I came, I saw, I pondered: Clarel

So here's an initial thread on Clarel. Write what you will. Introduce yourself. Maybe say something about whether you'll read or why you'll read. The formal reading will begin on the Winter Equinox, and I'll start a thread for the first book then. In the interim, we can talk about editions, secondary sources, white whales or gossip in general, or just post good old fashioned Melville jokes.

To begin. For those of us who have haunted Melville before, we know that names are usually important and odd, so I begin my own pondering with Clarel's name. "Clarel" is both the name of the poem and its central figure, a theology student on pilgrimage to the holy land. I resorted to Google for my first inquiry and came up with the following:

From "Too Intellectual a Poet to Ever be Popular: Herman Melville and the Miltonic Dimension of Clarel" (John T. Shawcross, 2002):

"The name of the character has long been pondered; Bezanson offers no meaning, and Helene Rozenberg-Sacks says, without discussion, "Clarel himself standing for `clarity,' not without some touch of dramatic irony." (26) Its pronunciation is "CLAR el" (see Bezanson, p. 507 n.1). The concerns of the poem ranging between religious ideas of the western world and the Semitic and Hebraic world have long been observed (and implied earlier). The name, in fact, denotes that fusion of the past and the present, the Semitic and the non-Semitic, and is ultimately not ironic. Its etymology may involve the Latin clarus, meaning "clear, bright, brilliant" as Rozenberg-Sacks implies plus the Hebraic el, meaning "God." (27) Rather, it has relation to the Greek GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII, an epithet of Zeus in Aeschylus's Supplices, 360, and Pausanias Periegata, VIII, liii, 9, as well as an epithet of Apollo (Phoebus Apollo, identified with Christ) in Revue de Philologie, Nouvelle Serie, XXII, 260. The name thus combines the Greek (as in the New Testament) with the Hebraic (as in the Old Testament) for "God." Interestingly, Shirley M. Dettlaff investigates this general fusion in "`Counter Natures in Mankind': Hebraism and Hellenism in Clarel." She sees the Hellenic as male and head, the Hebraic as female and heart, with Clarel favoring the darker Hebraic view, and extends the debate between the Graeco-Roman or Judaeo-Christian to a classic theory of human personality or a romantic one. These, conflicting, "must be combined to provide a complete definition of man," and quoting August Schlegel, she says, one "must never relax `into the stasis of finite satisfaction.'" (28) Her conclusion, echoing many other commentators, is "He has not found truth, freedom, or wholeness. He does not achieve a synthesis of the Hebraic and the Hellenic, as did Rolfe. He does not accept his fate. He simply suffers" (Dettlaff, p. 217). It is clear that I firmly disagree, reading the epilogue (and the immediately preceding sections) as a synthesis--but not that which would represent "orthodox" or "standard" religious positions, or Rolfe. (29) The synthesis involves rejection of the "philosophies" paraded by means of the people whom Clarel meets, including the human love motif that many commentators have stressed. As Warren Rosenberg writes, "Clarel is forced to experience the confusion of eros and intellect.... Clarel must find a balance between the views of woman as ultimate source of evil and as embodiment of ideal virtue." (30) " http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1560087/Too-intellectual-a-poet-ever.htm...

What do you say? Is it as good a name as Godot?

urania enters and looks around. Where? What? Are we waiting for someone? Will he come? Is this the second coming or the third? Or is coming forbidden on this thread? Methought, who knows what methought. I have a vague image of a mighty tome containing Clarel and Pierre: or, The Ambiguities in my library. But as I peruse the aforementioned library I find only the mighty whale, a collection of shorter works, and The Confidence Man, which I had somehow managed to confuse with Mark Twain's The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg. I am not sure Clarel sounds A-musing, but I will give the first 50 lines (I assume there are many more) a try. I am in love with the mighty Dick. Billy Budd, I find charming. Melville's shorter works - exquisite.

Did our beloved dictator (long may he live) give you permission to set up a Clarel thread here? Or are you in a snit because narrative poetry didn't make the cut on Reading Globally. You needed me for a campaign manager.

Source material? Here's an interesting title from Amazon: A Concordance to Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land - only 4 pages long and $139.95. What a bargain!!! Of what will Amazon think next?

"One of a set of volumes that consist of: the contextual concordance and five appendices; a part-canto-line index; a list of emendations; a list of Melville's annotated corrections to "Clarel"; the 45 satellite poems of "Clarel"; and a part-canto reference for character presence."

I should think this four-page masterpiece covers about everything. We can just shut our volumes of Clarel and go home.

Clarel: Volume Twelve, Scholarly Edition from Northwestern UP.

Twelve volumes? This one 893 pages? Holy white whale!!!! What are you trying to do to us? Is this your revenge? You're going to make me read a really long book from which I may never recover. Okay, already. I cry "uncle." No wonder I can't find an online version of this behemoth. It would clog up the entire internet.

A_musing, you've been entirely too a_musing of late. It's 5:07 am my time. I'm going to bed. I may never read again after this 'orrible shock to me sainted system.

Enrique!!!! Where are you???? I protest this cruel and unusual punishment.

A_musing,

If you persist in this madness, I will e-mail Tim Spalding and tell him you're a sock puppet - a vicious sock puppet. And then you'll be sorry.

