's lifetime - his other "travel" books were much more popular (a sentiment which I fully concur with)
8) I was waiting for you to tie in the fact that Satan's only appearance in the OT is in the Book of Job, but it never came.
9) Speaking of which, nice to know that one's wife and kids are just possessions and can easily be replaced :P
10) Don't even get me started on all the conspiracy theories related to that Pleiades and Orion reference hehehe
This was a brilliant and beautiful read. I love the way you wove together so many different threads.
As much as I have read through the years, MOBY DICK has never been high enough up on my radar to commit to. I might just need to rethink that. :)
I always love your comments 🖤 and I hope you do give Moby-Dick a go 🥰 ! It is just so stunning
Wow, oh wow.
Just in the midst of reading Moby-Dick, and it’s a fever-dream of a novel! Very experimental, and the prose might be the most gorgeous English prose I‘ve read so far.
"The fragile vessel couldn’t hold their weight. Within moments it had capsized, sending Matilda, William and everyone else aboard to their deaths."
That can't be right, because as you note in the next paragraph, King Henry named Matilda as his heir following William's death.
(I was just listening to the story of the White Ship a few days ago in episode 73 of the History of English podcast. It mentions William turning the lifeboat back to try to rescue some other passengers, but does not say who the other passengers were.)
That was a different Matilda.
He had two sisters named Matilda?