Melville

July 17, 2017
Giono’s experimental short work is not a full-length novel, nor does it have much to do with the real Herman Melville. It is a 20th-century French novelist’s fantasy of what it would be like to be a 19th-century genius inspired to write a masterpiece. According to Edmund White’s introduction, Giono (1895–1970), best known for fiction about his native Provençe, was writing a preface for his 1941 translation of Moby-Dick when his homage turned into a narrative, Giono’s self-portrait blending into and at times overtaking his portrait of Melville. Giono begins his fictional version of literary history with Melville’s return to America from England in 1849—carrying in his suitcase his own embalmed head. Like a Melvillean metaphor, the head symbolizes the American author’s newfound focus on writing Moby-Dick. Giono explains what led to this moment: Melville’s escape from an overbearing mother, his adventures at sea, his later literary success. In Giono’s account, Melville’s London publisher happily accedes to all Melville’s wishes; the writer’s only argument is with his guardian angel, who insists he quit writing entertainments and produce some serious art. Dramatic seascapes and gentle landscapes reveal Giono’s attraction to natural beauty. Evocations of exotic locales ring less true. White’s introduction enhances this slim volume, a literary curiosity with a few memorable passages.

August 1, 2017
This lyrical novel reimagines Herman Melville's life and adds a hauntingly atmospheric spin.There are many novels that have fictionalized the lives of notable writers. In the case of this 1941 book--now appearing in English for the first time--the overlap between author and subject runs deeper than most. Giono is known for his French translation, with Lucien Jacques, of Moby-Dick. This novel was originally intended as the preface for that larger work but quickly became its own distinct entity. Edmund White's introduction helpfully contextualizes this novel within Giono's larger body of work and also provides a useful guide to the areas in which Giono's version of Melville veers away from the historical record. "Giono was the one with the big personality, and the character, 'Melville, ' is his alter ego," White writes. The novel opens as Melville returns to the United States in 1849 after a trip to England; he has "a strange item in his baggage. It was an embalmed head...but it was his own." This metaphorically rich image leads into the story of his time overseas, placing this most American of writers in a foreign land. While traveling, he meets a woman named Adelina White; their heated discussions of politics and philosophy leave him infatuated with her and inspired to write the book that would become his masterpiece. Giono juxtaposes lyrically written paragraphs about Melville's travels with passages in which intense voices of various characters overwhelm the narrative--a sort of literary echo of the juxtapositions that abound in Moby-Dick. A different evocation of that novel comes in a scene where Adelina pragmatically lambasts those who avoid helping the hungry for "philosophizing about the doctrines of Adam Smith and Ricardo." This isn't your typical fictionalized life of a writer--instead, it's an unexpected meditation on the convergence of two literary lives.

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