Pym is the third novel by American author Mat Johnson , published on March 1, 2011. A satirical fantasy inspired by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket , Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, the book explores racial politics and identity in America, and Antarctica. The novel was written over a period of nine years and has been well received by critics, who have praised its lighthearted and humorous style of social criticism.
104-454: (Redirected from PYM ) Pym or PYM may refer to: Pym (novel) , a novel by Mat Johnson Philadelphia Yearly Meeting , an organizing body for Quaker Meetings on the U.S. east coast Pacific Yearly Meeting , an organizing body for unprogrammed Quaker Meetings in parts of Mexico and the western USA Plymouth Municipal Airport (Massachusetts) People [ edit ] Anthony Pym ,
208-541: A rented house in Lansingburgh, almost 12 miles north of Albany. Nothing is known about what Melville did or where he went for several months after he finished teaching at Sikes. On November 12, five days after arriving in Lansingburgh, Melville paid for a term at Lansingburgh Academy to study surveying and engineering. In an April 1839 letter recommending Herman for a job in the Engineer Department of
312-629: A visit . The illusion is quite dispelled however when Herman stalks into my room without even the ceremony of knocking, bringing me perhaps a button to sew on, or some equally romantic occupation". On February 16, 1849, the Melvilles' first child, Malcolm, was born. In March 1848, Mardi was published by Richard Bentley in London, and in April by Harper in New York. Nathaniel Hawthorne thought it
416-472: A 160-acre farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Melville had high hopes that his next book would please the public and restore his finances. In April 1851 he told his British publisher, Richard Bentley , that his new book had "unquestionable novelty" and was calculated to have wide appeal with elements of romance and mystery. In fact, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities was heavily psychological, though drawing on
520-462: A 160-acre farm in Pittsfield. Melville called his new home Arrowhead because of the arrowheads that were dug up around the property during planting season. That winter, Melville paid Hawthorne an unexpected visit, only to discover he was working and "not in the mood for company". Hawthorne's wife Sophia gave him copies of Twice-Told Tales and, for Malcolm, The Grandfather's Chair . Melville invited them to visit Arrowhead soon, hoping to "[discuss]
624-454: A Revolutionary War veteran was serialized in Putnam's Monthly Magazine in 1853. From November 1853 to 1856, Melville published fourteen tales and sketches in Putnam's and Harper's magazines. In December 1855 he proposed to Dix & Edwards, the new owners of Putnam's , that they publish a selective collection of the short fiction. The collection, titled The Piazza Tales , was named after
728-606: A bankrupt ... and we removed from the city; for when I think of those days, something rises up in my throat and almost strangles me". With Melville, Arvin argues, one has to reckon with "psychology, the tormented psychology, of the decayed patrician". When Melville's paternal grandfather died on September 16, 1832, Maria and her children discovered Allan, somewhat unscrupulously, had borrowed more than his share of his inheritance, meaning Maria received only $ 20 (equivalent to $ 600 in 2023). His paternal grandmother died almost exactly seven months later. Melville did his job well at
832-526: A blank register for indexing remarkable passages from books one had read for easy retrieval. Among the sample entries that Gansevoort made showing his academic scrupulousness was "Pequot, beautiful description of the war with," with a short title reference to the place in Benjamin Trumbull's A Complete History of Connecticut (Volume I in 1797, and Volume II in 1818) in which the description could be found. The two surviving volumes of Gansevoort's are
936-683: A clerk, Melville joined the U.S. Navy on August 20, as an ordinary seaman on the frigate USS United States . During the next year, the homeward bound ship visited the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, and Valparaiso, and then, from summer to fall 1844, Mazatlan, Lima, and Rio de Janeiro, before reaching Boston on October 3. Melville was discharged on October 14. This Navy experience is used in White-Jacket (1850), Melville's fifth book. Melville's wander-years created what biographer Arvin calls "a settled hatred of external authority,
1040-704: A close friend of Melville's father, and Shaw's marriage with Melville's aunt Nancy was prevented only by her death. His warmth and financial support for the family continued after Allan's death. Melville dedicated his first book, Typee , to him. Lizzie was raised by her grandmother and an Irish nurse. Arvin suggests that Melville's interest in Lizzie may have been stimulated by "his need of Judge Shaw's paternal presence". They were married on August 4, 1847. Lizzie described their marriage as "very unexpected, and scarcely thought of until about two months before it actually took place". She wanted to be married in church, but they had
1144-461: A contract on Christmas Day with the ship's agent as a "green hand" for 1/175th of whatever profits the voyage would yield. On Sunday the 27th, the brothers heard Reverend Enoch Mudge preach at the Seamen's Bethel on Johnnycake Hill, where white marble cenotaphs on the walls memorialized local sailors who had died at sea, often in battle with whales. When he signed the crew list the next day, Herman
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#17327795777571248-509: A copy of his father's account of his adventures aboard the Essex . Ten years later, Melville wrote in his other copy of the book: "The reading of this wondrous story upon the landless sea, & close to the very latitude of the shipwreck had a surprising effect upon me". On September 25, the ship reported having 600 barrels of oil to another whaler, and in October 700 barrels. On October 24,
