Marianna Poutasse
Auteur van Power of Place: Herman Melville in the Berkshires
Werken van Marianna Poutasse
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- 1
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- 3
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- #1,791,150
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- 3.0
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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)