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tom_f's review
4.0
Got a lot of time for this because it’s basically, from what I can gather, Melville reacting to the lukewarm reception of Moby Dick by clowning on American establishment morals and indulging even more heartily in a penchant for long, rambling passages of almost purely lyrical bullshit. It’s the sort of book I’d like to write.
But, as to the resolute traveller in Switzerland, the Alps do never in one wide and comprehensive sweep, instantaneously reveal their full awfulness of amplitude – their overawing extent of peak crowded on peak, and spur sloping on spur, and chain jammed behind chain, and all their wonderful battalionings of might; so that heaven wisely ordained, that on first entering into the Switzerland of his soul, man shall not at once perceive its tremendous immensity; lest illy prepared for such an encounter, his spirit should sink and perish in the lowermost snows. Only by judicious degrees, appointed of God, does man come at last to gain his Mont Blanc and take an overtopping view of these Alps; and even then, the tithe is not shown; and far over the invisible Atlantic, the Rocky Mountains and the Andes are as yet unbeheld. Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself!
People cite this one as a pioneer of various proto-modernist literary strategies, and the project of going on for too long in the noble cause of taking the piss certainly puts Melville in the lineage of people like Flann O’Brien. The threateningly sepulchral entry into the town at night reminded me of the oneiric climax of The Third Policeman, but once Pierre’s downturn in fortunes picks up pace the novel turns into more of a Swim-Two-Birds chronicle of the struggling and impecunious young author. While it’s not actually as fun to read as O’Brien, it is certainly much more rewarding and much better company than the likes of tawdry Arthur Machen and his petty The Hill Of Dreams, though equally gleeful in its gothic theatrics.
For the more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. [...] The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offering of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dovetailing accidents for the rest.
A great moral for a text that’s making such a sincere and enjoyably misguided attempt at winning public favour.
But, as to the resolute traveller in Switzerland, the Alps do never in one wide and comprehensive sweep, instantaneously reveal their full awfulness of amplitude – their overawing extent of peak crowded on peak, and spur sloping on spur, and chain jammed behind chain, and all their wonderful battalionings of might; so that heaven wisely ordained, that on first entering into the Switzerland of his soul, man shall not at once perceive its tremendous immensity; lest illy prepared for such an encounter, his spirit should sink and perish in the lowermost snows. Only by judicious degrees, appointed of God, does man come at last to gain his Mont Blanc and take an overtopping view of these Alps; and even then, the tithe is not shown; and far over the invisible Atlantic, the Rocky Mountains and the Andes are as yet unbeheld. Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself!
People cite this one as a pioneer of various proto-modernist literary strategies, and the project of going on for too long in the noble cause of taking the piss certainly puts Melville in the lineage of people like Flann O’Brien. The threateningly sepulchral entry into the town at night reminded me of the oneiric climax of The Third Policeman, but once Pierre’s downturn in fortunes picks up pace the novel turns into more of a Swim-Two-Birds chronicle of the struggling and impecunious young author. While it’s not actually as fun to read as O’Brien, it is certainly much more rewarding and much better company than the likes of tawdry Arthur Machen and his petty The Hill Of Dreams, though equally gleeful in its gothic theatrics.
For the more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. [...] The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offering of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dovetailing accidents for the rest.
A great moral for a text that’s making such a sincere and enjoyably misguided attempt at winning public favour.
nate_meyers's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know what your reading habits are. But, if you're not reading a book every so often that makes you ask "what the hell did I just read?", then you're doing it wrong. I, for one, love reading controversial novels by classic authors. I've read Dostoevsky's Devils, Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata, Hardy's Jude the Obscure, and now Melville's Pierre. Pierre is the novel that ensured Melville would be penniless and unrecognized for life. Written immediately after Moby Dick, Pierre was so deeply hated by publishers that Melville inserted two chapters in the middle of Pierre to rant about the state of publishing in the United States.
