Inscrutable Malice

ISBN-13: 9780875804644 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 358 str.

Jonathan A. Cook

Opis

In Inscrutable Malice, Jonathan A. Cook expertly illuminates Melville s abiding preoccupation with the problem of evil and the dominant role of the Bible in shaping his best-known novel. Drawing on recent research in the fields of biblical studies, the history of religion, and comparative mythology, Cook provides a new interpretation of Moby-Dick that places Melville s creative adaptation of the Bible at the center of the work. Cook identifies two ongoing concerns in the narrative in relation to their key biblical sources: the attempt to reconcile the goodness of God with the existence of evil, as dramatized in the book of Job; and the discourse of the Christian end-times involving the final destruction of evil, as found in the apocalyptic books and eschatological passages of the Old and New Testaments. With his detailed reading of Moby-Dick in relation to its most important source text, Cook greatly expands the reader s understanding of the moral, religious, and mythical dimensions of the novel. Both accessible and erudite, Inscrutable Malice will appeal to scholars, students, and enthusiasts of Melville s classic whaling narrative."