Phritz wrote:Pop1287 wrote:
If MD throws your brain in fat try reading Pierre.
that's what i'm doing right now.
i want to read it, because i think i like Melville and i love Melville ... the director and "Pierre" was his favourite book, hence the nom de guerre. but i'm having second thoughts. it seems to be a really demanding read and so far he has only been romantizising about american aristrocracy. have you read it? is it really worth it?
i need some encouragement about what's interesting and exciting about the book. there's not much info to be found about it.
Just go read the Wikipedia article on it.
Yes, I've read it (twice), and yes I thought it was worth it, but I love Melville anyway, that entire era in the history of American literature, and the attempts Melville made to both modernize the novel, make its aesthetics/form reflect his actual world, and then to disrupt the tradition completely.
You've got to understand...once Melville reached the breakthrough of style/matter that was his re-workings (with the inspiration of Hawthorne - or, rather, trying to win Hawthorne's approval) of Moby Dick, when that book absolutely failed, when he tried to return in some small way to "regular" fiction and THAT failed, he just said "fuck it" and went out into a weird, wild country all on his own. If you can find a single academic that believes that The Confidence Man or Pierre have been thoroughly assimilated either into academia or the mainstream of American literary novel writing, let me know. That would be another kind of white whale. Fuck, look at the amount of hatred and despair a story like Billy Budd still broadcasts...and kids here read that in High School, never understanding a word...
what the hell is it Im reading? and why is it so awesome! and why am I barely getting around to reading this now??