In the case of his contemporaries he fell through with a “Moby Dick” and was soon forgotten. Only after his death, Herman was discovered Melville again. With “Bartleby” and the Modern pre – and Donald Trump.
“I don’t know if a book is not better in the brain of a man as in calf leather bound – at all events, it is protected better from the criticism.”
Melville wrote these lines a couple of months before in London for his novel “Moby Dick” was published. Shortly thereafter, he was released to his home city of New York. Perhaps Melville had imagined it. “Moby Dick” was a failure, only about 3,000 copies were sold during his lifetime. The history of literature has not been kind to Herman Melville. At least for a long time.
The work of Herman Melville’s was only recognized late
If now on the 200. Birthday of the American writer Herman Melville is remembered – he came at 1. August 1819 in New York City to the world – you should also remember that his work has for some decades had disappeared into the woodwork. Today, the Americans is considered to be one of the greatest writers of the 19th century. Century, as a Monument of the history of literature, as a pioneer of the modern novel. This reputation it has especially thanks to “Moby Dick” to.
However, only in the 20s of the last century, the continued re-discovery of Melville’s: “The language, the complexity and ambiguity of this book was very impressed, and it has been recognized that it has the appreciated never really in the 19th century. Century,” says Alexander Pechmann, author, editor, Translator of English-language literature, and probably the best connoisseur of Herman Melville in German-speaking countries.
Appeared after years in the world of literature: “Moby Dick”, here is a scene from the Hollywood film adaptation of 1956
The novel “Moby Dick” with its many hundreds of pages, is also expected to have read today, only a minority actually. Sure, you know “Moby Dick”: an exciting novel for young people-edition, as to its adventure elements of the abridged book Version, as a monumental Hollywood film with Gregory Peck. But the whole novel? “Moby Dick” tells far more than the story of the fanatical captain Ahab, and he works very hard, on the verge of insanity in this field, in search of the legendary white whale.
“Moby Dick”: this is experimental, playful, uferlos
The book is composed of many elements: “What makes it different from the adventure story, these insertions Melville’s, who used quite a different style: He writes the novel from A to Z,” says Pechmann: “There are chapters that are like a theater piece to be removed, there are articles that are pure Essays, it is the lexicon are inserted in the article, about the figures of whales, the different varieties of whales, about whaling.”
Gregory Peck as captain Ahab in Moby-Dick film adaptation by John Huston
Melville had “broken up the traditional novel of action” and “something much Bigger”, so bad luck man: “From the simple adventure story, a more and more Metaphysical in-depth narrative, which is inundated with innuendo and almost was overloaded was.” Out a very complex work came finally, “The adventure story became a means of transport for different possibilities for Interpretation.”
Melville processed in his books and their own experiences
The story of the Melville in the years 1850/51 to paper, fed influences from diverse literary. And out of his life, his experiences. As the third of eight children of Scottish immigrants, was born Herman orphan at the age of 13 years and a half, had to leave school and earn money.
At 20, he went for the first time to the lake, and two years later he hired on the whaling ship “Acushnet”. What followed in the years afterwards, itself resembles an adventure story. Because Melville felt the conditions on the ship as inhuman, deserted him. It escape and captivity in the South seas, re-escape, then back to prison again Hire on Board followed.
Paintings of Louis Dodd, the whaler “Acushnet” in front of the Marquesas Islands
Only in 1844, returned to Melville in the home back, three years later, he married Elisabeth Shaw, and became the father of four children. The Couple retired to a small farm in Massachusetts. His experiences at sea and stay in the South seas, he took to paper, the naturalistic novels “Typee” and “Omoo” sold well. “Moby Dick” you should bring him then, but no luck. The book was “in the then Roman literature is very difficult to classify and was maybe therefore not such a success,” says Alexander Pechmann.
In the 20th century. Century, modern authors viewed Melville as one of their own
Literature historically took “Moby Dick” is the Modern first of all: “There are techniques, which in the 1920s emerged, collage-like texts from a variety of text forms, the game with different-style funds.” That these stylistic and aesthetic resources at the time, in a novel from the 19th century. It is in the process found it was “a Sensation” and led “to the modern authors Melville considered as one of their own.”
Robert Ryan (l.) and Peter Ustinov in the film adaptation of Melville’s story “Billy Budd” from the year 1962
“Moby Dick” was not the only work for the Melville today, so it is estimated. Among the later Works, the short stories, novels, and lyrical writings, stands out the narrow narrative “Bartleby, the scribe” (1853). It’s the story of a simple Office assistant, Bartleby, is hired in an office on Wall Street, and for some reason all of a sudden the work is denied.
“Bartleby”: the world’s refusal as a philosophy of life
“I would prefer not to” (“I would prefer not to”) is the puzzling how clear mantra again in terms of formula, Bartleby’s repeated. “The book originated in a time when Melville disheartened to be in his intention, and his ambitions, a large and well-known writer,” says Pechmann. The root of “Bartleby”, “the Melville after the failure of ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Pierre’ (another novel, Melville’s, of the had no success with the audience, note d. Red.)”. Melville had thought of suicide and depression had. At the same time the book, but I also have a sense of Humor, so unlucky man: “Actually, a contradictory book: on the one Hand, it is incredibly modern, but also in this time anchored.”
In the German Translations of the books of Melville’s, there is no lack
What “Bartleby” as modern? “This figure of refusal,” says Pechmann: “The office clerk is a modern figure, and this total denial of, is that something that in the literature of the 19th century. Century not existed otherwise, actually.” With “Bartleby” took Herman Melville, the prose of Franz Kafka anticipated, existentialist currents in the philosophy and literature of later times.
Melville and Trump: the author as a literary seer
For those, where whalemen, and office clerk to appear, despite all the formal and stylistic mastery, as figures of earlier eras, unlucky man a third tip for reading in the year of 200. Birthday Melville’s ready: the novel “The Confidence-Man” (dt. “Masquerades, or trust against trust”).
“Because it’s a Scam that occurs in different masks, as a quack, as a Tourist, in quite different figures, and this Scam attracts the people across the table. You could say that this Trickster is a bit of a character, the suggesting on Trump: The America of today, works very a lot about this foam and brawl, and these shady characters, the win through Social media more and more influence – since there is already the reference in the current America.”