Alright, it now needs to be said that Ishmael becomes completely insufferable when he talks about whales. He’s only been on this boat for about a week and already he seems to think he’s some kind of expert. Did he somehow ingest into his person some maritime encyclopedia just so as to be able to impress upon us his (admittedly profound) ability for depthless regurgitation? Just the fact that he insists on calling it “cetology,” so pretentious! And he’s doing no favors for our captain by continually reminding him of the aforementioned shortening of his leg. He knows absolutely nothing about the nature of this white whale we’re after. We encountered it again recently, and I swear it looked like Ishmael was attempting to talk to it! Utterly futile. I take the rational, philosophical approach: what more need one know about whales, when all that’s essential for our purposes here be to join harpoon by sticking them with the pointy end, I ask you?