1352-547: A further meeting of the two. In March 1847, Omoo , a sequel to Typee , was published by Murray in London, and in May by Harper in New York. Omoo is "a slighter but more professional book," according to Milder. Typee and Omoo gave Melville overnight renown as a writer and adventurer, and he often entertained by telling stories to his admirers. As the writer and editor Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote, "With his cigar and his Spanish eyes, he talks Typee and Omoo, just as you find
1456-493: A genial latitudinarianism that gave novelty to a South Sea idyll at once erotically suggestive and romantically chaste". An unsigned review in the Salem Advertiser written by Nathaniel Hawthorne called the book a "skilfully managed" narrative by an author with "that freedom of view ... which renders him tolerant of codes of morals that may be little in accordance with our own". Hawthorne continued: This book
1560-559: A governor of Sailors' Snug Harbor . Part of a well-established and colorful Boston family, Allan Melvill spent considerable time away from New York City, travelling regularly to Europe as a commission merchant and an importer of French dry goods. Both of Melville's grandfathers played significant roles in the American Revolutionary War , and Melville later expressed satisfaction in his "double revolutionary descent". Major Thomas Melvill (1751–1832) participated in
1664-546: A head when his ancient book dealer introduces him to a copy of The True and Interesting Narrative of Dirk Peters. Coloured Man. As Written by Himself. , "an unpublished 19th-century manuscript that suggests Poe's novel, which was partially set in Antarctica, was drawn closely from truth." Jaynes assembles an all-black mining crew, and embarks on an expedition to the South Pole in search of Poe's fabled island of Tsalal,
1768-447: A home with Melville regardless of place, a willingness to please her husband by performing such "tasks of drudgery" as mending stockings, an ability to hide her agitation, and a desire "to shield Melville from unpleasantness". The Kennedys conclude that "If the ensuing years did bring regrets to Melville's life, it is impossible to believe he would have regretted marrying Elizabeth. In fact, he must have realized that he could not have borne
1872-604: A lasting impression on both his thought and his art, as did his almost encyclopedic knowledge of both the Old and the New Testaments. In October 1831, Melville left the Academy. While the precise reason is not known definitively, Parker speculates it was for financial reasons, since "even the tiny tuition fee seemed too much to pay". In December 1831, Allan Melvill returned from New York City by steamboat, but he had to travel
1976-492: A lawyer and Jaynes's "much-pined-for" ex-wife, brings along her new husband Nathaniel, treating the venture as a honeymoon. But instead of the black inhabitants described by Poe, Jaynes and his friends come across "a prehistoric world of giant white people, or 'Snow Honkies.’ They also find Pym, who has been frozen in some form of cryostasis for some time. It is not long after this that the Snow Honkies enslave them." Garth
2080-487: A lust for personal freedom", and a "growing and intensifying sense of his own exceptionalism as a person", along with "the resentful sense that circumstance and mankind together had already imposed their will upon him in a series of injurious ways". Scholar Robert Milder believes the encounter with the wide ocean, where he was seemingly abandoned by God, led Melville to experience a "metaphysical estrangement" and influenced his social views in two ways: first, that he belonged to
2184-457: A madman. We were somewhat startled at the remark, but still more at learning, a few days after, that Melville was really supposed to be deranged, and that his friends were taking measures to place him under treatment. We hope one of the earliest precautions will be to keep him stringently secluded from pen and ink. On May 22, 1853, Melville's third child and first daughter Elizabeth (Bessie) was born, and on or about that day Herman finished work on
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#17327795777572288-691: A month as beachcomber and island rover ("omoo" in Tahitian), eventually crossing over to Moorea . He drew on these experiences for Omoo , the sequel to Typee . In November, he contracted to be a seaman on the Nantucket whaler Charles & Henry for a six-month cruise (November 1842 – April 1843), and was discharged at Lahaina , Maui , in the Hawaiian Islands , in May 1843. After four months of working several jobs in Hawaii, including as
2392-633: A most amiable and innocent child, I cannot find it in my heart to coerce him". Emotionally unstable and behind on paying the rent for the house on Broadway, Herman's father tried to recover by moving his family to Albany, New York , in 1830 and going into the fur business . Herman attended The Albany Academy from October 1830 to October 1831, where he took the standard preparatory course, including reading and spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, natural history, universal, Greek, Roman, and English history, classical biography, and Jewish antiquities. In early August 1831, Herman marched in
2496-491: A new ship, the Acushnet . Built in 1840, the ship measured some 104 feet in length, almost 28 feet in breadth, and almost 14 feet in depth. She measured slightly less than 360 tons and had two decks and three masts, but no quarter galleries . The Acushnet was owned by Melvin O. Bradford and Philemon Fuller of Fairhaven, Massachusetts , and was berthed near their office at the foot of Center Street in that town. Herman signed
