tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860342013383651825.post8556537835440616142..comments2024-03-26T00:14:54.751-07:00Comments on Fragments from a Writing Desk: Christmas Present for MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVEHershel Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860342013383651825.post-57569443199447988232013-12-20T19:21:23.199-08:002013-12-20T19:21:23.199-08:00Thank you for taking note of "Ahab Beckons&qu...Thank you for taking note of "Ahab Beckons"--it's exciting (and intimidating) to find you on our little hobby-blog. I, for one, was glad that you were able to lay out your arguments in an actual _book_ that can live on in libraries and private collections, beyond the ephemeral blog. <br />All the best for the holidays.Gansevoorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13190512916384175164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4860342013383651825.post-86016926274830609752013-12-20T10:09:11.239-08:002013-12-20T10:09:11.239-08:00Thanks, Gansevoort. It's all I knew and then s...Thanks, Gansevoort. It's all I knew and then some, so add to what you say: it's a running history of Melville biography from Weaver on. Maybe more important in the long run, it's a textbook on the theory and practice of biography (something especially evident in the endnotes). It's pretty much failed, after the great opening in the New Yorker blog as one of the Books to Watch Out For in January. There's Rollyson's long review in the Wall Street Journal and a review by the NN collaborator Robert Madison in Nautilus, and that's about it. Nothing in Publisher's Weekly or Choice. I hoped Internet bloggers would notice it but that has not happened. Well, it took years for FLAWED TEXTS AND VERBAL ICONS to stop being trashed and to begin being read and applied. Of course, in 1984 I thought I could wait a quarter century for recognition! At least I got to say what I wanted to say, and Northwestern made the book beautiful.Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.com