Pierre; or, The Ambiguities

Details

"HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY" was the headline for a contemporary review of Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852), a landlocked novel of domestic melodrama that Melville hoped would gain the approval of the greater part of fiction readers: women. Melville privately characterized it as a "regular romance ... calculated for popularity," including in it familiar and sensational elements typical of bestsellers of the time, but it is hardly "regular."

The oddity starts with a dedication to "The Most Excellent Purple Majesty" of Mount Greylock--a few miles from Melville's farm and the chief feature of the view from his writing desk--telegraphing the importance of the novel's rock imagery. The book is anchored in semi-autobiographical details, featuring a young, aspiring American author living in upstate New York. But, as it progresses (and true to its subtitle), its initial foundation in rock-solid reality ambiguously melts into a hallucinogenic surreality best described as psycho-sexual mysticism.

The title character, inspired by his illustrious ancestry, communes with his dead father via a portrait. But plagued by discoveries of scandalous family secrets, Pierre's thoughts become increasingly tortured and obsessive, inadvertently bringing him and the women surrounding him to tragedy.

Pierre may be Melville's most polarizing work. C.L.R. James credits it with plumbing unprecedented depths of the human psyche 50 years before the birth of psychoanalysis. Others (with more or less affection) call it "monstrous"; Hershel Parker even producing an (allegedly improved) "Kraken edition," in playful comparison to the "Leviathan" of Moby-Dick. But even its most accusing critics admit "scenes of unmistakeable power.... painted with a glowing pencil, and... an intellect, the intensity and cultivation of which it is impossible to doubt."

Week 1: 8/25: Books I-IV
Week 2: 9/1: Books V-X
Week 3: 9/8: Books XI-XIX
Week 4: 9/15: Books XX-XXVI

Note: This meetup will be recorded for private use.

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities:

Supplemental: