What Makes for Lonely Angry Men?

Any obsessive desire that captivates the heart is an idol. An idol is anything that causes us to pursue it with reckless abandon. In the book All the Light We Cannot See a precious stone, called the "Sea of Flames", is thought to give immortality to its possessor. "Sea of Flames" is an idol to those who seek immortality at all costs. The cost of possession of the stone is the curse that the loved ones of the possessor will die. 

In Doerr's story this immortality stone has a mythic history. A Sultan was the original possessor of the stone. Consequently, the Sultan's family was destroyed but the Sultan himself attained immortality, but not before he cut off the tongue of his priest who warned him to get rid of the stone. Doerr's story is setup during WWII in which Von Rumple is a precious stone merchant who pursues of this stone. He believes that the stone will help him stave off his fatal cancer. In pursuit of this idol, immortality stone, Von Rumple has left his wife and two daughters to fend for themselves and possibly die in the precarious times of WWII. Such is the destructive power of obsessive desires that fund the idol. 

When a human being allows himself or herself to be possessed by an obsessive desire, it takes a heavy toll on the the loved ones around. In our culture, this obsessive desire usually takes the form of the three big powers of this age - sex, money and fame. 

The movie The Prestige, which under Christoper Nolan's brilliant direction, tells the story of two magicians, Angier and Borden (payed by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale), is about the obsessive pursuit of their fame. Prestige shows the obsessive desire's destructive power in the lives of those who are close to these magicians in pursuit of fame. The voice of reason in the lives of Angier and Borden is Cutter (payed by Michael Caine). However, the magicians do not listen to Cutter whose fate is better than the Sultan's priest who had it tongue cut out for trying get the Sultan to see the terrible cost of his obsessive desire in pursuing the idol. 

Angier (Hug Jackman) in The Prestige, basking in the limelight.

The introspective question that Doerr's book and the movie Prestige puts in front of us is to ask ourselves if we have obsessive desires in our lives. These desires that are the idols of our worship possess making us blind to love of those close to us. Are there people like Cutter or the Sultan's priest who are trying to warn us of our obsessions. Are we listening to these prophetic voices or are we silencing them out of our lives.  

The opposite of obsessive desires is not to disavow desires, rather it is yielding to rightly ordered desires. Rightly ordered desires starts with loving people close to us, which is exactly what the mythic Sultan, Von Rumple, and the magicians Angier and Borden miss and end up as lonely angry men dead in their spirit.