And now, I really am going to bed. It's only three hours until goat-milking time.

P.S. Is there an audio book of Clarel? A sing-along version?

There is some discussion of the project in the welcome thread: we're at least a semi-endorsed project come December. I went looking for cohorts to read this, and found them here. I've got the Northwestern scholarly on order (having switched an earlier unscholarly version) as well as the 1960 edition now in my hands. (But just volume 12 is Clarel - the other volumes are the rest of Melville's writing). I haven't seen an audio book version, but have discovered Italian and German translations. As always with poetry, I crave an audio format as well.

Okay, here's the key question? How many lines is the poem sans commentary? I've read a bit about it. It sounds like it could be incredibly interesting or a slough of despair. The commentary I've been tracking certainly indicates we're dealing with a complex work. So please scan the first little bit and tell me whether it's worth all the potential pain.

I won't be joining your read, but I'll follow the discussion with interest, because I want to start soon on a reread of Moby Dick, which I bought recently in a gorgeous--oh, voluptuous, oh, edible!--edition. So, having Melville chatter in the background will be nice.

LOLA, is it the folio edition of moby dick ?

Yeah, the limited one.

If the weather were better I'd be tempted to take it for walks in a baby carriage, that's how luverly it is.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo jealous

Saw there are just 22 copies registered here at LT (not counting mine).

I wasnt thinking this was a "group" read, rather just a couple or three castaways encouraging each other.

Regarding Moby Dick, I am impressed by Harold Beaver's idiosyncratic commentary that he did for Penguin. He took special delight in pointing out all of the homosexual allusions in the text. Although he went too far when he interpreted what I read as a dance as poor Pip being popped by the crew.

I think the castaways is indeed right. I wouldn't want to spring this one unsuspected on a larger group, or on anyone not compelled by the thought. I think the lines of poetry are around 18,000 or so, though it's only iambic tetrameter, so its the equivalent of less than 15,000 of iambic pentameter and only about 8,000 compared to dactylic hexameter.

It's no Mahabharata, after all.

Here's my take on reading through a few cantos to get a taste: I do not yet find it as difficult to work through as, say, Omeros, and one can drive fairly steadily through the poetry. The poetry IS driving, with rather sonorous gongs at the end of many a line, and like much narrative poetry there are some stellar highs filled with irony and complexity and ambiguity but also some stretches of steady narrative that are more story than poetry. Melville does lay on the images fairly thick, and dives right into it very quickly (a pilgrimage to the Holy Land that begins in Jerusalem), and I don't know if he's going to be making the same points in new ways as we get to the 10,000th line or if he really lays it all out there pretty quickly at the beginning. We know he is the great doubter, and Clarel is the same.

Ah, Pip!! I went through a year in college with the scene in Moby Dick where Pip goes mad painted on to the back of my door (since they'd covered the bathroom walls with Finnegan's Wake I needed some respite). I love Pip. And that does go too far. I think.

So A_musing, the 200 million-dollar question - should I put in my order for the Northwestern Clarel? Are you springing for the concordance or should we ask Tim to do that? I'll probably head over to UT's library in my spare time. I haven't yet checked the catologues, but I am fairly certain UT will have the aforementioned concordance. UT's Melville collection is excellent.

Ha! And I found the three-volume A Concordance to Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land for only $21.00. The next cheapest copy I could locate was $158. I purchased said tome. But what am I thinking? I haven't even committed to this project yet. I'm supposed to be preparing for my life-time study of the Mahabharata, not to mention the upcoming Clarice Lispector read. I begin to think you may be the evil one.

Damn it all. If I could just find an online version of Clarel, I could convert it to a mobi file and listen to it on Kindle. Granted the audio version wouldn't be the best, but it would be better than nothing. Trying to find Clarel on line is worse than searching for a needle in a haystack.

Is this it?

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=450262

leave it to cowboy to find the needle!

The Post Office tells me that they got my copy and a volume of commentary out of Kearny, New Jersey, yesterday, but there is no telling where it is now.

Robert

I've been contemplating joining this group, but this thread reminds me why I never took lit classes in college. I don't want to re-read Les Miserables either. Some of the other stuff looks interesting and a few are even on my various wishlists. But why read Shamela without reading Pamela beforehand?

too bad because everytime I see EF you see Kay.

Irene, the power of the salon compels you to join. Follow me over to the Welcome to the Salon thread....

The fat, expensive version of Clarel came today. It is green, but I will live with it.

There is a 400 page Editorial Appendix in it after the 500 page poem. I suspect that distinguishes it from the cheaper paperback.

The appendix comprises:

Page 505: Historical and Critical Note by Walter E. Bezanson
Page 639: Historical Supplement by Hershel Parker
TEXTUAL RECORD
Page 675: Note on the Text
Page 703: Discussions
Page 841: List of Emendations
RELATED DOCUMENTS
Page 849: Melville's Annotated Copy of Clarel
Page 865: Elizabeth Shaw Melville's Copies of Clarel
Page 867: The "Ditty of Aristippus" Manuscript
Page 871: Parallel Passages in Clarel and Melville's 1856-57 Journal
Page 883: Melville's "Monody": For Hawthorne?