2600-774: A particularly warm and loving father," while Maria was "warmly maternal, simple, robust, and affectionately devoted to her husband and her brood". Melville's education began when he was six. In 1824, the Melvills moved to a newly built house at 33 Bleecker Street in Manhattan . In 1825, Herman and his brother Gansevoort enrolled in New York Male High School. In 1826, the year that Herman contracted scarlet fever , Allan Melvill described him as "very backwards in speech & somewhat slow in comprehension" at first, but his development increased its pace and Allan
2704-496: A period of parties, picnics, and dinners. Nathaniel Hawthorne and his publisher James T. Fields joined the group while Hawthorne's wife stayed at home to look after the children. On one picnic outing organized by Duyckinck, Hawthorne and Melville sought shelter from the rain together and had a deep, private conversation. Melville had been given a copy of Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse , though he had not yet read it. Melville then avidly read it and wrote
2808-575: A position as a United States customs inspector . From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War . In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land
2912-485: A private wedding ceremony at home to avoid possible crowds hoping to see the celebrity. The couple honeymooned in the then-British Province of Canada , and traveled to Montreal. They settled in a house on Fourth Avenue in New York City (now called Park Avenue). According to scholars Joyce Deveau Kennedy and Frederick James Kennedy, Lizzie brought to their marriage a sense of religious obligation, an intent to make
3016-571: A ration of seasoned krakt from Booker as their own source of food. Garth unfortunately eats it all and leaves everyone to starve. Jaynes and Garth wake up in a saturated paradise and are greeted by Thomas Karvel, the Master of Light, and his wife, Mrs. Karvel. They are given a tour of the Biodome and are given three-fifths of a home, and the Karvels agree to let them stay only if they raise crops in
3120-545: A review, " Hawthorne and His Mosses ", which appeared in two installments, on August 17 and 24, in The Literary World . Melville wrote that these stories revealed a dark side to Hawthorne, "shrouded in blackness, ten times black". He repeatedly compared Hawthorne to Shakespeare, and urged that "men not very much inferior to Shakespeare are this day being born on the banks of the Ohio." The critic Walter Bezanson finds
3224-433: A rich book "with depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life". According to Milder, the book began as another South Sea story but, as he wrote, Melville left that genre behind, first in favor of "a romance of the narrator Taji and the lost maiden Yillah," and then "to an allegorical voyage of the philosopher Babbalanja and his companions through the imaginary archipelago of Mardi". In October 1849, Redburn
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3328-633: A similar death in Pierre . The death of Allan caused many major shifts in the family's material and spiritual circumstances. One result was the greater influence of his mother's religious beliefs. Maria sought consolation in her faith and in April was admitted as a member of the First Reformed Dutch Church. Herman's saturation in orthodox Calvinism was surely the most decisive intellectual and spiritual influence of his early life. Two months after his father's death, Gansevoort entered
3432-578: A spirit proper enough to a young and adventurous sailor, and which makes his book the more wholesome to our staid landsmen. Pleased but not overwhelmed by the adulation of his new public, Melville later expressed concern that he would "go down to posterity ... as a 'man who lived among the cannibals'!" The writing of Typee brought Melville back into contact with his friend Greene—Toby in the book—who wrote confirming Melville's account in newspapers. The two corresponded until 1863, and in his final years Melville "traced and successfully located his old friend" for
3536-423: A sublimely written comic novel and a lot of fun." Publishers Weekly , in a starred review, described Pym as a "high-concept adventure" which provides "a memorable take on America's 'racial pathology' and 'the whole ugly story of our world'". Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill ; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist , short story writer, and poet of
3640-535: A translation studies scholar Arthur Gordon Pym, protagonist of Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Barbara Pym , a British novelist Francis Pym, Baron Pym , UK politician Hank Pym (aka Ant Man, Giant Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket and the Wasp), a fictional superhero in the Marvel Universe John Pym , 17th century English parliamentarian Magnus Pym, a character in
3744-558: A year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including " Benito Cereno " and " Bartleby, the Scrivener ". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East , and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking
3848-573: Is "no shortage of thought and scholarship and experience underpinning Pym ", reading it "is like opening a big can of whoop-ass and then marveling – gleefully – at all the mayhem that ensues." Joe M. O'Connell , in the Austin American-Statesman , called Johnson "a wizard", stating that the novel cast a "magical spell", and described it as "a rumination on America's ongoing problem of race, and an excellent modern picaresque sprinkled liberally with comic book action. Most of all, it's
3952-448: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Pym (novel) Pym takes its title from Edgar Allan Poe 's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket , "a strange tale of shipwrecks, mutiny and a mysterious island inhabited by black-skinned people whose teeth are even black, and it ends abruptly at the South Pole with Pym facing haunting white figures". Poe's only novel, it
