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Stenka25 Posted 5 years ago
Vocabulary

The meaning of ‘What proof of being beheld is otherwise possible to gain’

The meaning of ‘What proof of being beheld is otherwise possible to gain’


The passage below is from Fathoms: The World in the Whale Hardcover by Rebecca Giggs.


Yet the importance of whales’ eyes, for me, leads back to the fact of their size. Whales are so big that, faced with a wall of animal, I look to connect with this smaller nexus of liveliness and communication, the eyeball. What proof of being beheld is otherwise possible to gain? So perhaps this is where most of the whales’ charisma, in fact, resides: in sheer scale.


Let me summarize the first two sentences.

The importance of whales’ eyes takes the author back to whale’s huge scale. Whales’ bigness reminds me their smaller addenda of whales, the eyeballs. (Am I right?)

Then arise the next mysterious sentence.

“What proof of being beheld is otherwise possible to gain?”

Let me paraphrase this one, too.

Is there any better way to gain proof of my being seen by whales than to connect its bigness to the eyes?

(I myself don’t believe my guess but that’s all I can bring up from my brain now.)


Thanks in advance.

  

Top answer

Stenka25 The importance of whales’ eyes takes the author back to whale’s huge scale. Whales’ bigness reminds me their smaller addenda of whales, the eyeballs. ) This does not really capture the point of the second sentence, which is not about being "reminded" of the whale's eyeballs, but about the author trying to "connect" (emotionally/intellectually) with the whale through its eye(s), since its whole body is hard to relate to, being so huge.

— GPY

  • Stenka25 The importance of whales’ eyes takes the author back to whale’s huge scale.
  • Whales’ bigness reminds me their smaller addenda of whales, the eyeballs.
  • ) This does not really capture the point of the second sentence, which is not about being "reminded" of the whale's eyeballs, but about the author trying to "connect" (emotionally/intellectually) with the whale through its eye(s), since its whole body is hard to relate to, being so huge.
  • ” Let me paraphrase this one, too.
  • Is there any better way to gain proof of my being seen by whales than to connect its bigness to the eyes?
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1 Answers
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Stenka25The importance of whales’ eyes takes the author back to whale’s huge scale. Whales’ bigness reminds me their smaller addenda of whales, the eyeballs. (Am I right?)

This does not really capture the point of the second sentence, which is not about being "reminded" of the whale's eyeballs, but about the author trying to "connect" (emotionally/intellect

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