Melville/Pynchon/Kabala

[Tod Mahony]

I dunno Kabbalah from Boboli, but your post sure reminded me of this GR
passage:

"What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing
needles of our terror and longing?  Shadows of the creature's bones and
ducts--leaky, wounded, irradiated white--mingling in with its own." -p699

Love that first line!  I remember how it jumped off the page when I first read
it.

Lurk out!

Tod
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j minnich wrote: 
> 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