Grant Maierhofer, “The Novelist as Failure, the Language as Failing: A Recursive Reading of Melville’s Pierre,” 3:AM Magazine 20 February 2016
He is the consummate artist rejecting his art, writing as interrogation of what writing fails to do.
Tag Archives: herman melville
Books which are Said to Fail
Herman Melville, letter to his father-in-law, 6 October 1849
So far as I am individually concerned, & independent of my pocket, it is my earnest desire to write those sort of books which are said to “fail.”
Perpetually Entering ‘Whale’ Into a Search Engine
Philip Hoare, “Moby-Dick: Melville’s Victorian Blog,” The Guardian Saturday 20 0ctober 2012
In many ways, Moby-Dick was more like a Victorian blog, and I often think that if Melville had been writing his book today, he would never have finished it: he’d be perpetually entering “whale” into a search engine.
Never Yet Was Put Into Words Or Books
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick Chapter 110
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Unmentionable
Herman Melville, Moby Dick; or, The Whale, Los Angeles Review of Books, 1851
Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable…
ANDREW GALLIX 