So Pierre is finally rolling. Our hero has committed his first transgression by not being completely, totally, 100% honest with his dear old mum for the first time in his hypercharmed little life, and I'd wager he'll be doing much less savory things in much less savory circumstances before long. The young Mr. Glendinning has also gotten his wish and discovered he has a sister -- a strange, dark, illegitimate half-sister, but nevertheless his father's daughter and Pierre's own flesh and blood.
He seems a bit infatuated, doesn't he? After fixating on the image of Isabel's face for however many pages, Pierre goes nearly apoplectic with devotion after discovering the girl's identity. This should be interesting. After all: if there's one thing the guy who wrote Moby Dick understands, it's obsession.
Did anyone else notice the shift? Melville is starting to sound like Melville again: ornate, but not excessively flamboyant. The first paragraph of 4.1 is a shining example of Melville writing as only Melville can:
In their precise tracings-out and subtile causations, the strongest and
fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight. We see the cloud,
and feel its bolt; but meteorology only idly essays a critical scrutiny
as to how that cloud became charged, and how this bolt so stuns. The
metaphysical writers confess, that the most impressive, sudden, and
overwhelming event, as well as the minutest, is but the product of an
infinite series of infinitely involved and untraceable foregoing
occurrences. Just so with every motion of the heart. Why this cheek
kindles with a noble enthusiasm; why that lip curls in scorn; these are
things not wholly imputable to the immediate apparent cause, which is
only one link in the chain; but to a long line of dependencies whose
further part is lost in the mid-regions of the impalpable air.
Melville wields the language as eloquently as any English bard, but this isn't just pretty-sounding fluff. He has such an astounding talent for tracing out abstractions and painting them across the canvas of the reader's mind. Logopoeia. It flashes in the brain and makes the tissues tingle. (Shakespeare does the same thing, for instance. Tennyson, for another instance, usually doesn't so much.)
Also in 4.1:
There had long stood a shrine in the fresh-foliaged heart of Pierre, up to which he ascended by many tableted steps of remembrance; and round which annually he had hung fresh wreaths of a sweet and holy affection. Made one green bower of at last, by such successive votive offerings of his being; this shrine seemed, and was indeed, a place for the celebration of a chastened joy, rather than for any melancholy rites. But though thus mantled, and tangled with garlands, this shrine was of marble -- a niched pillar, deemed solid and eternal, and from whose top radiated all those innumerable sculptured scrolls and branches, which supported the entire one-pillared temple of his moral life; as in some beautiful Gothic oratories, one central pillar, trunk-like, upholds the roof. In this shrine, in this niche of this pillar, stood the perfect marble form of his departed father; without blemish, unclouded, snow-white, and serene; Pierre's fond personification of perfect human goodness and virtue. Before this shrine, Pierre poured out the fullness of all young life's most reverential thoughts and beliefs. Not to God had Pierre ever gone in his heart, unless by ascending the steps of that shrine, and so making it the vestibule of his abstractest religion.....
When Pierre was twelve years old, his father had died, leaving behind
him, in the general voice of the world, a marked reputation as a
gentleman and a Christian; in the heart of his wife, a green memory of
many healthy days of unclouded and joyful wedded life, and in the inmost
soul of Pierre, the impression of a bodily form of rare manly beauty
and benignity, only rivaled by the supposed perfect mold in which his
virtuous heart had been cast. Of pensive evenings, by the wide winter
fire, or in summer, in the southern piazza, when that mystical
night-silence so peculiar to the country would summon up in the minds of
Pierre and his mother, long trains of the images of the past; leading
all that spiritual procession, majestically and holily walked the
venerated form of the departed husband and father. Then their talk would
be reminiscent and serious, but sweet; and again, and again, still deep
and deeper, was stamped in Pierre's soul the cherished conceit, that
his virtuous father, so beautiful on earth, was now uncorruptibly
sainted in heaven. So choicely, and in some degree, secludedly nurtured,
Pierre though now arrived at the age of nineteen, had never yet become
so thoroughly initiated into that darker, though truer aspect of things,
which an entire residence in the city from the earliest period of life,
almost inevitably engraves upon the mind of any keenly observant and
reflective youth of Pierre's present years. So that up to this period,
in his breast, all remained as it had been; and to Pierre, his father's
shrine seemed spotless, and still new as the marble of the tomb of him
of Arimathea.
