The last of the Mohicans

[ziki]

---

chad wrote:I also cannot help bringing up the dangers of teaching language, second languages, or language transplants for the authors of the 19th century. Languages were used in this era, and the writers wrote about it.

Chad

---

How do you mean? I do not understand.

ziki

[ziki]

I think it will be important to pick up MD again and read it second time...as if that was for the first time. I tried to read it in another language directly after I finished here but it didn't do the trick. It seems to me that the book after the first reading needs some incubation time...who knows how it will look after that period of silence.
It would really be great to go to Mystic for that summer reading event.



There is a message in the book that reduces to 'never give up, find your purpose and live it'. Whales have it inherently, people might struggle more to get into such ease about life.

Speaking of paintings, some chapters rest now in my memory as paintings with message (language) latent. Like if I saw it in a gallery.

ziki

PS
What will you read next Chad?

[ziki]

Maybe we are like whales.....I didn't even think of Moby board for some time and today it was like I heard a call and visited and sure enough here you were posting away
Maybe that is the language beyond language, the language that you do not learn, the communication we inherited from animals and forgot as the words started to evolve. It is not really intuition I think, it is a form of wordless communication.

ziki

[ziki]

---

Choisya wrote: I correspondence with a Native American cyber-friend in Virginia (scene of the recent dreadful massacre).

---

I was actually thinking about Bob these days and how it might have affected him. It is so difficult to grasp mentally what happened there, such a desperate move by that young man.

ziki

[ziki]

---

chad wrote:
Just kidding,

By the way, Ahab's ultimate goal is to be immortal or to keep himself from dying, and, the only way he can do this is try to remain in that interface, to become death himself. At one point, I believe he screams, "Leaky caskets within leaky caskets!" and literally goes insane realizing that everything in the world is connected, he is unable to remain in that interface-- everthing leaks through and nothing has integrity- For example, we are connedtced through our world by our nostrils, the whale through his spout, etc. etc.

Hope this continues to clue everyone in, but I'll try and write more later, later,

Chad

---

Interesting...but either one sees oneself as connected or realizes that in fact the seemingly solid body (body-casket) is not real and that we are light particles and have no boundaries..thus everything goes 'through you'...molecules float and you are that what is not there....this stuff is so difficult to speak about but once you experience it you never doubt it. Once I was in a dancing workshop which was pretty intense and on the second day there was no me while I was walking down the street that morning so I am not just making this up. I wonder if whale is one with water, one with other whales in such a way (=that humans forgot about).

ziki

[Choisya]

We didn't put a lot into educating the natives Chad - it was best to leave them in ignorance so that they didn't find out too much and remained subjugated Even today relatively few Indians formally learn English because it isn't taught at State schools, only in private ones.

---

chad wrote:
I just use India as an example. But, in this case, I think there was a conscious formalized, decisive effort from Britain to educate India in the use of the English language. I am believing that some were supposed to "pick up" some of the language.

Chad

---

[chad]

Language is our invisible skin, and it sometimes becomes visible, such as in the form of tattoos, still popular, or hieroglyphics on Egyptian walls, scrimshaw, or possibly the tattoos that Nature inscribes on a whale- except ice formations give the whale his tattoos. So, we are connected to our world through our skin or language, but at the same time disconnected, we must somehow maintain our integrity as human beings and as a civilization. The interface is that point we connect and tragically, where we connect sometimes lead us to our own demise. Our eyes and ears can decieve us and the whale's spout can reveal his location, where the sea meets the sky.

Chad

PS- parchment was the other thought- I think the whales's skin was used as parchment

Message Edited by chad on 04-21-200711:38 AM

[chad]

I like the Barnes and Noble selections, so I was going to see what you were doing in May.

Half way there!
Humanity seems to be equalizing- Democracy, socialism and communism replace aristocracies. I think we came to a point in the 19th century where we had to boost ourselves collectively past that halfway point, to escape the ultimate equalizing force of the earth's rotation around the sun. The union with the whale, the largest animal on earth, gave us that boost.

