Lucy’s Letter

I was surprised by Lucy’s letter not because she was vowing to move in with Pierre, Isabel and Delly, but because she was much stronger in her character and started to resemble Pierre in her actions. Always described as sweet and gentle, Lucy becomes strong in her choice to break away from her family and her engagement to Glen to move to the city stating that Pierre’s “own superhuman, angelical strength” is now within her (309). Still in love with Pierre, she understands why Pierre broke of his engagement to her and severed all contact with her claiming that her “unspeakable grief, hath made me a seer” which veils her reasoning in mystery (309). Acknowledging that this sudden need to be with Pierre is mysterious, Lucy feels even more connected with him because she now has a deep understanding of his actions and thinks them noble. Lucy knows that she is risking being disowned from her family, but she believes that God is commanding her to go and that Pierre is now her mother and her brothers (311). I find this to be an interesting parallel between Lucy and Pierre in that Lucy’s passionate pursuit of assisting Pierre is the same as Pierre’s assistance towards Isabel. Both succeed in being disowned by family because of their actions, but they do it because they believe it is right and truthful. Lucy has a hard time explaining why she feels the need to be with Pierre and can only describe it as mysterious. Pierre wrestled with that same feeling when he first met Isabel, but decided to do whatever it took to help her. There are hints of incest again with Lucy claiming to still be in love with Pierre, but then she turns right around and calls Pierre her mother and her brothers. I am sure that this choice to move to the city will prove to be disastrous for Lucy because so far it has been disastrous for Pierre.

Family and Identity

In the beginning of the novel, Pierre’s identity was very solidified. He knew who he was, he knew his relationship with everybody surrounding him, and there really were no questions. In the passage that we read for class today, we can really see how his identity has become fuzzied if not completely lost.

One of the things which used to define Pierre was his family. He had a father and a mother whom he was extremely close to- in fact almost like a sister. Already we’ve seen Pierre lose his relationship with his father, dis-attaching himself to his father and questioning whom he really was. Now he has lost his relationship with his mother, whom in her will has decided to leave her estate with her nephew instead of her son. In fact, there is absolutely no mention of Pierre at all in her will. She has completely separated herself from her only child, and thus Pierre has lost his mother. Pierre has also lost his closest (positively known) kin other than his parents- his cousin Glen. As we read in the reading for the last class, when Pierre arrives at Glen’s house when he first gets in to the city, Glen does not recognize him, denounces him, and chases him out of his house.

The last possible family member left is Isabell, whom Pierre is now distancing himself from in a familial relationship way. As Pierre says on page 273 (end of book XIX), “Call me brother no more! How knowest thou I am thy brother? Did thy mother tell thee? Did my father say so to me?– I am Pierre, and thou Isabel, wide brother and sister in the common humanity, –no more.”

With this large part of his identity slipping away from him (or possibly a bit being stolen from him by Glen, whom is also now involved with Lucy!!!)- the question left unanswered is, who really is Pierre?

It is also obvious to see that the part we read for class was around the time that the reviews of Moby Dick must have been coming out. It does seem like for book XVIII Pierre almost become Melville for a bit. I also found Melville’s writings on transcendentalism on page 262 very interesting, especially after reading Hawthorne and The Blithedale Romance.

Silence

One thing I’ve found particularly interesting to track throughout Pierre is the reoccurrence of silence.  It always seems to be linked with ambiguity, with the ever-evasive truth that is both unknowable and all pervasive.  Silence is presented as the only proper response to the chaotic mystery of reality, and is inextricably intertwined with the theme of secrecy (which is connected with the ever-creepy whisper that suggests forced intimacy).  I don’t plan to unveil the hidden meaning of this silence, because I frankly have no clue what Melville’s fixation with silence is about.  However, here are a few passages I found interesting in relation to this concept:

a) “All profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence…Silence is the general consecration of the universe.  Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world.  Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature.  It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate.  Silence is the only Voice of our God.” P. 204

b) “Now without doubt this Talismanic Secret has never yet been found, and in the nature of human beings it seems as though it can never be.  Certain philosophers have time and again pretended to have found it; but if they do not in the end discover their own delusion, other people soon discover it for themselves…That profound silence, that only Voice of out God, which I before spoke of; from that divine thing without a name, those imposter philosophers pretend somehow to have got an answer; which is as absurd, as though they should say they gad got water out of stone, for how can man get a Voice out of Silence” p. 208

c) Pierre’s father’s smile in the chair-portrait is silent.  “Face up, it met him with its noiseless, ever-nameless, and ambiguous, unchanging smile.” p. 196

However, though Isabel commands Pierre to silence many times over the course of their first encounter, she is hardly a silent being.  Non-verbal, possibly, unwritten, but definitely not silent.  She screamed when she first saw Pierre, breaking the silence and the ushering upheaval and complete disorder into his life.  Isabel’s guitar also breaks the unwritten silence of her past, it is through her music that she tells her story.  She also controls Pierre through his silence, instructing him not to speak, to stay quiet.

