Chapter VI. THE STREET

Me reading (4:41).

I tried to improve the comprehensibility of the reading this time by doing it slower and less pseudo-naturalistically, but on listening afterward I found that to be somehow gratingly inappropriate. The text, to me, has the quality of being a long, smirky ramble. With that slow, spacious, over-attentive approach, the flow and attitude of it seemed completely distorted. So then I did the version above, faster and more forcefully. This is still no good but it’s not as bad, either. I’m still not sure what the best solution is.

Part of the problem may simply be that I don’t have a good voice for this book. I have a prissy stuffed-nose-y back-of-the-throat sound a lot of the time, whereas this needs the opposite, a wide-open low voice with some grit in it. But a young one. William Hootkins (the guy who says “top men” to Indiana Jones), reading on the recent Naxos recording, is suitably cranky and confident, but has a nerdish pitch to his voice that seems wrong – I want someone a little more rough. Though I imagine I could get used to it. Hm – I see here that Hootkins died last fall, just after the recording came out. I don’t think I knew that until now.

UPDATE 5/06 – Links to reading intentionally broken. For all that.

nondescript, n.
1. Chiefly Biol. A species, genus, etc., that has not been previously described or identified. Also in extended use. Now rare in technical use.
2. b. A person or thing that is not easily described, or is of no particular class or kind.

Chestnut street
I don’t know – does he mean in Philadelphia or Boston? Or does he quite possibly mean in Salem, MA? The Norton edition of Moby-Dick apparently indicates that this is Philadelphia.

Regent Street
This is definitely London.

Lascar
1. (Freq. with capital initial.) An East Indian sailor.

Apollo Green
Generally called Apollo Bunder: a wharf in Bombay (now Mumbai).

Water Street
In New York, I assume. Oop, Norton says Liverpool.

Wapping
Area near the ports in London.

Feegeeans
= Fijians, of course, from Fiji. We’ve already seen this one.

Tongatabooans
= Tongatapuans, from Tongatapu, the main island of Tonga.

Erromanggoans
= Erromangoans, from Erromango, a large island in Vanuatu. We’ve also seen this one before.

Pannangians
… I’m guessing this is people from Penang (occasionally “Panang”) in Malaysia, which would make some sense because of its colonial history. But I’m not completely sure – I can’t find any source confirming my speculative link to Melville’s alternate spelling.

Brighggians
I HAVE NO IDEA! I’ve pulled out every stop on the internet for this one and nothing. This is my first outright failure in this project and it NEEDS TO BE RESOLVED! Please, please help!

swallow-tailed
6. Of a coat: Having a pair of pointed or tapering skirts.

sou’-wester = south-wester, n.
2. a. A large oilskin or waterproof hat or cap worn by seamen to protect the head and neck during rough or wet weather.

bombazine = bombasine
2. A twilled or corded dress-material, composed of silk and worsted; sometimes also of cotton and worsted, or of worsted alone. In black the material is much used in mourning.
“Worsted,” by the way, which I never quite know how to imagine, is basically just wool yarn.

dog-days, n. pl.
1. The days about the time of the heliacal rising of the Dog-star; noted from ancient times as the hottest and most unwholesome period of the year. [… In current almanacs they are said to begin July 3 and end Aug. 11 (i.e. to be the 40 days preceding the cosmical rising of Sirius).]

buckskin
2. a. Leather made from the skin of a buck; also from sheepskin prepared in a particular way.
5. A kind of strong twill cloth.

bespeak, v.
5. To speak for; to arrange for, engage beforehand; to ‘order’ (goods).

bell-button
OED classes this under “bell” 11. General relations, c. similative and parasynthetic, where it appears along with “bell-lamp,” “bell-mouth,” “bell-shape,” and others – by all of which I take it to mean a button with a bell-like shape. But since pretty much all Google hits for “bell-button” refer to buttons that ring bells, I’m having a hard time placing this more precisely.

trouser-strap
A strap passing beneath the instep and attached at each end to the bottom of the trouser-leg.
i.e. a strap around the bottom of the shoe.

howling, ppl. a.
2. Characterized by, or filled with, howling, as of wild beasts or of the wind; dreary.

Canaan
I of course know the phrase “land flowing with milk and honey,” but the allusions here to oil and to streets running with milk or paved with eggs make me wonder whether I’m missing other allusions, or a greater depth to this one. Anybody? Also, why corn and wine? Is he saying that either of these is a local product? Are they now? Maybe the point is just that wealth buys these things? Or that in America (unlike Canaan) these are the things connote health and wealth? On rereading it seems in fact like he might be saying that Canaan is a land of those other things while New Bedford is only a land of oil. I really don’t know how to read this passage. Please advise.

scoria
1. The slag or dross remaining after the smelting out of a metal from its ore. Also transf.

Herr Alexander
Performing name of Alexander Heimbürger (1819-1909), German magician who performed in New York in the 1840s.

dower = dowry

portion, v.
2. To give a portion or dowry to; to dower, endow.

tapering upright cones
Here’s a picture of a horse-chestnut blossom, and the whole tree.

superinduce, v.
4. In physical sense: To bring, draw, deposit, etc. over or upon a thing as a covering or addition.

carnation, n.
1. a. The colour of human ‘flesh’ or skin; flesh-colour (obs.); b. a light rosy pink, but sometimes used for a deeper crimson colour as in the carnation flower.

sunlight in the seventh heavens
I’m trying to figure out here, as before, what Melville’s source for the whole “seventh heaven” concept was – the idea is common to mysticism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as appearing, depending on how you’re counting, in Dante. I can’t find “perennial sunlight” specifically named as a feature of the seventh heaven of any of these models, but it makes sense that there would be a lot of light up there, doesn’t it.

i &middot ii &middot 1 &middot 2 &middot 3 &middot 4 &middot 5