Judge, then, how all-desolating and withering the blast, that for
Pierre, in one night, stripped his holiest shrine of all overlaid bloom,
and buried the mild statue of the saint beneath the prostrated ruins of
the soul's temple itself.
Melville probably could have written "Pierre revered his deceased father and was really bummed out to find out he secretly fostered an illegitimate daughter," because that's really the gist of the situation. And it's probably a situation that had been written about at least once in human history before 1852.
Other writers can touch upon the same or similar themes, but Melville's treatment of them is unique. But no more nor less unique is the character of the individual human creature. Remember, Melville has demonstrated here (as Mr. Johnathan pointed out) and elsewhere his fixation with conveying the particulars of a situation. It's not enough for him to to just flat say that his protagonist is upset by the airing of his father's dirty secret. No two sets of circumstances are ever exactly the same; no two psyches are ever exactly the same. Melville goes to such trouble to enumerate at these details and paint all these scenes because he wants us to understand precisely what's happening inside Pierre Glendinning.
We're seeing the old "show, don't tell" writer's maxim being taken perhaps much farther than its prescriber suggested. If Melville were a painter, his work would be rendered in such baroque detail as to tear across the line between verisimilitude and overwhelming hyperrealism. But one of Melville's greatest strengths as a writer is in the stark vividness and ferocity of evocation with which he renders the inner lives of his characters. There's something Captain Ahab says in Moby Dick:
O
Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your
linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives in matter,
but has its cunning duplicate in mind.
Phenomena in the interior world color perceptions of the outer world; objects and events in the outer world become the recognizable forms of the interior world's nonphysical occurrences.
Everything is grand in Melville's world. Or -- maybe we should say Melville's worlds. Inner and outer. Such rich and lofty thoughts billow in his characters' brains; and what a magnificent world he's furnished them with, and from which he can weave suitably royal metaphors to clothe their ideas in forms we can perceive.
He is a mutant. I don't know how he writes like he does. As you've surely noticed, he's not a terribly polished author -- but I think he gets away with his excesses because excess is his essential medium. He uses overstatement like Jimi Hendrix uses a fucking guitar. We've already seen how a pared-down Melville isn't nearly as exciting or beautiful or fun as logorrheic Melville.
Speaking of metaphors, do you enjoy his similes as much as I do?
As the vine flourishes, and the grape empurples close up to the very
walls and muzzles of cannoned Ehrenbreitstein; so do the sweetest joys
of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
And
In the cold courts of justice the dull head demands oaths, and holy writ
proofs; but in the warm halls of the heart one single, untestified
memory's spark shall suffice to enkindle such a blaze of evidence, that
all the corners of conviction are as suddenly lighted up as a midnight
city by a burning building, which on every side whirls its reddened
brands.
And
Love is built upon secrets, as lovely Venice upon invisible and incorruptible piles in the sea.
And
[T]o Pierre it rolled down on his soul like melted lava, and left so deep
a deposit of desolation, that all his subsequent endeavors never
restored the original temples to the soil, nor all his culture
completely revived its buried bloom.
And (I will admit to laughing out loud at this one)
Now, from his height of composure, he firmly gazed abroad upon the
charred landscape within him; as the timber man of Canada, forced to fly
from the conflagration of his forests, comes back again when the fires
have waned, and unblinkingly eyes the immeasurable fields of fire-brands
that here and there glow beneath the wide canopy of smoke.
And (from Moby Dick, which might be one of his most ridiculous)
But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eves of the prairie wolves
meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the
trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the
Indian.
So yeah, Melville has a tendency to occasionally overshoot his mark. But you sure as hell can't say his analogies fall flat.
(Tangential consideration: it is commonly regarded as a mark of both genius and madness to possess a heightened perception of the connections uniting disparate phenomena. Maybe the difference between them is measured by the capacity for other people to see them once they've been pointed out.)