In all seriousness, it is very easy to see why Pierre was blasted by publishers. The book is gothic satire to an extreme, with little in the way of plot. Instead, the book is mostly characters--central of which is Pierre--stuck in their own heads overanalyzing emotions. On top of this, the central conceit is that Pierre cannot distinguish familial relationships from romantic relationships. The subtitle of this book shouldn't be "The Ambiguities" but rather "How to Form a Harem." Pierre is in his late teens, the sole child of Mr. and Mrs. Glendinning. But his father died when Pierre was young, so Pierre lives with his mother at their family mansion. Pierre is all-but-engaged to Lucy Tartan, yet has a weird relationship with his mother where they call each other sister and brother and act overly fondly towards each other. This setup takes the first 100 pages of the book, because Pierre has a lot of feelings.
Most of what happens next is that relationships get more complicated. Pierre is contacted by a poor girl named Isabel claiming to be his half-sister (i.e. his father's illegitimate daughter). The only proof of this is a portrait Pierre has of his father in his room expressing a weird emotion, and an enchanted guitar that Isabel has. After much thought, Pierre decides he must preserve his parents honor while uplifting Isabel...so he decides to marry her with her posing as his wife. Lucy is crushed by this sudden turn of events, and Pierre's mother dies of grief. Pierre with Isabel and another girl Delly (don't worry about it) go to live with his cousin Glen (who Pierre had romantic feelings for as kids, because of course) in the city. But Glen rejects them so Pierre and his little harem shack up in a hostel more or less. Pierre's plan to make money is to write a novel, but he ultimately goes crazy.
So why did I give this book three stars? Well, they're three hard-earned stars because Melville is really hard to read. He uses more commas in run-on sentences than the Apostle Paul and often shifts focus mid-sentence. At the same time, he's a really good writer. He uses astoundingly descriptive language and captures human emotions really well. I liked his writing enough to add Moby Dick to my immediate queue. At the same time, there wasn't really a plot to Pierre and I was left asking--"what the hell did I just read?"
In all seriousness, it is very easy to see why Pierre was blasted by publishers. The book is gothic satire to an extreme, with little in the way of plot. Instead, the book is mostly characters--central of which is Pierre--stuck in their own heads overanalyzing emotions. On top of this, the central conceit is that Pierre cannot distinguish familial relationships from romantic relationships. The subtitle of this book shouldn't be "The Ambiguities" but rather "How to Form a Harem." Pierre is in his late teens, the sole child of Mr. and Mrs. Glendinning. But his father died when Pierre was young, so Pierre lives with his mother at their family mansion. Pierre is all-but-engaged to Lucy Tartan, yet has a weird relationship with his mother where they call each other sister and brother and act overly fondly towards each other. This setup takes the first 100 pages of the book, because Pierre has a lot of feelings.
Most of what happens next is that relationships get more complicated. Pierre is contacted by a poor girl named Isabel claiming to be his half-sister (i.e. his father's illegitimate daughter). The only proof of this is a portrait Pierre has of his father in his room expressing a weird emotion, and an enchanted guitar that Isabel has. After much thought, Pierre decides he must preserve his parents honor while uplifting Isabel...so he decides to marry her with her posing as his wife. Lucy is crushed by this sudden turn of events, and Pierre's mother dies of grief. Pierre with Isabel and another girl Delly (don't worry about it) go to live with his cousin Glen (who Pierre had romantic feelings for as kids, because of course) in the city. But Glen rejects them so Pierre and his little harem shack up in a hostel more or less. Pierre's plan to make money is to write a novel, but he ultimately goes crazy.
So why did I give this book three stars? Well, they're three hard-earned stars because Melville is really hard to read. He uses more commas in run-on sentences than the Apostle Paul and often shifts focus mid-sentence. At the same time, he's a really good writer. He uses astoundingly descriptive language and captures human emotions really well. I liked his writing enough to add Moby Dick to my immediate queue. At the same time, there wasn't really a plot to Pierre and I was left asking--"what the hell did I just read?"
yavin_iv's review against another edition
admitting defeat on this one for now. i'll be back hermie <3
61dccain's review against another edition
5.0
Strange, bizarre, beautiful, modern, drug-induced(?), strained
piccoline's review against another edition
5.0
Five stars for weirdness, audacity, and being about 110 years ahead of its time. Or more. It's also kind of all over the place, parodying a now-dead style, moving from frothy happy frolicsome outings to madness and murder and suicide. It's a wild and delightful ride, though.
