Page 10 - Omar!

Barnaby Fey looked pained.
“That’s not really the right word to describe his declamation. I
believe Musselman has captured the right tone here; true, Omar
concludes that the wise men of his day arrive at very little wisdom,
but it is primarily his own intellectual journey through reality’s
potentially depressing existential riddles and paradoxes that the opera
is portraying. What Omar sings to his companion first is not at all
funny: ‘Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face’ introduces the idea
of meaninglessness eight hundred years before the logical positivists.
Wittgenstein never said anything better than this:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

What we know of Omar’s early life indicates these quatrains are
probably autobiographical; he must have studied with several of the
best-educated men in Persia, covering a number of philosophical and
technical subjects. But Omar shuns the mystical interpretation of life
taught by most religions: he unequivocally rejects any afterlife, any
knowable purpose to human existence, and any special relationship
between man and cosmos. And he uses the simplest possible physical
metaphors to convey his meaning:

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

Yes, to call Omar’s analysis of orthodoxy ‘ridicule’ is to miss the
whole point, don’t you think?”
Baron’s attention had wandered back to the letter.
“Eh? The point? This group,—what is it called?—the Ulema, they
don’t think your point should see the light of day, much less a
spotlight. Whether you intended to or not, this scene pokes fun at
them, and they certainly intend to take, if I may quote, ‘the strongest
possible measures’ against the Old Empire and everyone connected
with it. Now, they’re just one group of Moslems; we have others in
the area, including these Sufis.”

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