Looks like great fun.

Robert

I've been reading the prefatory material by Hendricks for the 1960 edition; this is going to be quite a journey. Hendricks seems to read the poem as dominated throughout by the implications of the horror of the crucifixition as well as being a constant conversation with poets and theologists who came before. He sees Clarel as coming around to reluctantly accept the idea that grace and salvation are no picnics through his Holy Land journeys; Hendricks reads Melville as something of a later day literary flagelent, virtually ecstatic in his contemplation and reliving of the passion.

An example: the fourth Canto of the first part is a rumination on the crusaders who came to Jerusalem before, and the extent to which they first sacked the city and killed thousands of its inhabitants over three days before falling on their knees to pray; he sets up a conversation between himself, Tasso, and Voltaire, with Tasso as the glorifier of the crusades and Voltaire as the critic and the questioner of the crusaders' religious sincerity. His lines mimic and to an extent ridicule Tasso's romantic vision. But, he ends the canto by bringing the rumination back to different questions, including the question of what we're doing revisiting Tasso and his hero, Tancred, anyways (and by extension: what's Clarel doing in the Holy Land, anyways?), how that horrorific slaughter in Jerusalem relates to the crucifixition and Christ's sacrifice, and just what Melville is doing with this poem itself:

But if that round
Of disillusions which accrue
In this our day, imply a ground
For more concern than Tancred knew,
Thinking, yet not as in despair,
Of Christ who suffered for him there
Upon the crag; then, own it true,
Cause graver much than his is ours
At least to check the hilarious heart
Before these memorable towers.
But wherefore this? such theme why start?
Because if here in many a place
The rhyme--much like the knight indeed--
Abjure brave ornament, 'twill plead
Just reason, and appeal for grace.

But it seems like different critics pick up radically different strains and emphases in the poem. I've got the Northwest scholarly edition Mr. Durrick just received on the way, and am also getting a few other volumes of that series, including Hershel Parker's Melville biography; it looks like there is a very interesting 1946 essay by Robert Penn Warren in Kenyon Review, and I may have to pull that when I'm next in the Boston Public Library.

Urania - here is a .doc with the poem: http://www.unc.edu/~marr/jerusalem/CLAREL.doc

IreneF - maybe we could entice you to join the Claire Lispector or Nathaniel West reads, which are shorter, entertaining yet virtuoso novellas? And, fyi, I'm not always so ponderous as on this thread, but the Clarel does bring it out and it's good to do a bit of pondering now and then.

I'm going to congratulate myself on the notion of a "later-day literary flagelent" - I think that phrase really encapsulates much of Hendrick's interpretation.

(vigorously patting self on back)

>26 A_musing:.

Thanks for the link to the DOC. Gutenberg, Google Books, and Wikisource all failed me in finding a cheap-as(s) free copy. (I just got a free Sony Reader PRS-505 from Google Books, and I'm filling it to the brim with Public Domain stuff!)

Anybody want the task of putting this behemoth into Wikisource for future poor Salonistas?

Of course, the .doc came up only when I was searching for something completely different (I was trying to find the Tasso discussion in Hendricks and searched "clarel crusade tasso"). I couldn't find it when I looked for it.

The source of that .doc looks interesting, too - a "Melville and the Mediterranean" conference: http://www.unc.edu/~marr/jerusalem/

Of course it was held in Jerusalem a few months ago, so we missed it. The focus was on Clarel.

Yes, IreneF, we are still waiting for you (and impatiently I might add) to join Le Salon Litteraire. I am indeed so sorry that A_musing's musings may have turned you off. And if my Pamela tirade turned you off too, I do apologize. The important thing is, we're here, we want you here, and you can pick and choose to read whatever you'd like to read. Shoot, you don't have to read anything even.

That goes for you to Boobalack! There's no requirements people!

So get on over here soon.

Everyone, in unison:

The power of the salon compels Irene to join
The power of the salon compels Irene to join
The power of the salon compels Irene to join

I'm coming down off'a fentanyl and versed high this morning from a minor procedure yesterday, so if I sound a little more 'frique and rambunctious than usual, you just blame it ya'll on the medicinal additives sloshin' thru me bloodstream...

Yoo-woo!

Enrique,

Pamela is a fine, upstanding woman who does not deserve your ridicule. Indeed, her virtue deserves to be rewarded. The funny thing is that the book was considered licentious in its time, though even so morays must have changed pretty quickly given how soon others had a field day with it.

But, I confess, you're right about my musings.

The power of the Salon compels Irene to join.

Re: 28 - If I had read that I would have patted your back first, but I just got to the thread again. Sorry!

>32 A_musing:,

Regarding your comments about Pamela, I wish to add. This book was the equivalent of a blockbuster today. An entire Pamela industry arose complete with Pamela souvenirs. Additionally, a number of ministers publicly proclaimed from the pulpit that every young man and woman should read this book because of the fine moral example that Pamela sets. I am trying to find my reference to my comments complete with sermons, but I fear they reside somewhere on my backup drive and will require a great deal of searching to extricate, but I will continue to search.

Okay, okay, okay, I'll join. Sheesh.

My health is very bad and I feel a trough coming on--I have chronic fatigue syndrome--so I might not be very intelligent for a while.

