“The Gilder” begins with a subtle yet jarring change of voice, as the narration shifts to the third-person “they,” away from the first-person “we” predominant throughout the book. The shift is not without precedent — earlier chapters presented as script for the stage come to mind — but still I wonder, has Ishmael left us again as narrator, or just become momentarily detached from the events at hand?

The chapter describes not only an exceptionally beautiful day at sea, but the reactions such weather inspires in Ahab, Starbuck, and Stubb. Ahab leads with some typical (“the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm”) and atypical reflections. For example, here Ahab’s thoughts center on a cyclical nature of life and growth: “through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then skepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If.” This is a different Ahab, an Ahab much more like the manhood he describes than the adolescence in which he has spent most of the book. Is Ahab growing perhaps, or does he merely foreshadow his impending death from the cycle he describes?

Starbuck and Stubb, on the other hand, seem to be in very different stages of the cycle. Starbuck’s religious ruminations conjure “boyhood’s thoughtless faith” here and throughout the book. Stubb appears leaping “fish-like, with sparkling scales” as he thinks, “I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!” Maybe it’s just me and my personal preference, but Stubb’s Budda-esque outlook seems the most appealing of all presented here — in “infancy’s unconscious spell,” we are perhaps closest to nature, and to each moment of which we are aware. May we all find an end in this stage of the cycle, and not in the throes of faith, doubt, or ponderousness.

Chapter 114: The Gilder

Narrator:
On and on,
The great golden sun
Gilds the vales and the hills like the heavens.

And on and on,
The sea rolls anon
How the grass in fields dip and leaven.

Ahab:
But ’round and around and around,
Our fortunes come tumbling down
Then raise to the peak of a crown,
Like the sea.

As cold is decayed from the warm,
The blessings come crossed by a storm
And orphan our floundering forms
In the sea.

Ahab’s men:
Oh, give us a captain of woe
And we’ll row and we’ll row and we’ll row,
And we’ll face a magnificent foe
Such as He!

Starbuck and Stubb:
The sea coaxes me
To always believe
In the meadows
Of my old-fashioned home,
Like the gelding
Stretched in full gallop on.

(c) and (p) 2010 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea August 2, 2010
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea March 5, 2011

In an interesting meta sort of way, after Ahab’s soliloquy he comments, “O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives in matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.” Ahab draws some of these analogies clearly in his speech — the depth of the sea represents the depth time and of human experience; the calm of the breeze represents Ahab’s loss of faith and loss of hope.

Ishmael seems to draw his own analogy as well in preceding Ahab’s thoughts with a description of severing a whale’s head from its body. Like the whale’s head, Ahab’s mind has been separated from the rest of him — he’s all head and no heart — resulting in a man who, like the whale, has seen into the depths of experience, but can’t utter a coherent word to communicate the pain of that glimpse. Drawing on Ahab’s earlier images of God, one can imagine a giant cutting spade descending from the heavens to surgically make the cut, leaving Ahab dumbly buoyed in a solitary spiritual drift.

Chapter 70: The Sphynx

The deadliest calm,
A song indivisible
By the lonely.
Here is a man,
All alone. Oh!

The stillness of hearts,
We know as analogy
Drawn to nature.
Here is the sea,
Old and worn. Oh!

But love, ever blessed, is only known
Yet in our hearts!
Yet in our hearts!

The breeze of your touch,
A life to the miserable,
An elation.
Move me an inch,
Then a mile. Oh!

(c) and (p) 2010 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea July 27, 2010
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea February 5, 2011

In “The Blanket,” Ishmael examines and discusses a whale’s skin. In noticing small lines “engraved upon the body itself,” Ishmael first compares the whale to Egyptian pyramids and cliffs etched with undecipherable hieroglyphics, thereby establishing the skin as text. Ishmael continues, noticing the scar tissue that accompanies these lines, and here things start to get gloomy. The scars remind Ishmael of the scrapes left behind on rocks after contact with an iceberg. However, he notes that the scars on the whales most likely come from fellow whales. Connecting the violent erosion between vast and indifferent forces of nature with the violence of contact between members of the same species is quite an image. Add to that a discussion of men and whales, both needing warmth as an essential condition of life, both living in a world so devoid of warmth that they must make it themselves, and I’m ready to retreat into a fetal ball for the next week.

But we know Ishmael has been in a mood since the day we met him. What I find interesting is the fact that this particular mood can be so compelling, even as a guilty pleasure. Why do we indulge it? What’s so sexy about a scar? What’s so macho about hardship?

