Transforming Herman Melville into Newton Arvin: what Updike, Hardwick, and Delbanco Achieved

Transforming Herman Melville into Newton Arvin: what John Updike, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Andrew Delbanco Achieved

Initial notes:

This is what happened--they took Arvin's 1950 book as gospel--took his condemnation of the America of the 19th century as absolutely valid--and transformed Melville into a homosexual wimp who had all his life a truly unhealthy relation with his bitter goddess-demon of a mother and his truculent god-devil of a father and with the memory of them, who hated travel and did not profit from it, who had no relation to speak of with great literature, who had no interest in art and aesthetics, and who produced only a limited quantity of severely flawed works.

More to follow.