I am thinking about the Lispector book but it is sometimes hard for me to acquire specific books. If it's available at the library I might be able to send one of the useless eaters (some people call them "children") to fetch it.

My copy has arrived. First impression: it's going to be hard for me to read this without thinking too much of The Master and Margarita and Monty Python's Life of Brian.

While searching for the book on Amazon, I noticed the existence of American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania. From the Amazon description:

In the nineteenth century, American tourists, scholars, evangelists, writers, and artists flocked to Palestine as part of a "Holy Land mania." Many saw America as a New Israel, a modern nation chosen to do God's work on Earth, and produced a rich variety of inspirational art and literature about their travels in the original promised land, which was then part of Ottoman-controlled Palestine. In American Palestine, Hilton Obenzinger explores two "infidel texts" in this tradition: Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1876) and Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress (1869). As he shows, these works undermined in very different ways conventional assumptions about America's divine mission.

In the darkly philosophical Clarel, Melville found echoes of Palestine's apparent desolation and ruin in his own spiritual doubts and in America's materialism and corruption. Twain's satiric travelogue, by contrast, mocked the romantic naiveté of Americans abroad, noting the incongruity of a "fantastic mob" of "Yanks" in the Holy Land and contrasting their exalted notions of Palestine with its prosaic reality. Obenzinger demonstrates, however, that Melville and Twain nevertheless shared many colonialist and orientalist assumptions of the day, revealed most clearly in their ideas about Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans.

Combining keen literary and historical insights and careful attention to the context of other American writings about Palestine, this book throws new light on the construction of American identity in the nineteenth century.

I resisted the temptation to order this as well, so far...

Well it's about time you joined Irene! I was beginning to feel slighted!

Sorry to hear about what ails you. I have three "useless eaters" - LOL - myself. They are handy for fetching books and other odds and ends aren't they.

I thought Clarel was supposed to be our "short" read. Or did I miss something???? A_musing, do not even try to pretend that Clarel counts as "short" because it's poetry. Enrique, you've been had.

Yeah but, #1, A_musing, if you'll recall, threatened to take Clarel somewhere else! Away from the Salon. Had or not, I simply could not let Clarel be kidnapped like that. So while we may suffer for it, at least she's safe.

#36 - almost enough to make me wish I was participating in the read. I'm getting where I will be able to fake this read pretty soon!

#40 Faking is good. I can feel it in my bones. Whilst waiting for my own scholarly edition of Clarel to arrive, I have been reading the online version. Already, our hero is sitting hand to forehead in Rodinian despair. My intuition tells me all readers of Clarel will have slit their wrist long before they get to misery.

P.S. May we not read something cheerful for the Christmas season? It such a depressing time of year. Does anyone want to form a breakaway rebel group and read the Blandings Castle series by Wodehouse??? Vote Blandings??? Anybody???

Rebel breakaway groups from Le Salon inspired by Swedish-loving subversives hell bent on storming the Blandings Castle have historically ended up declaring this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4JEmz4FoJE , so be warned.

Many saw America as a New Israel, a modern nation chosen to do God's work on Earth

Many still do!

So... this is about an American crusader in Palestine? Plus ça change...

Many dictators have historically met their "Hour of the Beast" (VargTimmen) and have not been seen again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Zr1sEh1oE

Yours truly Hedningarna (The Heathens) of Sweden.

This one's an extracurricular, off the beaten path read. It came about by me looking to find someone to share.

Lola - I think you missed the part about Clarel "undermining conventional assumptions about America's divine mission" - more like an American seeker in Palestine, mixed among all the pilgrims from all the world trying to find something...

But I kind of like the critic labeling these assumptions, "conventional..."

And, I do find myself thinking "What would Edward Said say" about the book...

Enrique, I'd be careful about battles with Swedes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAe3NLbaZfU

Dudes, question: Whence this reading of Clarel? Doesn't it blow our carefully calibrated structure of seasonal-tome-plus-monthly-shorter-read-for-every-month-not-marking-tome-read-kickoff structure? DOESN'T IT?

I'm mad because I can't find it anywhere in this whole bustling, Melville-loving metropolis.

>48 MeditationesMartini:.

I got mine online and uploaded it to my reader.

It now waits for me to have some free time to start reading.

47> This Clarel thing is a_musing saying he was going to read it, and since I was planning on reading it sometime next year I said sure, what the hell, I'll read along with you and I suggested a date that was pretty far off.

Next thing I know, Freeq has it on the front page as if it was some group decision. It's not. It just a chance agreement between two readers to provide support to each other. Although there are some others interested.

I would never dream of foisting Melville's most obscure work on a group of unsuspecting people. Especially since I am not at all convinced that it will be rewarding.

I was pleased that about three people said they'd read with me, so we did the thread; we'll see how many we end up with. But it's wholly unofficial, extracurricular, only for those who are really curious. I, too, am not a Clarel-foister.

But, it looks oddly fascinating!

I get the feeling this group is not much of a democracy when determining what to read.

That's fine with me.

