Not P but Moby-Dick (15)

[Ian Livingston]

Had me looking harder than I needed to at the passage. I was ready to go
the distance into your challenge, David, but then looked the paragraph over
again.

Ahab here describes himself as a flywheel, the toothed outer edge of which
is a raging powerhouse, driving the mechanism of the harpooneers he has
just sworn into mortal service to his mental anguish. He, the center of
flywheel, seems calm by his own measure, spinning relative slowly upon his
axis, but his "one cogged wheel fits into all their  various wheels, and
they revolve." Ahab is thus a symbol of the mechanistic view of society
whereby the avaricious heads of corporations sit  safely in the hubs of
their power, driving the destructive forces of industry. "Gifted with the
high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and
most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise!" Adam and Eve were
exiled (damned) from Paradise for eating the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, the symptom of their defiance of God's order is their awareness
of their own nakedness, i.e., they evidence self-awareness. Ahab's
self-awareness consumes him like its own burning consumes a match.

On Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 6:50 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> This sounds like a University Essay assignment
>
> On Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 9:44 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > From Chapter 37:
> >
> > What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think
> me
> > mad—Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild
> > madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I
> > should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I
> will
> > dismember my dismemberer.
> >
> > What does "That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself" mean?
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>