Ishmael closes the chapter feeling hopeless about making any comparison between man and whale: “Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!” In “The Blanket,” he gives us lament for the mortal insignificance of mankind. Bleak, Ishmael. Bleak.

Chapter 68: The Blanket

The skin of a man does tell of his history.
The skin of a man is thin as the breeze.
The skin of the whale is written as mystery,
Scarred in the vast, unspoken sea.

Learn your lessons from his presence,
Lifeless, laid at your feet.
Thick skin, blessed warmth, and refuge
Need a man to survive.

Much as the whale, does man need an inner warmth,
Though banished to live out his days in the cold.
Much as the whale, is man but a stranger
On the Earth he calls his home.

Learn your lessons from his presence,
Lifeless, laid at your feet.
Thick skin, blessed warmth, and refuge
Need a man to survive.
Thick skin, blessed warmth, and refuge
Need a man to survive.

(c) and (p) 2008 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea October 5, 2008
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea October 24, 2009

In “Schools and Schoolmasters,” Ishmael compares the social habits of whales to similarly problematic human love relationships. Whales most often travel in schools of twenty to fifty, which appear in one of two general types. First, we have the “harem” variety of school — one alpha male followed by numerous females. “As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers,” when other male whales try to elbow into the “domestic bliss” of the harem. On top of all that strife, that lazy dog of a man won’t nurse the babies he fathered. Second, we have the fraternity variety of school — all young men, ripping-and-a-roaring through the world without a care for the future. Unlike the ladies of the harem, these men will ditch a friend at the first sign of trouble…men!

These cliches are certainly not without basis in the world, but they appear disproportionately in pop music. Thus, Ishmael’s satire made for some easy parallels to the early rock and doo-wop I love so dearly — happily for me, since songs about unhealthy relationships are fun to write, as well.

Chapter 88: Schools and Schoolmasters

A man in need is lonely indeed
‘Cause his friends don’t ever stick around,
But girlfriends know, when trouble’s at the door
You should never leave a good friend!
You should never leave a good friend!

Men will fight each other for the right
To defend a woman ’til the end.
They’ll party right through each and every night
‘Til a woman comes between them!
‘Til a woman comes between them!

Oh, girls last forever!
Together ’til the end!
Girls last forever!
Everlasting friends!

Men like making babies in the night,
but they never want to nurse them.
They leave their girls alone to brush the curls –
Thank heavens for a girlfriend!
Thank heavens for a girlfriend!

Oh, girls last forever!
Together ’til the end!
Girls last forever!
Everlasting friends!

(c) and (p) 2008 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea September 14, 2008
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea August 5, 2009

The action of the chapter follows Stubb as he asks Ahab to pad his ivory leg when he walks the decks at night, to allow the men to sleep below. Stubb quickly learns that Ahab will not allow his intensity to be muffled: “‘Am I a cannonball, Stubb,’ said Ahab, ‘that you would wad me in that fashion?’”

Ishmael draws several parallels between the peaceful weather, sleep, restfulness and death. Ahab feels that going to his cabin “feels like going down into one’s tomb,” and Ishmael notes that “Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.” For Ahab, underneath each moment of rest and peace lurks torment. The calm weather inspires memories, which for Ahab, are torturous. Ahab’s peg leg gives the men below dreams of “the crunching teeth of sharks.” We can imply from here that death will be no picnic for Ahab, either.

The difficulty of writing a love song lies in finding a conflict to drive the story without souring the love. One common out for this conundrum is the “hurts so good” model of love song. In this model, the love is so intense, it’s unhealthy and painful — you can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t think about anything but the object of your love. Sounds like Ahab to me.

Ch 29: Enter Ahab; to him, Stubb

Summer nights
I’ve been sailing on the oceans of memory,
A vision I’ve been saving of you.
Following you
In a passion, my actions are a remedy
For the truth.

Summer nights
I’ve been pacing, cracked upon your every dream.
Sleep feels like I’ll slumber indefinitely.
Up from my tomb
In a restless, ponderous oppressiveness
Over you.

The days are overflowing with peacefulness,
The warmth of but a passing goodbye.
I stand upon the only
Leg you left to hold me
Upright in the great ecstasy!

Summer nights
All I want is another dance for you and me,
A chance to make you forever mine.
Longing for you
Is a purpose, an absolute subversiveness
Of the rules.

(c) and (p) 2008 Patrick Shea
Words and music written by Patrick Shea August 11, 2008
All parts performed, arranged, and recorded by Patrick Shea February 19, 2009