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Werken van Marianna Poutasse

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I bought this book in the gift shop when visiting Herman Melville’s home, Arrowhead, in Pittsfield, Mass. The blurb on the back cover bills it as an affordable companion piece to supplement one’s visit. This description, taken together with the title, is misleading. It is not a guidebook to the home, but a sketch of Melville’s antecedents, life, and literary career. And as for showing the power of the place, the impression is mixed. Melville first comes to the area as a child, then as an adult buys a farm he can hardly afford at an inflated price. Exhilarated by the fresh air and the view of Mount Greylock out of his study window, as well as by a blossoming friendship with neighboring author Nathaniel Hawthorne, he finishes and polishes his latest book. In his judgment, it is his masterpiece. Unfortunately, he was long dead before the rest of the world shared in his estimation of Moby Dick. Exhausted by his nearly manic pace of writing and disheartened by declining book sales—his career had started with two best-sellers based on his adventures in the South Seas—Melville became chronically depressed and irritable. Hardly an advertisement for the tonic effect of Berkshire panoramas. Even the author concedes that Herman and his wife simply acted like many others before and since when they became disillusioned with country living after initial enthusiasm, packed up, and returned to the city.
So even if the “power” of the place soon wore off, and this book is not exactly what it is marketed to be, it nonetheless tells a fascinating tale that is worth reading. It is competently written, despite the author’s pleonastic style. For example, in one paragraph beginning on page 17, the author comes up with no less than four different ways of saying Melville as a child lived in posh circumstances (“privileged upper class,” “among other wealthy New York families,” moving to ever “larger accommodations with better addresses,” “like other well-to-do families”). In the previous paragraph, she had introduced his parents as a “well-bred, aristocratic couple.” I wonder what the fathers of each of these parents, who both fought in the recent revolution to throw off an aristocracy, would have thought of that. And in fact, the circumstances the author describes were a sham. Herman’s parents lived well beyond their means, and his father went bankrupt before dying young and catapulting his widow with their children out of this gilt Eden. While it may have planted the germ of the depression Herman battled in the second half of his life (his dominant mother seems to have also been afflicted), being ejected from a falsely secure childhood and having to live by his wits seems to have been the making of a great writer. I’m glad I read this book and am looking forward to going beyond Moby Dick to sample more of Melville’s work.
… (meer)
 
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HenrySt123 | Jul 19, 2021 |

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