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/lit/ - Literature

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9973372 No.9973372 [Reply] [Original]

Was this a response to Emerson, and a satire of transcendentalists?

>> No.9973386

>>9973372
No, it was a literary endeavour.

>> No.9974430

Bump

>> No.9974906

>>9973372
It's the product of herman melvilles spiritual autolysis.
Ishmael is Ahab, Ahab is himself in the process of spiritual autolysis.
Ahab must kill the white whale at all costs, because it's his last obstacle in the process.
Ahab can ignore everything else in life, because the process demands purity of intent.
The book has a happy end, Ahab survives as Ishmael and is done with the process of spiritual autolysis,
now a truth-realized, enlightened non-person.

>> No.9975005

>>9974906
I've seen a lot of crackpot theories on this book, and that's is surely the worst.

>> No.9975156

>>9975005
It's a theory by Jed McKenna.

His interpretation of 1984 is also interesting:
Wilson starts questioning his reality, but the point at which his actual journey to truth starts is when he and his gf get caught by O'Brian. It's their First Step towards truth-realization and O'Brian is basically their enlightened teacher.
During the process of spiritual autolysis they have to remove all that is untrue, which is indeed a painful process, so it's correctly displayed in the book.
Believes like 2+2=4 are not ultimate truth, they're beliefs and all beliefs are untrue, so O'Brian helps him get rid of that.
In room 101 Wilson overcomes his last obstalce: his love to his gf. All emotions are based on fear of no-self, even love, and since truth-realization is embracing no-self he must get rid of this love too.
At the end, when he meets his gf again, it's two enlightened people meeting.
Happy end.