Moby Dick

Jim Jordan · 03 May 1999, 16:48 · from urth-v0026.mbox · original

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Subject: (urth) Moby Dick
Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 16:48:14
Message-ID: <urth-v0026-0084 at digest.urth.net>
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	Perhaps it has been discussed here already, but if not, some might want to
look into this: The end of Urth resembles the end of Moby Dick. To some
extent at least, Severian appears to be a new "Ishmael," writing a memoir
of his experience of witnessing the destruction of an old, sinful, world in
a flood. To what extent are Abaia and those like him Moby Dick?
	Melville's novel is certainly ambiguous. A lapsed Calvinist, he stands
with Ahab in raging against a truly sovereign God who oversees human
affairs and who appears, to man, capricious. But Melville is also Ishmael,
the Jonah who trusts a kinder God than that symbolized by Moby Dick.=20
	To be sure, Wolfe is not retelling the narrative of Moby Dick, nor does he
share Melville's doubt and rage. But the allusions seem to be there.
Perhaps Severian is a "good Ahab," killing the wicked gods of Urth, unlike
Melville's Ahab, who sought to kill God. (The many chapters on how to kill
the White Whale -- always capitalized -- are Melville's inversion of the
Book of Leviticus, which deals with how to kill one's own "flesh" in order
to serve God.)
	Grist for the old mill and all that.
	I found an interesting discussion of Moby Dick at

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jbair/mobydick.htm

	Somebody's term paper on Wolfe and Melville could start here.

Jim Jordan


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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