Reading Moby Dick once again.
It seems obvious this time 'round that Ahab is obsessed by the whale, Moby Dick, not for revenge, but to touch the God-figure that gives life and destroys, maims and makes whole. Everything Ahab does is a metaphor for how we all seek to persuade and co-opt God into our causes and schemes. Ahab seeks not to destroy, but to "consume" and be "consumed"; to become "one", but Ahab does this in a self-defeating and futile way: Ahab seeks to bend the world to his will.
Ahab is everyman: a wounded Fisher-King, seeking the healing touch of the Holy, yet seeming more to want to exploit the power of the Holy.
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Still haven't read this - but always like when I read someone speaking about it.
ReplyDeleteBloomsday next week.
There is a group that meets for a reading of "Ulysses"...
ReplyDeleteGadfry! A Joyce Test Match!