Unusually for his time, Melville doesn’t shy away from the ugly side of this industry, even taking the whale’s perspective at one point, when he speculates on how terrifying the huge shadows of the ships must be to the ...
themselves in soft sheets of euphemism. Equity language doesn’t fool anyone who lives with real afflictions. It’s meant to spare only the feelings of those who use it. The project of the guides is utopian, but they’re a symptom of deep pessimism. They belong to a fractured culture in...