Ha ha, and fine by me too.I guess I'm just the kind of guys who wants to take part in extracurriculars. (Reading groups at school! First it was "critical theory", then a splinter group splintered because they wanted to read only Deleuze, then some of the Jesusy students started a thing on Eagleton's Reason, Faithand Revolution, which I had just bought, so I had to sit on on that then I joined the Aeneid group, and now I hear there's one in "listening and literature" (starting with Theodor Adorno) that sounds intriguing too for this ex-music man. Absurd! Anyway, good luck dudes, and I will join you if I can possibly get my hands on a copy--which I guess means I probably won't be darkening your door again.

Isnt Deleuze unnecessarily paradoxical?

Adorno hated jazz.

50> Yes, but A_musing was threatening to leave Le Salon with Clarel, the wily devil!, and start his own group! Ay-carumba! No way Jose! Once you come to Cuba, you stay in Cuba like good citizen. And we have the best cigars.

I can't wait to start this read. The preliminaries are too much.

But, wow. I can get whatever I want by threatening to take my toys and go home. I haven't had this much power since I was two.

Today, Clarel. Tomorrow.... Ferdydurke!! Bwwwaaahaaaahhhaaaaa!!!!

>54 semckibbin: There is no plane of immanence on which I can possibly disagree with this statement.

>55 urania1: Yup! I look forward to drinking deeply of his poison draught.

Back to the poem. Here's a wonderful quote from Richard Blevins, as quoted by Parker in the Historical Supplement included in the Northwestern Newbury Scholarly edition:

"In Gunslinger, Clarel's frustrated search across the Holy Land for significant form, for confirmation of the miracle of personal faith in the nineteenth century, is recast for a postmodern audience as the Slinger's eyes-wide-open (even dilated by hallucinogens) New World trip (pun intended) to Las Vegas. We note that the desert outside of Jerusalem has become Four Corners, USA."

Well, my copy of Clarel arrived today (the Northwestern Newberry edition). However, I have at least 4 books I have to read first, so I will be dipping my toe into this very slowly.

>60 janeajones: My copy pf Clarel still hasn't arrived. Let us be thankful for small blessings. However, me wee sainted toes are already frozen through and through at the thought. I expect they will fall off or I will get gangrene by the time I finished dipping them in Clarel. You'll be sorry then A_musing.

Just to keep everyone updated on the Slough of Despair known as Clarel. I have now finished canto 3 of book 1. Clarel's melancholia broken by a brief historical interlude. I just can't wait to see what comes next . . . someone really should shoot A_musing - in a virtual sort of way;-) So . . . 518 lines down, 17,482 to go. Boy howdy!

I've read through a half dozen cantos, but really am holding off until the equinox. I am in the midst of a read of Pierre or the Ambiguities, which is phenemonal so far! He concludes a chapter that is a completely overboard send up of the British Gothic novel worthy of the cast of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with a bit of arbor amour as Pierre gets deeply turned on by gazing at a pine tree, imagining "her" branches enfolding him, all with Melville's characteristic philosophical musings on just about everything interspersed.

With Urania starting to read, it may be time for preliminary discussions. After all, we don't want this to just be a bunch of whining about how long and dour this is!!

Clarel. I think Urania's read of the first canto is right on target. The boy needs some sex. He's chosen to take his holiday in a hostel room "much like a tomb new-cut in stone"; he's young but he's covered in dust. He's a bookish nerd (and, yes, Melville even insults him as "all but feminine"). Even though he's a theology student, he admits to being fairly ignorant.

And I think he personifies the American protestant church of his time (though I haven't figured out whether Melville is focused on New England Congregationalists or New York Anglicans or both). Young, unworldly, excessively self-important and faux-intellectual. The fellow even takes up the thinker's pose that so revs Urania's engines. But he's not completely un-self-aware ("Our New World's worldly wit so shrewd/ Lacks the Semitic reverent mood, / Unworldly - hardly may confer / Fitness for just interpreter / Of Palestine") and seems willing to learn something from all the folks he's about to meet. So I'm expecting to see him get schooled by the world here.

But I think Clarel is generally the kind of fellow Melville listens to in Church every Sunday, and laughs about while drinking with Hawthorne and the ghost of Poe afterwards. But Melville weights down the comic element for Clarel in the poetry, which does project a very un-comic stiff and somber tone. I think he's just excruciatingly dry about this. And he doesn't really want to completely dismiss this fool he's stuck with.

I do note that Herman Melville has a legacy library up: http://www.librarything.com/profile/HermanMelville.

One question for those reading the critics: Does anyone else think that Hershel Parker, the guy with all the historical commentary in these Newbury/Northwestern scholarly editions, is a bit of a Clarel? I mean, he's picking apart all the stuff about Melville's life and world and doesn't seem to read the books all that well.

Also: the verse. Iambic tetrameter. Hymn meter. One foot too few for natural sounding speech. And huge, leaden gongs at the end of many of these lines. What do people think?

(Parker is) picking apart all the stuff about Melville's life and world and doesn't seem to read the books all that well.

Parker is under the mistaken impression he can explain Melville's genius that way.

Melville even insults him as "all but feminine"

How is that an insult?

BTW, if you keep on reading the poem what would be the point of me starting on the equinox?

Oh do let's wait -- I have finals and term papers coming up before the equinox.

OK, I'm stopping. It's just a paperweight for now.

