The allusion to Moby Dick and racism is interesting in part becuase the question is still just haing there? How do we deal with (and celebrate) a truly great book like Melville's when so many readers might be put off by Ishmael's tone or vocabulary or ignorance. Readers who reject the book based on such a reading will not arrive at the moment when everything changes and we suddenly glimpse the truth about the tale, about Ahab, about acquisitiveness, about ignorance and prejudice... About nature and about humanity... and inhumanity... How do we get readers to enter into the art, and to help them discover that sometimes the art knows things the artist might never imagine. Dante and Kafka are perfect examples of artists whose art seems to transcend them, historically, culturally, imaginatively... as if their works had been --somehow--touched by the divine.
Loved this interview. I've been re-reading East of Eden, and 20 years later, I have to say I am falling more in love with God - or rather His love is expanding in me through this brutal and personal novel.
The allusion to Moby Dick and racism is interesting in part becuase the question is still just haing there? How do we deal with (and celebrate) a truly great book like Melville's when so many readers might be put off by Ishmael's tone or vocabulary or ignorance. Readers who reject the book based on such a reading will not arrive at the moment when everything changes and we suddenly glimpse the truth about the tale, about Ahab, about acquisitiveness, about ignorance and prejudice... About nature and about humanity... and inhumanity... How do we get readers to enter into the art, and to help them discover that sometimes the art knows things the artist might never imagine. Dante and Kafka are perfect examples of artists whose art seems to transcend them, historically, culturally, imaginatively... as if their works had been --somehow--touched by the divine.
Great read. God bless!
Loved this interview. I've been re-reading East of Eden, and 20 years later, I have to say I am falling more in love with God - or rather His love is expanding in me through this brutal and personal novel.