Pierre: or, the ambiguities - herman melville

Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling, soul-bewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr.

Melvilles style), like Melchisedeck, without beginning or end-a labyrinth without a clue - an Irish bog without so much as a Jack othelantern to guide the wanderers footsteps - the dream of a distempered stomach, disordered by a hasty supper on half-cooked pork chops.

So judged the New York Herald when Pierre was first published in 1852, with most contemporary reviewers joining in the general condemnation: a dead failure, this crazy rigmarole, and a literary mares nest.

Latter-day critics have recognized in the story of Melvilles idealistic young hero a corrosive satire of the sentimental-Gothic novel, and a revolutionary foray into modernist literary techniques.

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