Chad

[chad]

There are all kinds of things that might be not that great to discuss. It's about the prolonging of life- sexual organs ensure continued survival of the species- why the title. But controlled sexuality, I think is in there, and, something that goes along with the topic above: democracy is only something that helps business to survive. So much more, so little time. I can't beleive they print these books. But Melville's larger themes created some memorable characters and tension in the story, like between that of Ahab and Starbuck.

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 04-22-200711:41 AM

[chad]

The whale is what helped to keep the U.S. together, to form a new union. After the civil war, I would have called our government a whaleocracy. So, ladies and gentlemen, our friend, the whale:

www.whale-images.com/humpback_whale_facts.jsp

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 04-22-200708:45 PM

[chad]

...but a couple more examples of visible interfaces of air and water: would be, as mentioned, the horizon line, the whale's spout or whitewater in the ocean. Where do we feel exactly is that divison between air and water?, does it exist? And if you now think about your own connections to the world, see?, you do get it!

Chad

This word is interesting anyway. "Interface" is now again popular, thanks to the computer- I think we all knew that.

[chad]

Well, knowledege of philosophy is kind of important, but Melville was alsopoetic. I would go only so far as to say that the philosohy emanatng from the philosoper might be a line that attaches to your body, a magnetic pull, or can be like someone aiming at you with a bayonet. In addition , we can see physical manifestations of philosophy, like gabled houses, which unify the people and minds of the inhabitants who dwell inside, the home becomes almost like a living person with a mind and soul. Right angles and triangles emanating from Pythagoras I think...

What say you?

Chad

[ziki]

---

chad wrote:
I like the Barnes and Noble selections, so I was going to see what you were doing in May.

---

I didn't yet decided, it depends on how the discussions will shape up....but Walden fell between chairs which is a pity. Maybe we could dust off that one.

ziki

[ziki]

---

chad wrote:
... Where do we feel exactly is that divison between air and water?, does it exist?

---

to my better understanding, it doesn't exist.

ziki

[chad]

Or something impenetrable- so Ahab devises his special harpoon... I loved the book, but I know it was revived in the 1920's. The authors, especially in this time period, seem to revolve a story around mind-expanding themes. I wonder if Moby just wasn't well understood, back then or even now. But it seems pretty basic- I was also reading some of the critiques in the back of the book, they're not coming through as very intelligent to me either...

Chad

[chad]

Well,

I think that's also kind of right. The lines that the whale follow on the seas, become the lines on the chart, which become the lines on Ahab's forehead, resembling a crucifixtion. Or did the lines of the cross become the lines on Ahab's forehead which became the lines of the chart, which then became the lines the whales follow on the world? Does the world or universe have some kind of inherent woe that we just can't seem to overcome?


Chad

Message Edited by chad on 04-25-200711:34 AM

[Choisya]

Are you going to cross the line now and come over to Walden with Ziki and I chad (American Classics, with pmath leading the discussion.)

[ziki]

---

chad wrote:
Well,

I think that's also kind of right. The lines that the whale follow on the seas, become the lines on the chart, which become the lines on Ahab's forehead, resembling a crucifixtion. Or did the lines of the cross become the lines on Ahab's forehead which became the lines of the chart, which then became the lines the whales follow on the world? Does the world or universe have some kind of inherent woe that we just can't seem to overcome?


Chad

Message Edited by chad on 04-25-200711:34 AM

---

The issue of patterns and resemblance of forms is really interesting. Just a few basic shapes repeated in many ways. If you paint I am sure you've already discovered that.

ziki

[chad]

I don't think either one of you said that. Someone was being goofy over around my way, I think. I'd like to wait and see what will come up for the next book club in May- that sounds good though.

Chad

[chad]

"The issue of patterns and resemblance of forms is really interesting. Just a few basic shapes repeated in many ways. If you paint I am sure you've already discovered that."


Yes, I have something kind of in the works on that note, but your comment reminds of the patterns found on blankets, and Americans are famous for their patchwork quilts(?). Melville might be saying a little more, hinting at where civilization is shaped- the blanket acts like a skin or interface.

Chad