4056-622: Is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne". On October 18, 1851, The Whale was published in Britain in three volumes, and on November 14 Moby-Dick appeared in the United States as a single volume. In between these dates, on October 22, 1851, the Melvilles' second child, Stanwix, was born. In December, Hawthorne told Duyckinck, "What a book Melville has written! It gives me an idea of much greater power than his preceding ones." Unlike other contemporaneous reviewers of Melville, Hawthorne had seen
4160-519: Is lightly but vigorously written; and we are acquainted with no work that gives a freer and more effective picture of barbarian life, in that unadulterated state of which there are now so few specimens remaining. The gentleness of disposition that seems akin to the delicious climate, is shown in contrast with the traits of savage fierceness...He has that freedom of view—it would be too harsh to call it laxity of principle—which renders him tolerant of codes of morals that may be little in accordance with our own,
4264-642: Is the favorite book of Johnson's protagonist, Chris Jaynes, an African-American professor of literature, and his obsession with it leads him on his own journey to Antarctica . According to Johnson, creating the book involved "9 years of writing, 16 drafts, [and] 3 deletion attempts". While working on Pym , Johnson also finished four critically acclaimed graphic novels – Hellblazer: Papa Midnite (2005), Incognegro (2008), Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story (2010), and Right State . In an interview with Mike Emery, Johnson stated that there were many times when he thought that Pym "was taking too much of my time, and it
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4368-460: Is the only one spared from the enslavement, since he trades his Little Debbie snack cakes for freedom but does not have enough to free the rest of the mining crew. For a number of days, Jaynes is forced to labor for his master Augustus by cleaning his ice cave and kneading krakt (the Snow Honkies' word for whale blubber). Augustus eventually gestures to Jaynes that he wants Little Debbie cakes by showing him an empty wrapper, which leads them back to
4472-534: Is unknown, biographer Hershel Parker says that Maria "thought her mother's money was infinite and that she was entitled to much of her portion" while her children were young. How well the parents managed to hide the truth from their children is "impossible to know", according to biographer Andrew Delbanco . In 1830, the Gansevoorts ended their financial support of the Melvilles, at which point Allan's lack of financial responsibility had left him in debt to both
4576-621: The Acushnet cooperatively set about its whaling endeavors several times with the Columbus of New Bedford, which also took letters from Melville's ship; the two ships were in the same area just south of the Equator. On June 16, the Acushnet carried 750 barrels of oil and sent home 200 on the Herald the Second , and, on June 23, she reached the Marquesas Islands and anchored at Nuku Hiva . In
4680-580: The Acushnet crossed the equator to the north, and six or seven days later arrived at the Galápagos Islands. This short visit would be the basis for " The Encantadas ". On November 2, the Acushnet and three other American whalers were hunting together near the Galápagos Islands; Melville later exaggerated that number in Sketch Fourth of "The Encantadas". From November 19 to 25, the ship anchored at Chatham's Isle, and on December 2 reached
4784-561: The American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia ; and Billy Budd, Sailor , a posthumously published novella . At the time of his death Melville was not well known to the public, but 1919, the centennial of his birth, was the starting point of a Melville revival . Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of
4888-585: The Boston Tea Party , and Melville's maternal grandfather, General Peter Gansevoort (1749–1812), commanded the defense of Fort Stanwix in New York in 1777. At the turn of the 19th century, Major Melvill did not send his son Allan (Herman's father) to college, but instead sent him to France, where he spent two years in Paris and learned to speak French fluently. In 1814, Allan, who subscribed to his father's Unitarianism , married Maria Gansevoort, who
4992-505: The Erie Canal , Peter Gansevoort says his nephew "possesses the ambition to make himself useful in a business which he desires to make his profession," but no job resulted. Just weeks after this failure, Melville's first known published essay appeared. Using the initials "L.A.V.", Herman contributed "Fragments from a Writing Desk" to the weekly newspaper Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser , which printed it in two installments,
5096-490: The great American novels . Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet , but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands . Typee , his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with
5200-496: The "great undiscovered African Diasporan homeland ... uncorrupted by whiteness." The quest is led by the protagonist's older cousin Captain Booker Jaynes, "the world's only civil rights activist turned deep-sea diver", who is planning on mining blocks of Antarctic ice to melt and sell as expensive bottled water. Garth Frierson, Jaynes's childhood best friend with a fondness for Little Debbie snack cakes, joins
5304-407: The 1820s, Melville lived a privileged and opulent life in a household supported by three or more servants at a time. Every four years, the family moved to more spacious and elegant quarters, finally settling on Broadway in 1828. Allan Melvill lived beyond his means, on large sums that he borrowed from his father and from his wife's widowed mother. Although his wife's opinion of his financial conduct
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#17327795777575408-530: The Agatha story, Isle of the Cross . Melville traveled to New York to discuss a book, presumably Isle of the Cross , with his publisher, but later wrote that Harper & Brothers was "prevented" from publishing his manuscript because it was lost. After the commercial and critical failure of Pierre , Melville had difficulty finding a publisher for his follow-up novel Israel Potter . Instead, this narrative of