Uraniaaaaaaa - slowwww dowwwnnn, toooo, pleassssse!!! No need to even think about the poor boy for another month.

(I reserve the right to regale you all with particularly humorous scenes in Pierre, though, or with stupid things Hershel says in his book on Melville as Poet).

But it is terribly odd how much insight Parker seems to think he can get by figuring out how much and how carefully Melville read Carlyle. And he seems to think that he can somehow "solve" a book with "the ambiguities" in the title.

Yeah, janeajones, I was just about to say something to Urania about jumping the gun on Clarel.

Salonistas! Nobody reads ahead of schedule anything w/out prior written permission! You only read what Le Salon has assigned you to read, when Le Salon has assigned you to read it!

Let me tell you story about my homeland what happen to me when I act premature as a young sexy hombre. The doctor he say no, Enrique, you're too excited, yes she's a chica bonita, I can see, but you must re-laxxxxxxx and breathe deep and focus on her diente de juicio and not just your mucho grande huevos, comprendo?

Si.

Likewise, when we act premature in the salon and read a book prematurely we blow golden opportunity to share in the glorious group ecstasy that could be ours if we'd be patient and sensitive to the needs of the other salonistas.

But, but, but Life and Fate was so slow in coming and Vanity Fair arrived so quickly that I just reversed the reading order. Do I now go before the firing squad? If so, please do not assign urania1 as she is deadly on target!~!
most very humbly,
belva

Ha!~!~! I am safe!~! Wrong group! Whoo Hoo!~!~!

A_musing,

If I didn't know you have such sweet and mild disposition, I would think you're trying to set up a competition. I have just pulled Pierre off some godforsaken PG-like free distribution site. If you're reading Pierre, I don't intend to be left behind. I have been putting off reading the critics. I wanted to get a sense of Clarel for myself at least initially (I will start reading the critics soon). However, I have been checking lots of references during my meagre three canto reading. The explanatory notes for particular lines are brief and assume a knowledge I do not have. If nothing more, I am researching the information more thoroughly and receiving a history lesson. So all is not for naught. A_musing, I suppose next you will be threatening to leave unless Enrique sanctions our reading Charles Brockton Brown's Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist. At that point I will put my foot down and demand The Mysteries of Udolpho. So there!!!

Belva,

Your comment in post 70 lacks a certain decorum;-) I think you need to read more 18th-century literature.

Well, each of those look interesting, especially for background on Pierre. I would love to have your company for a read of Pierre, though I've put everyone on notice that my next major campaign is the Ferdydurke '11 campaign (Ferdy! Ferdy! Ferdy!), so 18th century gothic will have to wait.

My overall impression is that most of the critics are rubbish, so please don't feel a strong urge to follow me to anything I've found thus far. I'll let you know if I find any gems.

I read Pierre a year or so ago and would be very much interested in re-reading it and lurking on a discussion by the learned folks in this group.

I will start a thread for Pierre.

>#72:
Mary;
If you think that comment lacked a "certain decorum", you really won't be wanting to read my recent comment on the "Thinking Aloud Thread for 2010".
belva
P.S. "de" dictator sez: "We are NOT reading Pierre."

A_musing,

Are you really sure we're still reading Clarel. I haven't read beyond book 1 canto 3. Reading between the lines, I think that line 140 (1.3) of Clarel suggested that readers stop reading right there and go wash their hair - with Clarelle shampoo of course.

Well, I am really enjoying this 117-page introduction.

>#77:
Ha! Now that is a_musing!~! I hope we are reading the dreaded Melville asssssssssss I ordered a copy of the damned thing.
>#78:
books;
Hmmmmm, a 117 page intro? We knewssssss the accurssssssssed Melville wassssssssssss
bad newsssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Oh yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, we did.
belva

Well, not reading it yet, because it's not the equinox, but doesn't every author writing a horror story tell you, over and over again, not to open that door, what's behind that door is evil, you will always regret opening the door, please don't open the door, your life depends on not opening the door, the world will always regret it if you open the door .... oh, look! you opened the door! Well, now you've done it.

That's part of the tedium of most horror stories.

Is the book with the 117 page intro a "horror" story?

>82 rainpebble:,

Ignore the 117-page intro, go wash your hair with Clarelle, and eat some chocolate. And have a nice cup of tea. By the way, thanks for the message yesterday. I knew for whom you posted it :-)

Finished the intro/already exhausted!

>84 MeditationesMartini:,

A brave soul. Now go take a hot bath, wash Clarel out of your hair, and have a stiff drink.

you're welcome. My copy should arrive today or Monday.

But with the 117 page intro ... are you looking forward to the poem? Any problems lurking that catch your fancy?

I was right. My most dreaded copy of Clarel arrived today. Stoooooooooooopidly, I am excited to dive in. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, didja ever think that Melville could be just a pen name?

>87 A_musing: I AM looking forward, although just a couple pages in the undeft couplets are already starting to get me. I'm a sucker for that post-Canterbury Tales schtick where each of the pilgrims has their colourful past and story to tell, either in words or in their interactions. I am of two minds on author-bio based criticism/appreciation, but I look forward to what new light Clarel can shed on late Melville's twisted psyche. I also like the idea that he was a little gay for Hawthorne the same way Clarel is a little gay for Vine, although in light of those classic multivalent queer readings of Billy Budd, it seems a little reductive of the introduction to push the real-life bromance angle between the writers so hard.

