Are we predators or not? Nobody doubted it, although the idea of harvesting sounded more respectable.
"Call me Ishmael.." A damaged who seems to have lost an important part of his proper inheritance. But he copes by speaking in a jokey, self-deprecating voice.
What have we lost—all of us who crowd the shore to see the water? "Are the green fields gone?" What green fields?
Why would water seem to be a place for retrieval of what's missing? Is that where to find the "ungraspable phantom of life" without destroying ourselves as Narcissus did?
Why go whaling? Whales and the wonder-world of which they are a major part draws us, especially "one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air."
Chapters 2 and 3: Our almost penniless, damaged Ishmael seems only able to see the darkness of blackness, until he chooses an innkeeper named Coffin and reluctantly agrees to share a bed with a dark-complexioned cannibal.
We introduced ourselves to each other in the first session. Let's add those who couldn't make it that day.