5512-535: The Albany city government procession of the year's "finest scholars" and was presented with a copy of The London Carcanet , a collection of poems and prose, inscribed to him as "first best in ciphering books". As Melville scholar Merton Sealts observed, The ubiquitous classical references in Melville's published writings suggest that his study of ancient history, biography, and literature during his school days left
5616-701: The Biodome's boiler explodes, causing an earthquake to occur, killing all except Jaynes, Garth, and Pym. The novel then becomes a number of journal entries about the journey to Tsalal by raft, in which Pym dies. Jaynes covers Pym's face with a black cloth, and they arrive at Tsalal, which is not an island of blackness, as Poe describes, but instead a place of color and most notably of people with brown skin. Pym has been well received by critics, with Kirkus Reviews referring to it as "an acutely humorous, very original story that will delight lovers of literature and fantasy alike" and NPR 's Maureen Corrigan calling it "loony, disrespectful, and sharp" and "a welcome riff on
5720-649: The Darkies: Whiteness in the Literary Mind", attempted to trace the roots of America's failure to become a post-racial society to classic white texts, with a focus on Poe. Chris Jaynes is the only African-American professor of literature at a liberal Hudson Valley college. Refusing to limit his teaching to the African-American canon and serve on the college diversity committee, he is denied tenure. His obsession with Poe's novel comes to
5824-748: The Le Carre novel A Perfect Spy Morgan Pym , a character in The Collector See also [ edit ] Pim (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Pym . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pym&oldid=1172521389 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists Hidden categories: Short description
5928-519: The Melvill and Gansevoort families for a sum exceeding $ 20,000 (equivalent to $ 572,000 in 2023). But Melville biographer Newton Arvin writes that the relative happiness and comfort of Melville's early childhood depended less on Allan's wealth or on his profligate spending, as on the "exceptionally tender and affectionate spirit in all the family relationships, especially in the immediate circle". Arvin describes Allan as "a man of real sensibility and
6032-511: The Ohio River. Inspired by contemporaneous popular cultural reading, including Richard Henry Dana Jr. 's new book Two Years Before the Mast and Jeremiah N. Reynolds 's account in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker magazine of the hunt for a great white sperm whale named Mocha Dick , Herman and Gansevoort traveled to New Bedford, where Herman signed up for a whaling voyage aboard
6136-596: The Philo Logos Society, which Peter Gansevoort invited to move into Stanwix Hall for no rent. In the Albany Microscope in March, Melville published two polemical letters about issues in vogue in the debating societies. Historians Leon Howard and Hershel Parker suggest the motive behind the letters was a youthful desire to have his rhetorical skills publicly recognized. In May, the Melvilles moved to
6240-456: The Universe with a bottle of brandy & cigars" with Hawthorne, but Hawthorne would not stop working on his new book for more than one day and they did not come. After a second visit from Melville, Hawthorne surprised him by arriving at Arrowhead with his daughter Una. According to Robertson-Lorant, "The handsome Hawthorne made quite an impression on the Melville women, especially Augusta, who
6344-543: The allegory against the gory, but Johnson's hand is steady and his ability to play against Poe's text masterly." Michael Dirda, for The Washington Post , called the novel "exuberantly comic", concluding that "in its seemingly effortless blend of the serious, comic and fantastic, Johnson's Pym really shouldn't be missed". Maggie Galehouse, book editor of the Houston Chronicle , called Pym "… funny. And erudite, without condescension", stating that while there
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#17327795777576448-666: The bank to man the cap and fur store. In 1835, while still working in the store, Melville enrolled in Albany Classical School, perhaps using Maria's part of the proceeds from the sale of the estate of his maternal grandmother in March 1835. In September of the following year, Herman was back at The Albany Academy , participating in the school's Latin course. He also participated in debating societies, in an apparent effort to make up as much as he could for his missed years of schooling. During this time, he read Shakespeare , including Macbeth , whose witch scenes gave him
6552-523: The bank; although he was only 14 in 1834, the bank considered him competent enough to be sent to Schenectady, New York, on an errand. Not much else is known from this period except that he was very fond of drawing. The visual arts became a lifelong interest. Around May 1834, the Melvilles moved to another house in Albany, a three-story brick house. That same month a fire destroyed Gansevoort's skin-preparing factory, which left him with personnel he could neither employ nor afford. Instead he pulled Melville out of
6656-500: The best evidence for Melville's reading in this period. Gansevoort's entries include books Melville used for Moby-Dick and Clarel , including "Parsees—of India—an excellent description of their character, and religion and an account of their descent—East India Sketch Book p. 21". Other entries are on Panther, the pirate's cabin, and storm at sea from James Fenimore Cooper 's The Red Rover . The Panic of 1837 forced Gansevoort to file for bankruptcy in April. In June, Maria told
