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A review by htetrasme
Pierre; or, The Ambiguities by Herman Melville
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.