So yeah, that's all I've got to say tonight. I'm already moving ahead into Book IV, and I'm digging where Pierre seems to be headed. What about you guys? What are you thinking? Any favorite passages you'd like to share? Anything that tickled or rankled you in particular? SPEAK UP, DAMN IT.
Extra credit project for the duration of Pierre: post your favorite metaphors and similes, whether they be eloquent or overblown!
Postscript: One of my favorite lines in Book III:
This history goes forward and goes backward, as occasion calls. Nimble
center, circumference elastic you must have.
Translation: "Yeah, we're jumping around a bit. Deal with it."
Ugh, I feel the need to comment since nobody's posted anything yet, despite having nothing to contribute. I'm slightly behind, hopefully I'll finish book IV tomorrow. I'll try to write my thoughts then.
ReplyDeleteI'm enjoying things so far. The overly flowery and poetic way everyone speaks doesn't bother me, but when little Pierre does it, it's extremely entertaining to me, for whatever reason: "...but don't tell me again that once upon a time I was not little Pierre at all, and yet my father was alive. Go on, aunt, -- do, do!"
ReplyDeleteAnnoyed I missed the start of this. I'll be joining in as soon as I can find the time to get reading, I'm really keen to plumb some of Melville's lesser known works
ReplyDeleteCan't say I empathize with Pierre's choice of obsessions. Like Pierre, I found I had a half sister, rather abruptly, but never felt anything other than indifference, maybe a little annoyance at the obligation. But this was when I was eighteen, so right at the same age. Their world is so insular... They're open with each other, but only on the surface. Disputes hardly seem anything but less playful in tone, and everything else seems like flirtation. Melville frames Pierre's misdirection toward his mother as though the consequences would be dire, but I wonder how that would play out?
ReplyDelete"Sister, that dark girl's face is so... PECULIAR."
"What mean you, Pierre?"
"Her expression there, as though she knew of me, as though she were gasping to speak some familiar something to me, as though her heavy breathing there was the held back anxiousnesses of an innocent restrained. What WAS THAT FACE, sister?"
What then? Would she throw a tantrum because her son felt intrigued by an outlier like that? Would the default assumption be the girl was simply a wretch trying to lean against the nobility? Would it be that Pierre's only reason for his fascination would be of a sexual nature? Tragically he told her nothing. Brushed aside her inquiries. This severely compounds the problem for later on, if this all comes to light. And why would he not trust his mother enough to present to her the letter? I'm betting the reason is he'd just expect her to forbid him from seeing the girl. But more importantly, it would tarnish his father's reputation even further. And destroy his mother's frail contentedness. A lot of discussion was placed on his father's legacy, but I don't recall much of it was directed toward Mrs. Glendinning's stability.
What we've found is that Pierre's father had a thing for this dark and reserved french girl, and this is much to the instinctual chagrin of Mrs. Glendinning, clearly. Through discussion of the painting we've found Mrs. Glendinning somehow knows intuitively her husband's passions were directed toward something far more taboo, and thus romanticized, early on. Within the framework that the book lays out, first loves are the most significant, making Glendinning the consolation prize. Considering how much of Pierre's father she see's in her son, naturally watching the same scenario play out again, even though she's probably unaware of the details of it, has some psychological significance for her character, as she's shown some insecurities and we're reminded exhaustively about her hatred for the portrait. She would be essentially losing her husband to the same entity, twice. It wouldn't be unbelievable for Mrs. Glendinning to call the girl some sort of enchantress, siren, or witch.
ReplyDeleteStill a lot of emphasis is placed on points that could be wrapped up rather quickly. Melville's constant re-emphasis of plot markings that are rather clear after a paragraph are hard to justify when much of the material is simply repeated, again, and again, with slightly different words and within different frames. I know you preempted this criticism of mine, but even in less minimalist works I think it is a good idea to lay out new ground work in the tangents, such as in some of DFW's work. But we hardly see any forward progress when Melville chooses to poeticize, and so we're forced to sink into and glide with the words. This is clearly MY problem. I haven't thus far found the poetics compelling enough to get lost in them, and so it becomes difficult. But this is up to preference, and without these sections, assuming they continue throughout the book, the novel would be much shorter. It'd be a huge chore to try promote this criticism into objectivity, so I'm content just leaving it where it is. I wish I were more optimistic, in general. Not though. There really isn't any golden standard to which I compare everything to, so I promise I haven't singled out Melville to pick on. More and more, of late, I do this with everything. Never, in elected stuff, am I just in it for the ride.
