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Title: Herman Melville: A Biography (Volume 2, 1851-1891) by Hershel Parker ISBN: 0-8018-6892-0 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Stoic endurance and masterful control
Comment: Hershel Parker has given Melville scholars and enthusiasts a valuable gift -- a scholarly examination of a life embedded in a rich context of significant relationships. Parker's presentation of evidence is all we can hope for -- a carefully balanced narrative based on primary sources where the reader benefits from a scholar's lifetime of careful research and thoughtful consideration. Drawing from an astounding wealth of primary sources, Parker walks us through Melville's life with a chronological continuity that scarcely misses a month of activity in a forty year period, articulating in rich detail Melville's interactions with people, places, and publications.
Through a careful accounting of time and travels, many puzzles are brought into clearer light. Volume Two begins with the puzzle of The Whale's reception -- Melville may never have learned of the broad praise for The Whale in England, despite the disconcerting omission of the book's final chapter by the publisher. Next, the puzzle of Pierre's career as a Young Author -- prompted by Evert Duykinck's evident betrayal as much as a devaluation of his earning potential by the Harpers, Melville interpolated a satirical diabtribe into the innovative psychological romance, Pierre. We discover lost works -- Melville developed at least three major works that were never published: Isle of the Cross (rejected), the Tortoise Hunters (incomplete or discarded), and a volume of poems in 1860 (rejected). We find what happened between his last magazine publication and the start of the Civil War: we are given a clear picture of Melville's three winters on the lecture circuit, during which he began a dedicated effort to convert from prose to poetry. Finally, we discover Melville the poet -- while holding down a low-paid job to support his family, Melville stoically endures a long period of discouraging personal setbacks during which he improves his mastery of metrical form through dedicated study and artful discernment. His creative mind is constantly at work, although his energies are strained by competing demands on his attention. With Clarel, Melville demonstrates a masterful control of theme, form, and allusion, and with John Marr and Timoleon, we meet a poet who innovated constantly, re-working and improving his stylistic experiments over many years.
Melville's mid-life challenges are of the sort that most humans face, complicated by an uncertain career, the death of two sons, and an awkward estrangement from his wife (temporary) and daughters (permanent?). He outlives most of his close relatives and friends, people he loved and who loved him, and on whom he relied for decades. Melville's natural tendency toward a self-contained privacy leads him toward a stoical reclusiveness, although he remains actively engaged with the world throughout his restless wanderings, both physical and philosophical. The biography concludes on an upward note; late in life, Melville learns by degrees of a dedicated following in England, while some of his best work is still in manuscript form, waiting to be printed some thirty years after his death.
The great pleasure of reading Parker is the way he interpolates explanations as an aid to the reader's assessment, scrupulously avoiding any forced conclusions based on ambiguous evidence. With Parker, the author is in control of the presentation, but we are allowed to apply our own critical thought toward the evidence. No conclusions are forced on us, and we encounter few intrusions by the biographer. To my mind, this is an ideal biography.
Rating: 1
Summary: Tedious Beyond Belief
Comment: Little is known about the last forty reclusive years of Melville's life, and Parker adds virtually nothing of significance to alleviate that dearth of knowledge or insight. If you are fascinated by reams of inconsequential family correspondence, you will enjoy this book. If you are interested in Herman Melville, don't waste your time on this boring tome.
Rating: 1
Summary: Nothing of Value for the Melville Enthusiast
Comment: Unless you are a determined and anxiety-ridden Ph. D. candidate studying for an oral exam, avoid this tedious display of pedantry. There are no insights into Melville's life or works here, only the stuff footnotes are made of. I guarantee this book as a cure for insomnia.
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Title: Call Me Ishmael by Charles Olson, Merton M. Sealts Jr ISBN: 0801857317 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: New Essays on Moby-Dick by Richard H. Brodhead, Emory Elliot ISBN: 0521317886 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 November, 1986 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Herman Melville A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work (The Literary A to Z Series) by Lisa Olson Paddock, Carl E. Rollyson ISBN: 0816041601 Publisher: Checkmark Books Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Mariners, Renegades & Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live in by C. L. R. James, Donald E. Pease ISBN: 158465094X Publisher: University Press of New England Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times by James R. Mellow ISBN: 080185900X Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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