My post has nothing to do with Twitter, although I have wondered if Melville would have been able to write Moby Dick if Twitter had been around. You certainly don’t write a tome like that without a healthy attention span.

My thoughts after having read the first six chapters of Moby Dick:

• Why is Queequeg described by Ishmael as such a mysterious figure?
• Melville is having a rollicking time spinning his yarn. He is not afraid to take walks down long side roads to get where he’s going. And he can easily transition from talking about such disparate topics as the difference between a town-bred dandy and a bumpkin dandy to a meditation on the pervasiveness of whaling life in New Bedford.
• Herman does a great job of communicating the excitement of someone about to embark on a journey. Everything is colored with the heightened awareness of someone whose eyes are wide open in anticipation of where tomorrow will take him.