Aug 6, 2026 · 43 min · 10 segments
Happy birthday Melville, bronze whale bones, the whaling ports of Britain, the believability of *The Salt Path*, reading Marx, deconstructing fictional narrative, the gravitational mass of…
yeah listen you can find the same world twice and identify it what's the source trust me bro yeah that's what he's doing but
it's it's also it's a basic gambit it's like it's that really playful melvillian kind of tactic where like he's kind of got to a point where he's a bit like, there are some holes in this.
He's like, how do I do that? And instead of, as a more modern or more boring prose writer might, trying to just sneak some bits in, do a little bit of verisimilitude, just gently convince the reader that this is believable.
say that this is all true and definitely true and fuck you if you think otherwise.
Is it because I know the book exists and I know that the narrative has to drive forward? But up to this point, I'm capable of suspending my disbelief to think you can see the same world twice.
Also, I mean, Moby Dick is a book that has very much moved past any kind of sense of the need to suspend disbelief.
yeah listen you can find the same world twice and identify it what's the source trust me bro yeah that's what he's doing but
it's it's also it's a basic gambit it's like it's that really playful melvillian kind of tactic where like he's kind of got to a point where he's a bit like, there are some holes in this.
He's like, how do I do that? And instead of, as a more modern or more boring prose writer might, trying to just sneak some bits in, do a little bit of verisimilitude, just gently convince the reader that this is believable.
say that this is all true and definitely true and fuck you if you think otherwise.
Is it because I know the book exists and I know that the narrative has to drive forward? But up to this point, I'm capable of suspending my disbelief to think you can see the same world twice.
Also, I mean, Moby Dick is a book that has very much moved past any kind of sense of the need to suspend disbelief.
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