Lucy begs for quiet when Pierre breaks the news of his “marriage” to Isabel, and Delly, though never speaking at first, is always heard pacing back and forth upstairs.

Hmmm…

In a completely unrelated note (or maybe not, since the repetition of the word and the sounds it recalls are very audible); I loved the wordplay in this passage:

“Accursed be those four syllables of sound which make up that vile word Propriety. It is a chain and a ball to drag;–drag? what sound is that? there’s dragging—his trunks—the traveler’s—dragging out.  Oh would I could so drag my heat, as fisher for the drowned do, as that I might drag up m y sunken happiness!” p. 195

Coverdale & Pierre: Arguing Across Texts

I think one of things that jumped out at me most from the most recent reading is the relationship of Pierre and his cousin Glen which is, to say the least, weird. Melville describes their relationship as spicy, jealous, passionate “boy-love” (216). It immediately reminded me both of Coverdale and Hollingsworth’s homosocial connection, as well as the connection between Melville and Hawthorne.

I was also reminded of the letters between Melville and Hawthorne and Temple’s “Ineffable Socialities” in which she argues that “Pierre’s attraction for Isabel mirrors Melville’s attraction for Hawthorne” (127). I’d have to say that much more about their relationship can be gleaned from looking at Hawthorne’s perspective as mirroring Coverdale’s relationship with Hollingsworth, and reading Melville as conflated with Pierre in his discussion of Glen (I am starting to find it interesting how Melville’s conscious seems to drift between Pierre and the narrator).

From the letters and from Temple’s analysis we know that the relationship between Hawthorne and Melville started to drift apart after a while, largely due to Hawthorne distancing himself. This is directly mirrored in what I would argue is Hawthorne’s perspective of a homosocial bond: Coverdale retreating from Hollingsworth into his hermitage in the woods to hide away, to pull at the bond, to push against its tensile strength until it snaps suddenly (110-111). Temple argues that Hawthorne/Coverdale is ultimately unable to overcome social institutions, and thus has his characters capitulate some part of themselves in favor of maintaining the status quo.

In thinking of Melville as Pierre, we gain the opposite side of the argument. We are privileged to observe from the other half of the homosocial bond. Pierre is the half that seeks to continue the bond, despite the fact that Glen has obviously moved on and no longer feels any sort of devotion or love for Pierre. There is a lot of interesting commentary in this passage on writing, especially in greetings – and Pierre judges his relationship with Glen based on the gratuitous introductory “Dear….’s” that he uses (219).

The narrator notes how “the eventual love for the other sex forever dismiss[es] the preliminary love-friendship of boys” (217). What I find interesting is how despite Pierre “getting over” Glen, the “love for the other sex” that he replaces it with is for his own sister Isabel – and in this way, Melville/Pierre refuse to succumb to rules/institution like Hawthorne does , Melville’s characters actively rebel against the normative even while seemingly following a “typical” pattern in love.

How not surprising is this?

So I’m sitting here trying to get caught up on Pierre and my book is definitely missing pages 263-322. They haven’t been torn out, they just aren’t there. It goes from book 18 to book 24 in one page. After all we have read about novels and writing, how not surprising is it that my copy of Melville’s own novel, particularly this one, is missing about 60 pages? Crazy stuff.

Herman is not happy.

I was particularly looking forward to Chapter 17 of Pierre after Dr. Stockton mentioned that from 17 on is where Melville starts to receive bad reviews of Moby Dick.

The chapter starts off with an embittered passage about two modes of writing, of which the narrator (fairly unambiguously Melville himself at this point I would argue) chooses to elect neither, finishing with the proclamation that “I write precisely as I please.”  Melville separates writing into writing that all events/facts are set down together as they occur in time, and the other as the narrative calls for them. We’ve already talked about how Melville heads away from being a celebrated author to basically dying in obscurity. He continues his rant, discussing the literary hobby of Pierre -and dismisses his lack of criticism, noting that he is young and immature. Melville obviously needs a hug…

I wonder whether or not we can accept the aphoristic comment that he writes for himself, as we’ve seen through the historical context that he cares deeply about Hawthorne’s opinion, if no one elses’, and he is obviously angry about the lack of critical success/understanding for Moby Dick, which he believes to have been his great novel.

I’m excited to continue reading Pierre because of the opportunity to read more about what Melville thinks about writing, especially in response to negative criticism.