In general, I fell a little trepidation at the way the intro keeps citing nasty reviews that e.g. say a particular passage is "nonsense", then do a little close read to prove that it's not, but finish up by conceding that it IS really bad poetry--just not nonsense! It's like, even Clarel's defenders set their sights kinda low.

But I am excited still, because it's always interesting to see beloved geniuses struggle with faith in God and life, and the everpresent black dog of disappointment. Melville is just such an interesting character that if this is as biographically driven as the intro promises, I should be able to stomach the bad poetry for interest's sake.

I generally don't read the before and after matter until I've read the work. If I feel the need afterward, I will, but not before. I'm sure not availing myself of this is a mistake sometimes, but it's just not something I do.

I should be able to stomach the bad poetry for interest's sake.

Sounding pretty masochistic there, Martin.

Well, if a masochist is someone who suffers pain for pleasure, then I guess I'm a masochist.

Oh. Huh! I have some thinking to do.

Possibly while on a pilgrimage to the holy land with a colourful cast of characters that are really thinly veiled allegories for parts of my own psyche. We'll just have to see.

>92 MeditationesMartini: and 93! Well done!

But I'm not ready to pass a verdict of "bad poetry" yet and we'll see what it seems like as we get deeper in. Cramped, yes, and consciously so. Turgid, certainly - it's Melville, after all. Difficult? Somewhat but not always; perhaps less so than Moby Dick.

The little bit I've read thus far hasn't left me ready to declare the poetry a bunch of second rate versifying or worse, though my ear is still trying to attune itself to this stuff that keeps turning in on itself and getting twisted up like that.

>94 A_musing:,

For some reason, I keep expecting the rhythm to sound like Poe's The Raven. The fact that Melville's verse won't go that way continually messes with my mind.

Looking for trochees in all the wrong places/ looking for trochees screws up the paces...

I think Melville shares the gonging line endings with Poe, and Poe's octameter is really just doubled tetrameter. I can see looking for Poe-rhythm in this. I think the next time I pick it up I'm going to look for Poe-rhythm.

Okay;
I am holding the dreaded Melville in my hands even as we speak. I have read the intro and already know the books I will be looking to read upon finishing Clarel due to this epic poem.
Now, my question is:
Will our trusty leaders shit or get off the pot?
Are we reading this thing or not?
Who is going to be intimidated into making a flipping decision here? I thought this was a dictatorship not a democracy!~!
I am going to go take a shower. Let me know when I get back. Okay? Thanx,
belva

Of course you're reading Clarel, Belva! Anyone who has posted on this thread (except for me) will be reading Clarel come the December Equinox.

So read no further than that intro for now, Belva, that's an order!

<pedantic>
Wouldn't that be the Winter Solstice?
</pedantic>

pedantic (comparative more pedantic, superlative most pedantic)

Positive
pedantic


Comparative
more pedantic


Superlative
most pedantic

1. Like a pedant, overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning.
2. Being showy of one’s knowledge, often in a boring manner.
3. Being finicky or picky with language.

I am getting excited.

The SOLSTICE approaches (ah, beat me with a wet noodle for mixing up solstices, which are great fun, with boring old oft forgotten equinoxes!).

Oh good you're back. Where ya been man? Hasn't been nearly as fun of late w/out you around. You don't like have a real life outside of le salon or something, do you?

So what day exactly does Clarel begin? The 21st is it?

The 21st.

Yes, life gets busy. But, tis the season now for youthful angst and inner spiritual turmoil! Let's all assume the thinker pose for Urania!

Waaaait, the solstice isn't till the 21st? I started a week ago! I am already on Part 2! I was just thinking "man, why doesn't anyone have anything to say about this book? It's not that bad."

I want you all to tell me what you think about Derwent. I think his Panglossian worldview gets short shrift.

We were going to begin Clarel on the 7th; the equinox, weren't we?
belva

"sur le registre
Clarel by Herman Melville (begins on the Dec. Equinox)"

OK, I think we've begun. I'll start thinking about what to say because, hey, I already started too.

Uh, that's my fault. I thought the equinox was the 21st. I'm not very bright sometimes.

I feel very bad for the confusion on the start date I caused. I should've just put up the date. Those who've already began, perhaps when A_Musing begins on the date he always originally intended to begin, can maybe go back to the earlier parts of Clarel and offer commentary on the beginning until A_Musing and others catch up.

Really sorry about that, A_Musing.

I screwed up saying equinox, when there is no Dec. equinox. There's a December solstice, which is the 21st. I deserve the guilt, not you!

All that having been said, let's just read - school's letting out, work's letting up, what a good time for poetry.

Okay, enough with the hair shirts and striping of the backs. Let's just read the damn poem. It really is not bad.
belva

>111 rainpebble: It really isn't! I am ambivalent! Equivocal, even. I like the way Melville handles the allegory, which isn't overpowering (at least compared to, say, Pilgrim's Progress), but I don't like the way all the characters who aren't incredibly fucking tragic about everything get reduced to materialist/positivist caricatures--see: Glaucon, Margoth, Derwent actually makes some good points. I like how this is starting to feel a bit like Socrates and the boys (although don't expect as much from Melville's Glaucon as from Plato's), but I don't like all the anti-semitism. I know it was the style at the time, but it gets me down.