6760-563: The campsite and Garth. Jaynes and Garth then plot an escape plan for the enslaved crew as Augustus eats out of a bag of sugar and eventually falls ill and vomits. Jaynes and Garth drag the Snow Honkie back to the mouth of the ice caves, where they secretly plan to meet with the others. After returning, Augustus (who is translated by Pym) drunkenly announces to Jaynes that he has been sold to Sausage Nose, an abusive master who owns both Jeffree and Carlton. Jaynes realizes that he must escape with
6864-496: The cap and fur business. Uncle Peter Gansevoort, a director of the New York State Bank, got Herman a job as clerk for $ 150 a year (equivalent to $ 4,600 in 2023). Biographers cite a passage from Redburn when trying to answer what Herman must have felt then: "I had learned to think much and bitterly before my time," the narrator remarks, adding, "I must not think of those delightful days, before my father became
6968-524: The chance to teasingly scare his sisters. By March 1837, however, he again withdrew from The Albany Academy. Gansevoort served as a role model and support for Melville throughout his life, particularly during this time trying to cobble together an education. In early 1834, Gansevoort became a member of Albany's Young Men's Association for Mutual Improvement, and in January 1835 Melville joined him there. Gansevoort also had copies of John Todd's Index Rerum ,
7072-410: The coast of Peru and anchored at Tombez near Paita , with 570 barrels of oil on board. On December 27, the Acushnet sighted Cape Blanco, off Ecuador. Point St. Elena was sighted the next day, and on January 6, 1842, the ship approached the Galápagos Islands from the southeast. From February 13 to May 7, seven sightings of sperm whales were recorded, but none were killed. From early May to early June,
7176-411: The conventions of the romance, and difficult in style. It was not well received. The New York Day Book published a venomous attack on September 8, 1852, headlined "HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY". The item, offered as a news story, reported, A critical friend, who read Melville's last book, Ambiguities , between two steamboat accidents, told us that it appeared to be composed of the ravings and reveries of
7280-404: The crew soon or they will be enslaved forever. He attempts to convince Booker Jaynes to escape with him and Garth, but fails to persuade him as Booker is in an intimate relationship with his mistress, Hunka. Jaynes manages to escape by himself to the mouth of the cave, but sees that both snowmobiles have been destroyed by Pym. Garth and Jaynes tie Pym up and begin to walk away from the ice caves with
7384-469: The essay "so deeply related to Melville's imaginative and intellectual world while writing Moby-Dick " that it could be regarded as a virtual preface and should be "everybody's prime piece of contextual reading". Later that summer, Duyckinck sent Hawthorne copies of Melville's three most recent books. Hawthorne read them, as he wrote to Duyckinck on August 29 that Melville in Redburn and White-Jacket put
7488-473: The first on May 4. According to Merton Sealts, his use of heavy-handed allusions reveals familiarity with the work of William Shakespeare , John Milton , Walter Scott , Richard Brinsley Sheridan , Edmund Burke , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Lord Byron , and Thomas Moore . Parker calls the piece "characteristic Melvillean mood-stuff" and considers its style "excessive enough [...] to indulge his extravagances and just enough overdone to allow him to deny that he
7592-481: The flow of his delightful mind on paper". In 1847, Melville tried unsuccessfully to find a "government job" in Washington. In June 1847, Melville and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Knapp Shaw were engaged, after knowing each other for approximately three months. Melville had first asked her father, Lemuel Shaw , for her hand in March, but was at first turned down at the time. Shaw, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, had been
7696-462: The genteel classes, but sympathized with the "disinherited commons" he had been placed among and, second, that experiencing the cultures of Polynesia let him view the West from an outsider's perspective. Upon his return, Melville regaled his family and friends with his adventurous tales and romantic experiences, and they urged him to put them into writing. Melville completed Typee , his first book, in
7800-472: The last 70 miles in an open carriage for two days and two nights in subfreezing temperatures. In early January, he began to show "signs of delirium", and he grew worse until his wife felt that his suffering deprived him of his intellect. On January 28, 1832, he died, two months prior to reaching his 50th birthday. Since Herman was no longer attending school, he likely witnessed his father's medical and mental deterioration. Twenty years later, Melville described
7904-499: The library of his friend Evert Duyckinck . These readings proved significant, occurring as Melville radically transformed his initial plan for the novel over the next several months, conceiving what Delbanco described in 2005 as "the most ambitious book ever conceived by an American writer". From August 4 to 12, 1850, the Melvilles, Sarah Morewood , Duyckinck, Oliver Wendell Holmes , and other literary figures from New York City and Boston came to Pittsfield, Massachusetts , to enjoy
8008-541: The nine guide-books listed in chapter 30 of the book had been part of Allan Melvill's library. He arrived back in New York October 1, 1839 and resumed teaching, now at Greenbush, New York, but left after one term because he had not been paid. In the summer of 1840 he and his friend James Murdock Fly went to Galena, Illinois, to see if his Uncle Thomas could help them find work. Unsuccessful, he and his friend returned home in autumn, likely by way of St. Louis and up
8112-666: The peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw . Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family. Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly
