It gets a bad rep for being hard to read (which it is because of the sea-faring and archaic vocabulary) but it’s surprisingly entertaining with even a casual/jovial tone at times. I haven’t finished it, but so far like 30% of the book is irrelevant to the plot and is just the authors random musings and philosophies on life. He dedicates entire pages to debating what the most comfortable room temperature and position to sleep in is, or his opinions on random countries like Japan or “Affghanistan”. It almost reads like blogposts or diary entries.
He also has surprisingly modern humor and opinions. He makes borderline gay jokes when he has to sleep in bed with an African man “Queequog”, and then describes how he respects him, saying “the man’s a human being just as I am; he has just as much reason to fear me…better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” and that “It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin”. The two develop this wholesome Rush Hour style partnership that’s pretty funny.
There’s also one part where he states that even though he’s Christian, he respects anyone’s beliefs as long as they hurt noone.
I also really liked how it occasionally shifts to the 1st person perspective of Captain Ahab or Starbuck for a chapter which adds good variety.
Queeqeg isn’t African BTW, he’s from the South Sea islands.
Isn’t he Polynesian? Ie Maori?
Which could or could not mean his appearance would appear African to an outsider. I forget how he’s described in the book.
Queequeg is described as dark purplish yellow with black tattoos all over his face (he is pretty clearly Polynesian or Maori right from the get go).
There IS a West African Harpooneer in the book as well (Daggoo) who is clearly described as such.
purplish…yellow? i’m an artist but can’t imagine what that looks like.
Something like this maybe?
I always imagined it like mauve taupe.
Part of the issue is the availability of color words in 1851 New England is not what we would consider a full gamut. They had a different perception of color because of more limited experience and less available colors. Purple could have meant any of the range of colors of Tyrian purple, which can range from a hyacinth navy purple to a bright pink to a ruddy brown. Similarly, “yellow” was often associated with the color of gold, which is a lot more brown than true yellow.
Beige, mauve, and taupe aren’t even English color words yet in 1851. Indeed, mauve doesn’t take off until the discovery of the first artificial dye in the late 1850s.
I’m thinking it describes a more yellow skintone, but with healthy circulation and/or a dark tan over it. I’m Asian and some parts of me tan dark w/ a grayish cast so I can kinda picture it. Ngl it also calls to mind a bloated corpse.
I haven’t read the book so I only know Queequeg as shown in Futurama.
“Is there a Mrs. Queequeg?”
That no white whale. That grey thinky whale!
You sabee me?
I always figured he was Maori.
It is also makes sense considering his whaling prowess
He is a prince, is he not?