Episode 86: Pierre, Part 1

This week we are bringing you what the people want, and have always wanted, Herman Melville’s Pierre (1852)! Wait, you don’t want to read a book about a guy who breaks up with his mom for his sister? But you haven’t even heard about his dad yet! Technically it’s more of a painting of his dad, but the painting has a mischievous stare that lets you know it’s very into French ladies. And that’s how Pierre got a secret sister. He likes her more than a friend. She likes hiding in her hair and playing guitar more than a friend. This makes Pierre’s mom so mad she throws a fork into a painting of herself.

We didn’t make this up. Herman Melville did. Come take a ride with us. We discuss why Melville is so cool, the mom/dad/sister triad, artistic mediation, and the nation.

This is a two-parter, so come back next week to find out how it ends!

We read the Norton Critical Edition edited by Robert S. Levine and Cindy Weinstein. For more on this totally regular book, check out Gillian Brown’s “Anti-sentimentalism and Authorship in Pierre” in Domestic Individualism: Imagining Self in Nineteenth-Century America.

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