Question from the floor today: "From what I've read about this book, Melville admits it was his worst novel..." and other comments to this effect, mostly geared toward explaining away its apparent failures as a novel. First: is that true? Second: if it were, how would it help us understand the text better?
This impression may have come from Wikipedia, where the entry for the novel says: "Thus Melville wrote it as quickly and as straightforwardly as he could in order to secure some sort of income, and for mainly that reason he loathed the book." But there's no source given for this conclusion. I find this to be, like many Wikipedia entries on literary works, overgeneralized and naive: what sort of knowledge or expertise were the editors of this entry working from? (I do think Wikipedia is great for many other things, and I do respect the general idea of collective knowledge). How would we know whether he "loathed" the book, one he devoted a considerable amount of time to? The very imperfect tools we have to get inside Melville's head (to the extent we can ever do that), since he left few diaries or working drafts, are letters to and from other people, and sometimes marginalia on other books. I've been looking through the Melville biographies I have at the office, but haven't found any smoking guns yet that would indicate how he felt (at least at the moment he wrote such a letter) about IP. I'll keep looking; I have some more books at home.
But more to the point: what difference would it make? We know barely anything about Shakespeare the person, his writing process, or his feelings about his own works (or even whether he wrote much of what is attributed to them), but that doesn't stop us from considering other things about the plays and poems. So let's give IP the same respect. What traditions is the novel written into; what innovation does it work on those traditions? How does it address its readers? What problems does it introduce? What do different groups of readers think about it, want from it, take from it?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Have looked through 2 more Melville biographies; still no source for the comment about IP being his worst book. I've found reference to correspondence with his publisher, George Putnam, saying that it would "contain nothing...to shock the fastidious...it is adventure." Putnam had just read Melville the riot act for submitting some stories to the magazine that were too satirical about religious institutions.
ReplyDeleteThe reviews of IP were actually fairly decent compared to those of Moby-Dick and Pierre, his two previous novels: those had been savage. He earned $5 a page for the magazine version; then $421.50 on the book version when it appeared. It sold about 3000 copies in the first three months, more than twice what Pierre did.
I don't personally think it matters whether or not Melville hated Israel Potter as far as interpretation and understanding of the work. Although I am not one of those literary people who says that the work is entirely separate from its author, I do think as far as critique and impact, a work once released to the public is separate from the author's opinion of his or her work. Often a creator's least favorite piece is their most recognized. That said, I do think it is important to consider the author's mindset and role when publishing the novel. This kind of brings me back to thinking about the earlier question of whether or not to consider the amount an author was paid for a particular work in your appreciation of that work.
ReplyDelete