So far I haven’t had much good to say about Pierre, but of course there is good to say, and I did in fact like it. Lest that be misunderstood, I’ll wrap up with a rundown of what were, for me, some of the novel’s positive aspects.

First is the setting. Melville takes as [...]

Yesterday I mentioned that in addition to the style of Pierre, its perceived message was also a problem for early readers. At a structural turning point in the novel, when Pierre is traveling with his new “wife” Isabel from country to city, he finds a fragment of a pamphlet based on the philosophy of [...]

Yesterday I mentioned Melville’s possible “intentions” about Pierre, but I don’t like to pretend I know them. Interpretations of Pierre typically have, though. His contemporary critics, who almost universally eviscerated the novel, seem to have taken it unironically. They were certainly not pleased with Melville’s prose style, and several complained of his “inventing” words [...]

Without the question mark, that title headlined a newspaper article shortly after the publication of Pierre, Melville’s 1852 follow-up to Moby-Dick. Can it be that bad? We’ve dealt with messiness before, and certainly there’s plenty of insanity in Moby-Dick, but I have to agree that Pierre kicks things up a notch.

The title character, [...]