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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bad, Bizarre and Brilliant,
By A Customer
This review is from: Pierre, or The Ambiguities: Volume Seven, Scholarly Edition (Melville) (Paperback)
Pierre is perhaps the strangest novel of all time: bizarre, to say the least, but brilliant in its extravagence. At a minimum, it is one of Melville's central novels that deconstructs the entire myth of pre-war American society in its explorations of incest, patricide and psychosis. It is almost inconceivable that Melivlle really believed that it would be popular (which he did), for it shows the impossibility of writing as an American author, the impossibility of originality, and the impossibility of self-reliance. Beware: it is not for the faint of heart. It is demanding, relentlessly challenging, and very rewarding.
36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Memorable and Disturbing,
This review is from: Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
It's been since grad school, in the early 80s, that I last read Melville's "Pierre", yet it's stuck to my ribs ever since. I recall a quote from Freud, that he ventured nowhere that a poet hadn't preceeded him, and I have to wonder if he had this unfortunately obscure masterpiece in mind. For Melville examines themes of psychology and sexuality as no other writer before him...excepting perhaps the Pagan mystics of old Europe. "Pierre" brilliantly illuminates the darknesses of the human psyche, those tunnels and strange rooms few of us ever explore, lest we be artists and therefore honest and courageous enough to sacrifice our egos. Melville considered "Pierre" his most important work, a suitable novel to follow "Moby Dick" (justifiably considered by many THE great American novel). Yet I find "Pierre" more moving, because more tragic, than "Moby Dick"--Ahab is obsessed and while his obsessions mixed with his intelligence make him complex, he is clearly one-dimensional in his drive. Pierre, however, is drawn by instincts which defy his conscious realization, by desires which emanate from the dark belly of humanity and therefore can't be seen. Ahab wants revenge; Pierre wants fulfillment. For a landlocked person such as myself, "Pierre" is also an easier read: no boggling display of nautical terminology to refer to on every page. Yeah, Freud was right: he owed a great deal to the poets...and while, technically, Melville was more storyteller or novelist than poet, here is a poetry there that's unmistakeable. Embrace this book, and embrace the spirit of the great man who possessed the courage to write it.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More light and the gloom of that light,
By mark chivers (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
"In those Hyperborean regions, to which enthusiastic truth and earnestness, and independence, will invariably lead a mind fitted by nature for profound and fearless thought, all objects are seen in a dubious, uncertain and refracting light." One long, gorgeous inquiry into the nature of religion, spirituality and the stars, galaxies and planets of our firmament. American authors just don't come any more honest or more wise. He parodies and inverts Christianity; he shines on; the ashes of trad. belief are left in his wake.
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