Herman Melville: A Biography

A very long and detailed Melville biography. I appreciated the fact that it didn't devote much space to interpretations of the body of Melville's work. There's an awful lot of interpretive criticism already out there, and we didn't need more in a biography. If you're already a Melville fanatic and are really interested in whether Melville actually worked briefly at a bowling alley in Hawaii as a pin setter (the novel that he never wrote) or how he travelled on his honeymoon, you'll want to read this. If you haven't gotten much beyond one or two readings of Moby-Dick - that is if you haven't yet read Typee, Omoo, Whitejacket, Pierre, The Confidence Man - and still want to read the man's biography, I'd go for a more concise one than this. And the best news of all (for all Sub-Subs) is that Volume 2 is now available!

If you approach this work with a right understanding, that is a biography and not an interpretation of the works of Herman Melville, then you should honestly be able to rate it as top-notch. What some might call " disappointments " in what they learn about Melville; his family life, they way he behaved at times, and the manner in which he wrote his books, are to me, the lens by which we see more clearly the humanity of the man. Mr. Parker's work might seem too weighty for some, but I can't wait for Volume Two.

Hershel Parker's credentials as a Melville scholar are unimpeachable--he's co-edited the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry edition of the complete works and seems to have eaten, slept, and breathed Melville for decades. Despite his daunting c.v., however, his massive, half-finished biography is eminently readable and entertaining. While it would be impossible to depict a writer's life without addressing his or her work, the focus here is on the events of Melville's life, not his books. The fascinating national and family politics that preoccupied him are on particularly fine display. Readers with only a casual interest might see some details as mere minutiae, but each cited incident enriches the portrait of a complex man and artist.Melville's history is not nearly so well documented as that of some of his contemporaries, so there is some educated guesswork regarding certain motives and details, but Parker is ever scrupulous about separating evidence from speculation. His immersion in Melville's work and his sympathetic understanding of the man make this volume the most trustworthy and complete biography available.