Am now getting back into this, after an early half-start.

Booksfallapart, I'm not sure I'd describe what I'm seeing thus far as antisemitic. There is some sterotyping going on, with characters taking on iconic, representative forms, and clearly he's doing some stereotyping, but I haven't yet found it spiteful or hateful - is there something I'm going to hit in coming cantos? Is his every reference to "Semitic" clearly a referance to Judaic as well?

I'm also piecing through the tragic and comic - while Clarel seems to have a strong comic element (the littlle whippersnapper, with his self-important thinker poses), I'm finding more of the characters quite tragic and pretty serious. Less humor than most Melville. What do people think?

>113 A_musing: I suppose I was engaging in hyperbole with "anti-semitism", but some of the characters that come in midway (I'm thinking in particular of the secular Jewish geologist Margoth) get treated in this way that's a bit creepy even in the 19th-century context--like, instead of "Let's get some lunch" it'll be "let's get some lunch--Jew!" with the m-dash, and I wonder now how much of that is just to make up the metre (Melville certainle resorts to other unfortunate lengths in that regard), but there's the bit when Margoth leaves and Rolfe says, in essence, "Well Jew, I guess you weren't so bad, but we're still all glad you're gone," and everyone agrees. I know part of that is Melville criticizing positivism, but Margoth still seems to get racialized in a way that isn't true of e.g. Belex or Djalea (standard exotic/noble Others). It also doesn't really hold true for other Jewish characters like Agar and Ruth or Mortmain. I'unno.

And certainly I think you're right about the humourlessness. I read this referred to as an "obscure older sibling of The Waste Land, and I think it has that bleakness and spiritualt thirst to it. The hopeful ending seems tacked on, and not only in its briefness.

Martin (booksfallapart), I am in awe of your review. Beware, those who tread here, a very high standard has been set.

The monomaniacs line strikes me as really right on. Reading this at the same time as Hugo, I note both have characters that are intended to be iconic and representational, yet can imagine no two more different works. One, straightforward narrative, everything put right out on the line, the other, turgid, twisted, constantly testing each and every one of these monomaniacs.

I'm seeing in Clarel the near-great, which is a very difficult and disappointing class of works. If he was not quite so slavish in his verse, if he let up on the intensity just a bit (as Milton does in his long narrative verse), this could have been on par with the Paradise Losts - but, alas, there's a just miss element. Still, far from done, so we'll see if I change my tune.

I do have to say, I think he chose the right verse, with its cramped feel, for what he was trying to do. I see why he would have kept working on it, trying to get it there.

>115 A_musing: Awww, thanks, buddy! I do agree, very much, about the verse, and having tried my hand myself in the review I was surprised how even within the cramped metrical confines the lines flow out fairly easily (although I will not speak for my results!) Near-great--yeah, there are flashes of the wall-of-water terrible-majesty thing that infuses Moby-Dick, and the central theme (as I see it, roughly, the tragedy of unbelief in a world in which belief has no adequate alternatives) is worthy. I did think the middle sections were the strongest, so maybe you'll end up feeling more positive about the poem as a whole than I did.

I finally ordered and read American Palestine.
This encouraged me very much to proceed with Clarel, as the hidden conflicts now get more meaning to me.

Nathan was inspired by Warder Cresson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warder_Cresson

I've been away on some family things, but am still immersed in Clarel.

Lots of comparisons seem to be made to the Wasteland. So I read the Waste Land this morning. I have always loved the Waste Land. But after the better part of a month immersed in Clarel, it seems like a thin little palate cleanser to Melville's feast.

I now think the Waste Land was too short for its own good.

And doesn't have enough gravitas.

Glad you're back. I (and I'm sure, we) have missed you and your contributions.

>119 absurdeist: If Clarel turns out to have ruined The Waste Land for me on top of everything else, I'm gonna curse Melville's shade to unquiet rest.

So pick up the Waste Land and see how it reads.

I see how this book swallowed Melville for 30 years though. There is much here.

I came, I saw, I pondered Clarel up to about page 70 or 80 at which I pearl-ruled him this time around. Maybe later!~! The same with Paradise Lost.
My head will be in the right place one day.
Now where did I put that?



belva

Hey belva! Nice new identity. As for Clarel, I must say that I feel way better having gone through it in retrospect than while I was actually reading it--not just for bragging rights, but somehow the characters and events have themselves taken on a lustre. FWIW.

Belva, I think that the verbal form of the noun phrase 'Pearl rule' is 'pearl-rule.'

Robert

I'm not sure Clarel suffers much from being set aside and come back to. It took me a while and I will go back to reading parts. The idea of attempting back-to-back readings of Clarel and Paradise Lost, though, just seems like an awful lot of fairly complex epic poetry.

And, yes, it is a good book to have read - there is now a sort of iconic quality to it, as a very extreme example of something-or-other (proto-modernistic angst-ennui-blackness....). Melville knows how to overdo it.

So many people don't know how to do it at all. Forgive Melville his excesses, please. Besides, what would we really know of excess without him?