Like any other card-carrying American I have long believed that Melville wrote only one great work. Moby-Dick is—unquestionably if improbably—the one American novel against which all others can’t help but be measured, given the extent to which, through the use of an alienated workingman as a narrator, enough sea-room is provided to enable readers to live without fear of death and within view of polar citadels from which a white whale can and does glide forth like “a snow hill in air.” Tragic architecture, sterling prose, mystical insight, mischievous humor, sustained attention to human character under stress, seemingly antiquarian disquisitions that are ultimately philosophical, steadily increasing narrative suspense—the book’s got it all, and as if that distinction isn’t enough, the book also features prophetic vision regarding America’s role on the world stage that is every bit as strong and maybe even stronger than Tocqueville’s. How would it be possible for an artist to accomplish more? Unlike most writers, Melville crossed a finish line upon delivering Moby-Dick, and if the entirety of his production after that point turned out to be a relatively minor drift toward grace notes like Bartleby the Scrivener and Billy Budd, Foretopman, well, those are the wages for accomplishing something miraculous as a thirty-one-year old.
Imagine, then, my surprise when I chanced to read (in quick succession) The Confidence-Man, Pierre, and Clarel, each of which compel attention to the same degree that Moby-Dick does.
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