Sarah's post on the sermon...(don't forget the Technorati tags for more posts...)
Sarah is well on her way, and has a really interesting post about the sermon. I think it was Hawthorne who once called Melville the most deeply religious man he had ever known, and Moby-Dick is packed with religious symbolism, metaphors, and questions.
In a letter to Hawthorne, Melville wrote about M-D, "I have just written an evil book, and feel spotless as the lamb." This is particularly intriguing because we could argue for a lifetime what exactly Melville meant by that--as we could about the book itself. Surely all this is not without meaning, but it's the pursuit of meaning even while knowing that it will forever elude me, and the beauty of the everythingness and nothingness that the text elicits from the whale, the whiteness, the pursuit, the concept of meaning itself, and the sea, that thrill me. I never get tired of reading this book...
Ok, back to the sermon...I'll admit to being a bit of a hedonist, so I can't stand the idea that I'm supposed to deny any of my impulses and urges if they're only about what feels good, and they don't hurt anyone. But of course the measurement of what hurts me or others in the end is the tougher call. Oh, yeah, and I have major issues so-called obedience. I can't type the word without getting icky shivers up my spine, and a bitter taste in my mouth.
That said, would it be better to give up the control, say that you'll follow the rules if someone else makes the decisions for you? It seems tempting sometimes, and so much of M-D is about power, control, and acquiescence. How much control do you really have? How much do you give willingly to others? At what cost do you give control? At what cost do you keep it?
Ms. Handgraaf is posting to Veggienerd, but if you follow the technorati tag link Moby-Dick06, you'll pull all the related posts together (from this blog, other blogs, etc...).
Oh, and in response to Sarah's question about the edition: I'm reading a fairly heavily annotated but old edition of M-D--that was published in '64. The ISBN is 0-672-60971-1. But really, there are a lot of good new editions, too.
(P.S. I don't want to insult anyone's knowledge, but I don't want to leave anyone in the dark, either: if you have any questions about how tags work, or how you add them, just ask Sarah or me. )
Moby-Dick06 (technorati tag)
In a letter to Hawthorne, Melville wrote about M-D, "I have just written an evil book, and feel spotless as the lamb." This is particularly intriguing because we could argue for a lifetime what exactly Melville meant by that--as we could about the book itself. Surely all this is not without meaning, but it's the pursuit of meaning even while knowing that it will forever elude me, and the beauty of the everythingness and nothingness that the text elicits from the whale, the whiteness, the pursuit, the concept of meaning itself, and the sea, that thrill me. I never get tired of reading this book...
Ok, back to the sermon...I'll admit to being a bit of a hedonist, so I can't stand the idea that I'm supposed to deny any of my impulses and urges if they're only about what feels good, and they don't hurt anyone. But of course the measurement of what hurts me or others in the end is the tougher call. Oh, yeah, and I have major issues so-called obedience. I can't type the word without getting icky shivers up my spine, and a bitter taste in my mouth.
That said, would it be better to give up the control, say that you'll follow the rules if someone else makes the decisions for you? It seems tempting sometimes, and so much of M-D is about power, control, and acquiescence. How much control do you really have? How much do you give willingly to others? At what cost do you give control? At what cost do you keep it?
Ms. Handgraaf is posting to Veggienerd, but if you follow the technorati tag link Moby-Dick06, you'll pull all the related posts together (from this blog, other blogs, etc...).
Oh, and in response to Sarah's question about the edition: I'm reading a fairly heavily annotated but old edition of M-D--that was published in '64. The ISBN is 0-672-60971-1. But really, there are a lot of good new editions, too.
(P.S. I don't want to insult anyone's knowledge, but I don't want to leave anyone in the dark, either: if you have any questions about how tags work, or how you add them, just ask Sarah or me. )
Moby-Dick06 (technorati tag)
posted by Erica at 5:48 AM
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