8216-412: The plot of land they are given . Because the Biodome uses so much energy, the heat from its machinery is melting the ice caves of the Snow Honkies. Both Pym and Nathaniel arrive with all of the Snow Honkies and attempt to persuade the Karvels into using less energy and relinquishing Jaynes and Garth, as they are property of Sausage Nose. Mrs. Karvel invites the Snow Honkies to a feast, which takes place on
8320-427: The reality "more unflinchingly" before his reader than any writer, and he thought Mardi was "a rich book, with depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life". But he cautioned, "It is so good that one scarcely pardons the writer for not having brooded long over it, so as to make it a great deal better". In September 1850, Melville borrowed three thousand dollars from his father-in-law Lemuel Shaw to buy
8424-400: The rooftop of the Biodome. The mining crew (except Nathaniel), Jaynes, and Mrs. Karvel cook all of the remaining instant food, and cover the dessert with rat poison , calling them " sprinkles ". During the feast, Mrs. Karvel asks Jaynes to bring out more dessert, and Sausage Nose and a child follow him inside the Biodome. The child dies in a river from the rat poison, and Sausage Nose realizes
8528-569: The ship anchored for the first time since Rio, in Santa Harbor. The cruising grounds the Acushnet was sailing attracted much traffic, and Captain Pease not only paused to visit other whalers, but at times hunted in company with them. From July 23 into August, the Acushnet regularly gammed with the Lima from Nantucket, and Melville met William Henry Chase, the son of Owen Chase , who gave him
8632-611: The summer of 1842, Melville and his shipmate Richard Tobias Greene ("Toby") jumped ship at Nuku Hiva Bay. Melville's first book, Typee (1846), is based on his stay in or near the Taipi Valley . By around mid-August, Melville had left the island aboard the Australian whaler Lucy Ann , bound for Tahiti , where he took part in a mutiny and was briefly jailed in the native Calabooza Beretanee . In October, he and crew mate John B. Troy escaped Tahiti for Eimeo . He then spent
8736-755: The summer of 1845 while living in Troy, New York. His brother Gansevoort found a publisher for it in London, where it was published in February 1846 by John Murray in his travel adventure series. It became an overnight bestseller in England, then in New York, when it was published on March 17 by Wiley & Putnam. In the narrative, Melville likely extended the period of time he had spent on the island and also incorporated material from source books he had assembled. Milder calls Typee "an appealing mixture of adventure, anecdote, ethnography, and social criticism presented with
8840-633: The surrealistic shudder-fest that is Poe's original." According to Associated Press writer Jennifer Kay, Pym is a swiftly paced satire which "skewers Edgar Allan Poe, race in America, the snack-food industry, academia, landscape painting and abominable snowmen." She concluded, "A commentary on racial identity, obsessions and literature should not be as funny as Pym , but Johnson makes light work of his heavy themes." Adam Mansbach, writing for The New York Times , similarly stated, "It's no easy task to balance social satire against life-threatening adventure,
8944-418: The team in the hope of finding landscape painter Thomas Karvel, "Master of Light" (a parody of Thomas Kinkade , "Painter of Light" ), and in part, Pym is laid out as "a road story/ bromance between Jaynes and his childhood pal." Other members of the expedition include water treatment engineers Jeffree and Carlton Damon Carter, a gay couple documenting the trip for their "Afro-adventure blog." Angela Latham,
9048-427: The ten letters Melville wrote to the older man. In the essay on Hawthorne's Mosses , Melville wrote: "I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New-England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul." Melville dedicated his book to Hawthorne: "In token of my admiration for his genius, this book
9152-421: The third of eight children to Allan Melvill (1782–1832) and Maria (Gansevoort) Melvill (1791–1872), who were of Scottish and Dutch descent. His seven siblings, who played important roles in his career and emotional life, were Gansevoort (1815–1846), Helen Maria (1817–1888), Augusta (1821–1876), Allan (1823–1872), Catherine (1825–1905), Frances Priscilla (1827–1885), and Thomas (1830–1884), who eventually became
9256-527: The travelogue, the nautical adventure, the sentimental novel, the sensational French romance, the gothic thriller, temperance tracts, urban reform literature, and the English pastoral". His next novel, White-Jacket , was published by Bentley in London in January 1850, and in March by Harper in New York. The earliest surviving mention of Moby-Dick is from a May 1, 1850, letter in which Melville told fellow sea author Richard Henry Dana Jr. "I am half way in
9360-407: The trick that is being played on the Snow Honkies. He charges at Jaynes and is killed by a gardening hoe to the head, courtesy of Garth. To avoid suspicions of Sausage Nose going missing, Jaynes forces Garth into a robe and smears toothpaste on his face and hands. The Snow Honkies discover that something is amiss and that Garth is not Sausage Nose at all. The Snow Honkies begin to attack the humans when
9464-684: The uniqueness of Melville's new novel and acknowledged it. In early December 1852, Melville visited the Hawthornes in Concord and discussed the idea of the "Agatha" story he had talked of with Hawthorne. This was the last contact between the two writers before Melville visited Hawthorne in Liverpool four years later when Hawthorne had relocated to England. After having borrowed three thousand dollars from his father-in-law in September 1850 to buy
9568-491: The weight of those years unaided—that without her loyalty, intelligence, and affection, his own wild imagination would have had no "port or haven". Biographer Robertson-Lorant cites "Lizzie's adventurous spirit and abundant energy," and she suggests that "her pluck and good humor might have been what attracted Melville to her, and vice versa". An example of such good humor appears in a letter about her not yet used to being married: "It seems sometimes exactly as if I were here for
