Hunting the Great White Whale

Axl & Ahab

UIC Professor Lennard J Davis, author of the newly published Obsession: A History, has some interesting thoughts on Axl Rose and the ridiculously long-awaited release of Chinese Democracy:

"In some ways, we might regard this as the latest act of a tortured genius in the great tradition of other tortured geniuses. The nineteenth century abounded with them, from Captain Ahab and his obsessive quest of his white whale to Frenhofer, Balzac's tortured painter, and Claude Lantier, Emile Zola's novelistic representation of Cezanne. What these driven people have in common is the desire to create, to capture, and to produce something extraordinary. And yet, they all end up ruining the thing they want and destroying themselves in the process."


GB Book Club