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Pierre or the Ambiguities
  
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Pierre or the Ambiguities (Paperback)

by Herman Melville (Author) "THERE are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the..." (more)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 408 pages
  • Publisher: E P Dutton (Nov 1964)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0452009960
  • ISBN-13: 978-0452009967
  • Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 10.7 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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THERE are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Read the first page
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "Pierre " is more than a masterpiece., 25 Feb 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Pierre: Or the Ambiguities (Writings of Herman Melville) (Paperback)
"Pierre," (written shortly after "Moby Dick") is called "The Book that ruined Melville." In fact, he never wrote another novel after "Pierre," but spent his last 40 years either unemployed or working as a customs official. But by the end of the 20th century a new generation of readers and critics had rediscovered him, and today his reputation is at the front rank of American authors. "Pierre" is a superbly controlled exploration of the deepest psychological motivations which underlie all human beha vior. If it is ambiguous, it is meant to be so, not in the sense of vagueness, but in the sense of many meanings. Melville, like Thomas Hardy is a master at depicting country life. And the conflicts in the novel are very much tied to country versus city living. The novel is Freudian, in its questing after the deepest reasons for human behaviors. Like most of us at some point in life, Pierre sees the father he had idolized as human and capable of error. His own values are put into question by the receipt of a note from his long-lost sister. Melville points out that we all walk "on a razor's edge of security.....that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event-the fallling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather." Melville does not spare Pierre from disillusion but continues to open him up0 with an "electrical insight" into the character of his mother. He sees how she has been molded by the culture and how her love for him is not unconditional, but based upon his outward beauty and docile behavior. Melville deals with nature versus nurture as he contrasts the honesty of natural growing things with the subtlety of cultural influences. The author is at his best with descriptions like this: "The sounds seemed waltzing in the room; the sounds hung pendulous like glittering icicles from the corners of the room; and fell upon him with a ringing silveryness; and were drawn up again to the ceiling, and hung pendulous again, and dropt down upon him again with the ringing silveryness. Fireflies seemed buzzing in the sounds, summer-lightnings seemed vividly yet softly audible in the sounds. And still the wild girl played on the guitar; and her long dark shower of curls fell over it and vailed it; and still, out from the vail came the swarming sweetness, and the utter unintelligibleness, but the infinite significancies of the sounds of the guitar. The novel ends with a "Romeo and Juliet " death scene worthy of the original..."And from the fingers of Isabel dropped an empty vial-as it had been a run-out sand glass-and shivered upon the floor; and her whole form sloped sideways, and she fell upon Pierre's heart, and her long hair ran over him, and arbored him in ebon vines." The black hair of Isabel which enchanted Pierre at the beginning of the novel, covers his dead body at the end of the story. The ambiguities which began the narrative are unresolved at the end. All of us have many contradictions in our lives and most of us will not solve them. Like the genius that he was, Melville knows this. He digs deeply into the soul of Pierre trying to unravel the threads of his existence. We learn much about Pierre , and ourselves, and how we are the cause of what sometimes is our own destruction. We also learn about fate and the little that we can do to change our destinies. We learn about choices, and how the slightest incident can twist our parths toward other directions. Like Moby Dick, Pierre is Melville, calling out to us to read him. Like "Moby Dick" "Pierre" has been unread for generations. Perhaps this generation will embrace him and have the enriching experience only Melville can give.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Ambiguous Indeed, 31 Aug 2009
By M. Dowden (London, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pierre: Or the Ambiguities (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
I can't start this without giving a warning. This book has small print that some may not find that easy to read, also Pierre has never been that popular mainsteam-wise and thus you may want to steer clear of this. When Melville died he was nearly forgotten and it wasn't until a renewed interest in his works in the 1920's led to him being reassessed, but even then this particular novel was only plaudited by die-hard fans.

When this first appeared it was slated by the critics and would probably be so by many today, but given its faults it isn't hard to read and is very interesting. Melville needed to make money and so thought about writing a sentimental novel, a genre that had been very popular with the public since the 18th century. Melville soon realised however that he just couldn't produce something that was going to be popular, what he liked and excelled at writing wasn't what the public was clamouring for and so this book is a bit of a hodge podge. Indeed by the time I was on the second page I thought birds were going to sing and everyone was going to burst into song. Even that early in the book Melville has already started to parody, and this is really a satire on the whole genre, rather like Austen's satire Northanger Abbey (Wordsworth Classics). Running deeply throughout this book is the theme of incest, although there is no actual indication either explicitly or between the lines that this ever actually happens with any of the characters.

The main story is that Pierre is set to marry Lucy but then a girl claims that she is his half sister. His dead father whom he has been taught to look up to apparently had an affair before he was married and this girl is the bastard product of that relationship. Deciding that he wants to take care of this girl, Isabel, he claims to Lucy that he has married, leaving her swooning, and then tells his mother the same, leading to her chucking him out of the home and disinheriting him. Isabel and Pierre leave for the city taking another girl called Delly with them so that she can escape the abusive clutches that she is in. Ostracised by his cousin Pierre has to make his own way and the three of them enter a state of poverty. Pierre starts to write a book and the story then goes onto the troubles that can beset a writer, also when his publishers tell him that they feel swindled by his work you get ironically how the publishers felt to Melville when he actually produced this novel.

Just by being told by Isabel that she is his half sister he goes off with her although at no time can she provide any proof. Just that fact could put people off reading this as it seems so ridiculous, but there is something so compelling about this book that I found it hard to put down. The problem at the time this was written is that Melville was changing from the more traditional story styles to modernism and that wasn't appreciated by those then, but even now although this is a good novel it will never be great like Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale (Penguin Classics) undoubtedly is. If you like reading things that are a little bit quirky or just different then by all means read this, but be warned the language when it is spoken is at places pretty archaic, even for 1852.
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