The Passages of H.M.

Jay Parini's writing kept me going through Melville's somewhat tiresome life. Despite his many sea voyages to exotic places, his recurring attractions to slim pretty young men, and his desperate longing for the approval and affection of the literary men he admired, the man revealed here is surprisingly lackluster. Very often in reading biographies, especially fictional ones, I find myself wishing I could sit at dinner with the subject. Not this time. It would seem that he spent his most valuable currency early in his career with popular South Pacific tales, indulged his obsession with Moby Dick, which no one truly appreciated in his lifetime, and then foundered both personally and in his work...until he was finally inspired to write show more what his wife Lizzie (at least the fictional version of her) considered to be his masterpiece, and worth all the rest...Billy Budd. The novel interweaves omniscient third person narration of Herman's undertakings with first person accounts from Lizzie's perspective. The latter sections come along just when needed, as H.M. starts to wear thin, his wife's somewhat brittle assessment of their life from the perspective of its end cuts through to the heart of matters. Lizzie as envisioned by Parini (who admits he made her up, having almost nothing to go on) is not likeable, at least not at first. But her judgment of her husband's life and work seem to be almost exactly in line with my own, and carrying on through the somewhat sloggy middle of this novel was made entirely worthwhile by the final chapters. show less

This fictionalized biography of Herman Melville follows him from a young man to death, using known facts about his life as a framework an filling in the details of conversation and some incident through fiction. The tale is told from two points of view: one a close third to Herman himself, the other a first person pov of his wife, Lizzie, who the author says in his note that he had to "make up" since so little is known of her.

I can't say I cared overly much for the book, unfortunately (I love Moby Dick). Mostly, I think, it just didn't have that spark that makes one really enjoy the book. The writing is fine, and Parini's imagining of Melville is full. But I find I don't care for him much, and I really didn't warm to Lizzie, although show more oddly, I found her sections more compelling than his. Perhaps I simply grew impatient with Herman and his inability to get anywhere (whether physically, intellectually, metaphysically or what-have-you) with his homoerotic desire (although one might argue that he got somewhere literarily with it, I suppose). I might have liked, in a novel, some more growth and arrival at self-awareness from the main character, but that may have caused the book to lack the verisimilitude the author was going for.

So, not my favorite, but in a way that feels a bit more me than the book. And it does make me think I'll check out something else by Parini, perhaps one of his straight-up biographies. show less

Wow!

So many people did not enjoy this book. Aw. This is what got me interested in Herman Melville in the first place.

I picked this book up in the library because the cover looked really interesting - it was only after I brought it home that I realised I recognised the name. I thought the story was interesting, the narrative voice was lovely. It's a fictionalised piece, which I think leaves quite a lot of room for details and added touches that some historical biographers feel they are not allowed to add.

I stuck with this book, though, once I had discovered the author went with the idea that Herman Melville was a bisexual. I'm not sure how much this is contested, but... I was only just beginning to read books again, and was having some show more trouble finding books that featured queer characters. So when I began to read and found the fictionalised Melville talking to a shipmate about a particular kind of love between two men at sea that no one else could describe, I was chuffed.

... then to have it validated, to have Parini's Melville be a bisexual character and not just some subtext I imagined meant a lot to me.

In any case, I enjoyed the writing style and felt this book was quite readable, though a little uninteresting in parts. 3.5 stars. c: show less

You will enjoy this book if...
You believe that Moby-Dick is one of the great American novels.
You had an American Lit professor who made the book come alive for you. You are a writer who alternates between believing your own genius and falling into the depths that everyone is better than you.
You love a good adventure on the high seas.
You ever had an unrequited love that affected you deeply.
You had to put aside your Art to take a job in the real-world to pay real bills.
You wish you could sit at a table with Melville, Hawthorne or Whitman and debate Emerson.
You like a good tragedy.
You have worked in the publishing industry.

You will not enjoy this book if...
Moby-who? (if so, then go out and take an American Lit class, or see if there is a show more free podcast on iTunes)
Herman Mel-who? (he isn't the most likeable of people, so you really do have to have read Moby-Dick or other works to appreciate him)
You are looking for a light-hearted book or a romance
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