Sin City

I was very intrigued by the description of the city in Pierre. When we first arrive it is evening and all the citizens are boarding up their windows and closing themselves off from each other. Possibly to protect themselves from the evil of the city, maybe just to cut off contact from another. Isabel shows her unsteadiness in this element. Although they are from the country and she should be used to it, she states, “this silence is unnatural, is fearful.” Pierre continues to describe the city, in general, as being very secretive.

 On page 240 we get a fuller description of the city in the daytime, and it doesn’t get any better. The city feels as if it’s a suction for all the possible sin collecting it from all over the world, as shown by the multitude of languages spoken. The people on the streets were “frantic, diseased looking”. Their clothing was dirty and tattered, and not very covering of their body. Almost everybody was drunk and acting belligerent yelling and cursing at one another. It is also the home to loose women and prostitutes along with thieves. The city is chaotic and disorderly. Although there is a police department, there is no possible way for them to control everybody.

 There should be no surprise that Pierre and Isabel find themselves in this area. Although we see the two of them passing judgement on all the people around them, they are sinners just the same. In fact, their sins of lust toward each other are actually the worst sins which can be found in the city.

 I was also very disappointed in how short Glen’s house was in the novel. I know that with Gothic literature a house is often significant. It is suppose to signify the place where we come to feel the most comfortable for it is our home, the only place we are suppose to feel safe. This is why most of the terror in the Gothic novels happens in the house. The shock is felt the most when we have our guard down. I had high hopes leading up in book XV and was a little let down in the results.

Youth and Melville

“All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter’s ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of age.”

–p.218

Random Bits

1) Pierre’s, or Melville’s I suppose, obsession with the written word is showcased nicely in the section on pg 219 when he goes on for half a page about the different salutations Glen uses in his letters. Why Melville why?

2) pg 222 its better to keep some people as enemies than friends so that you can use them more easily?? That is not exactly how I would have thought of it…

3)Just when I thought that Pierre couldn’t say anything creepier about his sister Melville gives us that she was “bound to him from the first by the most sacred ties, and lately inspiring an emotion which passed all human precedent in its mixed and mystical import” (226)

4) Last thing… I think that the comparison between the city and the country is very interesting and we get another glimpse of this difference when Pierre tells Isabel that “brick and mortar have deeper secrets than wood or fell” (231)

Melville’s uncovering of hypocritical “theology”

“A virtuous expediency, then, seems the highest desirable or attainable earthly excellence for the mass of men, and is the only earthly excellence that their Creator intended for them. When they go to heaven, it will be quite another thing. There, they can freely turn the left cheek, because there the right cheek will never be smitten. There they can freely give all to the poor, for there there will be no poor to give to.”
—p.214

Well, it seems fairly clear that Plinlimmon didn’t wear a “WWJD” bracelet.

Though the Plinlimmon pamphlet is long and hard to follow, most critics believe that Melville is mocking its philosophical/theological reasonings. As the above passage indicates, Plinlimmon basically dismisses the notion that men should strive to be Christ-like in their dealings with one another. As he says, turning the other cheek on earth is hard. So, God must not have really intended for men to have to do it on earth. Rather, God just means that we should do it in heaven, and there it won’t be hard because no one will hit you. On earth, no one can really give everything to the poor, so that too should just be something we do in heaven—where there are no poor people anyway, which makes it that much easier to promise to give all of our money to them then.

The title, chronometricals and horologicals, refers to the differences between heaven and earth (as Amanda pointed out in her comments). Chronometrical refers to those ideas that relate to heaven; horological refers to those ideas that relate to earth. Plinlimmon derives these terms (purportedly) from notions of sea travel. In essence, a ship has a time-piece, or chronometer, on it. The chronometer stays on Greenwich time throughout its voyage, no matter where it goes. Thus, even though it may be noon when the ship arrives in China, the clock on board the ship won’t show the local time; it will show the time in Greenwich. In other words, the ship follows chronometrical, not horological time.

I read the pamphlet as almost entirely satirical, and I think this is why the language is so stilted and metaphorical. Of course, it’s probably impossible to know for sure; these are just my thoughts.

I believe that Melville presents this pamphlet as a criticism of the logic people use to convince themselves that they don’t really have to follow Jesus’s example. From what I know of Melville’s biography, I don’t interpret it as his call for greater piety. Rather, I think he is commenting on the hypocrisy of Christians, particularly the elite who discuss theology and philosophy. (It’s no coincidence that the minister in the novel is named Mr. Falsgrave. And he, too, seems utterly clueless about morality, and often defers to Mary Glendinning and/or equivocates in ridiculous fashion rather than outright condemning people for castigating Delly Ulver.)

It’s less clear to me why Melville inserts this pamphlet (and this idea) into this particular novel. Why does Pierre read it now, particularly since he just tore up a bunch of his older texts? What does it mean to have Pierre read this when he has just decided on his ill-conceived path to turn Isabelle into his wife and flee to the city?