Ahab

Plagued with leaks and buffeted by scandals, this "infidel" Ahab has become anxious, ornery and isolated as President Donald Trump's second term enters its third month.

Okay, he’s going to make Melville’s Captain Ahab look like Barry Allen?

To my relief, the directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, working with the screenwriter Julia Cox, trace Diana’s mythic roots not just to the naiads, but to zealots like Captain Ahab.

Like some tenured, landlocked Captain Ahab, I spent the entire week maniacally consulting with an equally agitated crew of scholars, undergrads, Cubans, Jubans, journalists, rabbis and one very committed lawyer in Miami.

And it had been an epic quest, not unlike King Arthur’s hunt for the Holy Grail or Captain Ahab’s pursuit of that white whale.