The title song for the 1960s film “Alfie,” starring Michael Caine, had the opening line: “What’s it all about, Alfie?” Of course, this is an age-old question, and also a profound one, because whoever and wherever we are, this question keeps popping up.
Some hundred years or so ago, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton, made the case that the Book of Job in the Old Testament was one of the greatest works of literature ever penned. He made the point, first, that all great literature was allegorical in that it espoused some definite view of the cosmos. We read, for example, the “Iliad” because we understand that life is a battle, and here preeminently we find life as a battle. Or perhaps even more compellingly, we study the “Odyssey” because life is a journey and here we find the ultimate journey. Indeed, so successful is Homer’s “Odyssey” that we routinely refer to difficult undertakings or journeys as odysseys.
