Ishmael understands you, Bridget Jones

Over the past week I've experienced a few upheavals and one Western. Appaloosa, the movie in question, stars Ed Harris and the delicious Viggo Mortensen as lawmen who ride into town to rid the benighted populous of Jeremy Irons (at his villainous best). Trouble arrives in the form of Renee Zellweger, who weds Harris only to offer herself to pretty much everyone else any time the poor schlub turns his back.

Of course he catches her at it, and of course he challenges the other fella to pistols at dawn. As Virgil (Harris) and Everett (Mortenson) strap on their guns, Zellweger's character, Allie, enters and asks if they aren't afraid.

Both men seem puzzled by the question, so she has to clarify: "Of getting killed." Everett explains that they don't think about it much, to which Allie responds, "Well, I'm afraid," adding, "but I'm afraid all the time."

At this, Virgil stops what he's doing and gives her a pretty intent look. "Of what?"

"Everything," Allie confesses. But this isn't specific enough for Virgil, so she continues, "Like being alone. Like being with the wrong man. Not having any money, a place to live."

It's not really enough to make fickle Allie a sympathetic character, exactly. But it seems to explain things well enough for Virgil, who responds with, "I'll look out for you."

Trying -- and failing -- to keep it light, Allie asks, "For how long?"

And this is clearly the question that drives each decision her character makes. Even in the final scene she remains a woman who is not entirely convinced that she can stop being afraid.

This morning I read Chapter 60 ("The Line") in which Ishmael describes in great detail what sort of rope is used in the hunting of whales, as well as how it is coiled, where it is stored, and how it is arranged on the four boats that launch from the ship when the crew "lowers" for their prey.

I won't lie: I didn't follow all of it. There are diagrams in the back of my book, but flipping from text to footnotes is always cumbersome and it didn't clarify much. What is clear is the precariousness of a boatman's position as he rows toward a whale, surrounded by a cat's cradle of line that can leap, plunge and pull taut at any time. In fact, Ishmael concedes that "the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play -- this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair."

And then, of course, he takes it a step further -- to a place where Allie French and I are both philosophers:

"But why say more? All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side."