9672-616: The work." In June, he described the book to his English publisher as "a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries," and promised it would be done by the fall. The original manuscript has not survived. That summer, Melville read Thomas Carlyle , borrowing copies of Sartor Resartus (1833–34) and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History (1841) from
9776-624: The worst sequel […] Come for the novelty, stay for the unbridled racism". The narrative of Pym also includes elements from Verne's and Lovecraft's Poe-inspired works. In Pym , Johnson's protagonist named a course on Poe he was teaching in reference to Toni Morrison 's 1992 collection of essays Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination , in which she explores the theory that for Poe, whiteness equaled perfection. Professor Jaynes's course, "Dancing With
9880-407: The younger children they needed to leave Albany for somewhere cheaper. Gansevoort began studying law in New York City while Herman managed the farm before getting a teaching position at Sikes District School near Lenox, Massachusetts . He taught about 30 students of various ages, including some his own age. The semester over, he returned to his mother in 1838. In February he was elected president of
9984-643: Was a great fan of his books". They spent the day mostly "smoking and talking metaphysics". Robertson-Lorant writes that Melville was "infatuated with Hawthorne's intellect, captivated by his artistry, and charmed by his elusive personality," but "the friendship meant something different to each of them," with Hawthorne offering Melville "the kind of intellectual stimulation he needed". They may have been "natural allies and friends," yet they were also "fifteen years apart in age and temperamentally quite different" and Hawthorne "found Melville's manic intensity exhausting at times". Bezanson identifies "sexual excitement" in all
10088-584: Was advanced $ 84. On January 3, 1841, the Acushnet set sail. Melville slept with some twenty others in the forecastle ; Captain Valentine Pease, the mates, and the skilled men slept aft . Whales were found near The Bahamas, and in March 150 barrels of oil were sent home from Rio de Janeiro. Cutting in and trying-out (boiling) a single whale took about three days, and a whale yielded approximately one barrel of oil per foot of length and per ton of weight (the average whale weighed 40 to 60 tons). The oil
10192-667: Was committed to her family's more strict and biblically oriented Dutch Reformed version of the Calvinist creed. The Gansevoorts' severe Protestantism ensured that Maria was well versed in the Bible, in English as well as in Dutch, the language that the Gansevoorts spoke at home. On August 19, almost three weeks after his birth, Melville was baptized at home by a minister of the South Reformed Dutch Church. During
10296-553: Was kept on deck for a day to cool off, and was then stowed down; scrubbing the deck completed the labor. An average voyage meant that some forty whales were killed to yield some 1600 barrels of oil. On April 15, the Acushnet sailed around Cape Horn and traveled to the South Pacific, where the crew sighted whales without catching any. She then went up the coast of Chile to the region of Selkirk Island , and on May 7, near Juan Fernández Islands , she had 160 barrels. On June 23,
10400-543: Was published by Bentley in London, and in November by Harper in New York. The bankruptcy and death of Allan Melvill, and Melville's own youthful humiliations surface in this "story of outward adaptation and inner impairment". Biographer Robertson-Lorant regards the work as a deliberate attempt for popular appeal: "Melville modeled each episode almost systematically on every genre that was popular with some group of antebellum readers," combining elements of "the picaresque novel,
10504-495: Was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis , and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at the time of his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891. Melville was born in New York City , on August 1, 1819,
10608-559: Was surprised "that Herman proved the best Speaker in the introductory Department". In 1829, both Gansevoort and Herman transferred to Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School , and Herman enrolled in the English Department on September 28. "Herman I think is making more progress than formerly," Allan wrote in May 1830 to Major Melvill, "and without being a bright Scholar, he maintains a respectable standing, and would proceed further, if he could only be induced to study more—being
10712-531: Was taking his style seriously". For Delbanco, the style is "overheated in the manner of Poe, with sexually charged echoes of Byron and The Arabian Nights ". On May 31, 1839, Gansevoort, then living in New York City, wrote that he was sure Herman could get a job on a whaler or merchant vessel. The next day, he signed aboard the merchant ship St. Lawrence as a "boy" (a green hand ), which cruised from New York to Liverpool. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) draws on his experiences in this journey; at least two of
10816-610: Was taking me in the wrong direction". He credits his wife, journalist Meera Bowman Johnson (to whom he dedicated Pym ), and friends with persuading him to continue with the novel. Johnson's website features a list of books by other notable writers inspired by Poe's open-ended novel since its publication in 1838, including Herman Melville 's Moby Dick , H. P. Lovecraft 's At the Mountains of Madness , and Jules Verne 's An Antarctic Mystery – "the most pragmatic and literal sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and also
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