Pierre

'Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling soul-bewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr. Melville's style) like Melchisedeck without beginning or end-a labyrinth without a clue - an Irish bog without so much as a Jack o'the'lantern to guide the wanderer's footsteps - the dream of a distempered stomach disordered by a hasty supper on half-cooked pork chops. So judged the New York Herald when Pierre was first published in 1852 with most contemporary reviewers joining in the general condemnation: 'a dead failure' 'this crazy rigmarole' and a literary mare's nest. Latter-day critics have recognized in the story of Melville's idealistic young hero a corrosive satire of the