Pierre or, The Ambiguities: Herman Melville

`Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling, soul-bewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr. Melville`s style), like Melchisedeck, without beginning or end-a labyrinth without a clue - an Irish bog without so much as a Jack o`the`lantern to guide the wanderer`s footsteps - the dream of a distempered stomach, disordered by a hasty supper on half-cooked pork chops." So judged the New York Herald when Pierre was first published in 1852, with most contemporary reviewers joining in the general condemnation: `a dead failure,` `this crazy rigmarole,` and "a literary mare`s nest." Latter-day critics have recognized in the story of Melville`s idealistic young hero a corrosive satire of the sentimental-Gothic novel, and a revolutionary foray into modernist literary techniques.