Throughout all this I'm reminded of Homer Simpson telling Ricky Gervais "You take too long to say nothing." While I love terse narration, especially in noir-type stories where it is essential for the mood, I'm not hostile to lengthy tomes either. I've read several Stephen King books that go on for hundreds of pages. But the difference there is there King is following Vonnegut's rule about everything either moving the plot forward or revealing something about the characters.
ReplyDeleteHere, Melville just keeps stalling as he uses 9 words when 4 will do, and honestly I'm not too enamored with overly done metaphors. A good metaphor/simile can bring a brief halt to the narrative flow in a positive way, shaking things up and adding dimensions to the scene without bringing things to a standstill. But Melville overdoes it. Two books and what do we get? He reads a letter, thinks about a couple past events, and that's pretty much it. Sure his reaction to the letter and inner conflict is important, but his train of thought is an action itself, and dragging it out with too much prose is no different than dragging out the description of a physical action the same way. It brings the story to a halt.
As for the plot, not much to say yet because we've only gotten the set-up. Let's see where it goes from here.
Johnathan: Cancel all your engagements and quit your job. You have an obscure classic by an insane Romantic to read >:I
ReplyDeleteSeifker: Yeah. It's like every child in any piece of literature written before, say, 1930 is portrayed as a gibbering invalid.
....For some reason I'm reminded of the little princes in the Richard III film with Lawrence Olivier. As soon as the brat opened his mouth, I ground my teeth and grumbled for Richard to go ahead and have the twerps killed already.
Guess that's really neither here nor there.
D.S.I.: Jump in whenever you can!
Dustin: Hmm. I guess when you're accustomed to such a privileged life, inconveniences and tiffs necessarily qualify as problems and arguments. Reading ahead, it looks like the stakes do get higher. Madame Glendinning has a vindictive streak and she means business.
What we've found is that Pierre's father had a thing for this dark and reserved french girl, and this is much to the instinctual chagrin of Mrs. Glendinning, clearly. Through discussion of the painting we've found Mrs. Glendinning somehow knows intuitively her husband's passions were directed toward something far more taboo, and thus romanticized, early on. Within the framework that the book lays out, first loves are the most significant, making Glendinning the consolation prize. Considering how much of Pierre's father she see's in her son, naturally watching the same scenario play out again, even though she's probably unaware of the details of it, has some psychological significance for her character, as she's shown some insecurities and we're reminded exhaustively about her hatred for the portrait. She would be essentially losing her husband to the same entity, twice. It wouldn't be unbelievable for Mrs. Glendinning to call the girl some sort of enchantress, siren, or witch.
Astute! Again, yeah -- she's the one who has me worried. As the effective queen of Saddle Meadows, she can pretty much do to Isabel whatever she wants. If she finds out about her and thinks she's Pierre's mistress, she's gone. If she finds out she's Pierre's illegitimate sister, she's gone. And after her warning to Pierre, I wonder what she's capable and willing to do to him if he crosses her.
Mr. P: I think it's a matter of taste. I like reading Melville because he goes on and on and on, and produces such lovely things as he does. I think, however, the taste might be an acquired one. I was going into this knowing that he was going to lay it on thick; going into it unprepared for Herman's blahblahblahblah must be sorta like going to a GWAR show and not being surprised when the fake blood gets sprayed on you. (It's late. My similes fail me. Apologies.)
Even if it's a taste that doesn't suit your palate, I'd still suggest giving it another few chapters. I'm on book VII and the plot is gaining traction. Hopefully the book will obey some literary equivalent of Newton's law -- something that's this slow to accelerate should have a lot of momentum once it gets rolling.