Melville/Pynchon/Kabala

[j minnich]

>
>>Minnich jogs my memory banks:
>>
>>>It's good to see that Mittlewerk, like Steely, is not just an astute critic
>>>but (also like Steely) is Melville-literate too

Glad to have jogged.

>>I'm currently dealing with a class on Melville, and being a Pynchon crit, am
>>beginning to see quite a few connections, especially in style and subversion.
>>Does anybody have any suggestions on books (I think I've got everything on P
>>in print) or articles that will guide me through the depths of scholarship? 
>>
>>MantaRay


Maybe I can attempt to weave together two strings here.  It seems to me that
TRP's interest in Kabala may have stemmed from hanging out with Jewish girls
in NYC (Maybe even that same Perle Epstein, whom I mentioned in an earlier
posting).  I wonder if getting a nosejob would have had any Kabalistic
significance.  The Kabalistic tradition does concern itself with body parts,
specifically with the body parts of God himself.  There's at least one book
called "Anatomy of the Body of God" or "Measurement of the Body of God," or
perhaps "Shiur Komah."  Now here's the Melville angle:  Moby-Dick, chapter
103, is called "Measurement of the Whale's Skeletion."   I won't attempt to
summarize it, but I take this chapter to be Melville's parody of the various
kabalistic "Measurement of the Body of God" books.  He concludes chapter 103
with: "Now we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things
tapers off at last into simple child's play."  He's talking about religion,
here--perhaps the esoteric traditions, Kabala specifically.  Disagree if you
like.     
      -j minnich
---------------------------------------------------------------
...The poet is dead.
Nor will ever again hear the sea lions 
Grunt in the kelp at Point Lobos.
Nor look to the south when the grunion 
Run the Pacific, and the plunging
Shearwaters, insatiable, 
Stun themselves in the sea.  
   -Wm. Everson