Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements 29: Chapters 101-105
Description
This week, we delve deep into the prehistory of whales, and from there, consider their most remote future. But first, an extended examination of Dutch and English whaleship supplies in a chapter Ben grades ‘passable.’ There’s 135 of them, they can’t all be winners. But after that, the whale’s skeleton beckons us through elaborate Gnostic imagery to the headwaters of infinity, as Ishmael more or less states that the whale predates the Book of Genesis, and that the species will continue throughout all ages, whale without end. It takes us a bit to unravel it all, with various elements of 19th century thought on prehistory and deep time being required to make sense of it.
Next episode: We deal with carpentry, in chapters 106 through 110.
United States
