tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425514987715337437.post6537295992318789929..comments2024-03-26T22:47:45.276-07:00Comments on Intro to Critical Reading: Cetology Explains Ishmael's Relationship with QueequegAdamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425514987715337437.post-89593990510154742382012-03-30T18:38:41.551-07:002012-03-30T18:38:41.551-07:00Your initial points are mildly repetitive, but qui...Your initial points are mildly repetitive, but quite important. The chapter's importance isn't only in the material covered, but in the structure, and in Ishmael's interest in that structure.<br /><br />Your claim that he treats Q. academically seems good, although also more or less the same as in th draft. Then we come on something startling, imaginative, but far from obvious. "Ishmael treats everything around him like a categorical set of data so that he can calculate his next move. " This is a big, interesting, and important claim. If you pull if off - prove it, at least up to a point - that will make this an excellent essay.<br /><br />The somewhat twisting, winding argument that the analysis of Q which is supposed to comfort I unsettles him is interesting. I wish you would broaden this analysis - might we apply this study of Q. to his study of whales, and of their particulars? And why, incidentally, do you think he's trying to comfort himself? That's not so obvious to me.<br /><br />I have trouble grasping the idea that Q. makes Ishmael *less* academic - after all, Q. is precisely Ishmael's way into the world of whaling, which makes him relentlessly academic. I'm not saying that you're wrong - it's just far from obvious, and far from finished.<br /><br />That's the theme here, actually. This is short and unpolished (as far as the argument, that is). It's a mistake to explore this theme with no research, and with no reference to anything other than his first encounter with Q and Cetology. Ishmael's categorical, classifying, pseudo-academic mind is everywhere; you would have benefited from broadening the analysis slightly.<br /><br />On a final review, I see an interesting tension between how you see "cetology" as comforting, but Q as comforting - but these two things, on different levels, are what Ishmael loves. How, then, do you reconcile them, bring them together, make sense of them together? That question would have helped you formulate a better argument.Adamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16302919444091859459noreply@blogger.com