The funny thing is that there have been quite a few attempts at a film version of Moby-Dick, and they tend to be pretty poor. So much of that novel is *not* the plot but the musings and ruminations and riffs, all of which are lost in the translation to screen. But this, oh heavens would Pierre make a great movie. It would take a brave director and some very careful casting but this could be cinematic gold, shocking and disturbing even now 160 years later. Come on someone, make the film Pierre!
(PT Anderson directing Jessica Chastain (Lucy) and maybe Julianne Moore (Mrs Glendinning) would be a good start. Suggestions for Pierre and Isabel?)
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There's a French version already, I learned from another Goodreads review. So excited!
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Carax's _Pola X_ is the French version. Modern update. Weird, awesome, flawed, awesome. Explicit. Be warned.
The funny thing is that there have been quite a few attempts at a film version of Moby-Dick, and they tend to be pretty poor. So much of that novel is *not* the plot but the musings and ruminations and riffs, all of which are lost in the translation to screen. But this, oh heavens would Pierre make a great movie. It would take a brave director and some very careful casting but this could be cinematic gold, shocking and disturbing even now 160 years later. Come on someone, make the film Pierre!
(PT Anderson directing Jessica Chastain (Lucy) and maybe Julianne Moore (Mrs Glendinning) would be a good start. Suggestions for Pierre and Isabel?)
----------------------
There's a French version already, I learned from another Goodreads review. So excited!
----------------------
Carax's _Pola X_ is the French version. Modern update. Weird, awesome, flawed, awesome. Explicit. Be warned.
htetrasme's review against another edition
5.0
"Pierre" is a shocking, stunning book that, I think, deliberately gives readers what they do not want, and which they may not know they are glad to have gotten. It's a progression from a Utopian life to literally, death and damnation, the main character having ruined multiple lives in the process, all the while thinking he is doing the altruistic deed, and reaching an enlightenment of thought which only leads him to despicable acts. All the while it is delivered in intricate, beautiful, flawlessly precise and digressive prose in pages filled with profundities, hints at profundities inexpressible which may generate what they will in the readers mind, and brooding meditations -- including on the inexpressibility of profundities.
As such, it is a grim and painful book that uses the mechanisms and reversals of humor to deliver some humor --- but mainly tragedy. If "Moby Dick" was an exploration by Melville of the wondrous, dreadful, powerful, inconceivably vast and inexpressible mystery of the world that surrounds us, "Pierre" not only touches on that but sounds the equally deep mysteries that shroud our own souls, thoughts and intentions from ourselves. It makes us realize that not only are we utterly unknowable to ourselves, so is divining truth in what is right and wrong -- if such exists -- impossible. That's a theme that is inspired, stunningly developed, and wrenching to accept.
I think "Pierre" is a work of deeply iconoclastic genius, its author intent on expressing haunting truths which are not only normally left unsaid but which are downright disturbing to contemplate. We are left knowing only that as Pierre has destroyed lives while trying to save them and been drawn incestuously to a sister without knowing it --- and done these for motives he cannot himself conceive, that we just as easily do such things ourselves.
As such, it is a grim and painful book that uses the mechanisms and reversals of humor to deliver some humor --- but mainly tragedy. If "Moby Dick" was an exploration by Melville of the wondrous, dreadful, powerful, inconceivably vast and inexpressible mystery of the world that surrounds us, "Pierre" not only touches on that but sounds the equally deep mysteries that shroud our own souls, thoughts and intentions from ourselves. It makes us realize that not only are we utterly unknowable to ourselves, so is divining truth in what is right and wrong -- if such exists -- impossible. That's a theme that is inspired, stunningly developed, and wrenching to accept.
I think "Pierre" is a work of deeply iconoclastic genius, its author intent on expressing haunting truths which are not only normally left unsaid but which are downright disturbing to contemplate. We are left knowing only that as Pierre has destroyed lives while trying to save them and been drawn incestuously to a sister without knowing it --- and done these for motives he cannot himself conceive, that we just as easily do such things ourselves.
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