Colin and Hershel

Ana Rojas

Colin Dewey Inspecting Turks Head He Tied Years Ago

HERSHEL PARKER AND NEW TOY

Northwestern UP Catalog MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE

There is a fourth part to the book that may interest anyone concerned with biography in general, not just Melville biography. The endnotes constitute a symposium in which views of many biographers, most often British, are tested against Parker's experiences with Melville. Topics include theories which relate biography to fiction, invasions of privacy by biographers, the idea that the biographer enacts a kind of counter-transference, the recklessness of the "Brainstorm" site of the Chronicle of Higher Education,the problem of gaps in evidence, the constrictive power of prior knowledge, the importance of working in small "time-spans," the New Critical faith in the sanctity of texts, the folly of seizing on one determinative turning-point, the redefining of archives out of existence, the question of suitable tone and language, strategies for not confusing fiction with autobiography, the occasional necessity to make "exposition simulate narrative," the serendipitous finding something significant while looking for something else, the seeming "fact" which undercuts an elaborate theory, the specter of the rival biographer, the group therapy that occurs when biographers talk about reviewers, the folly of seeking the "essence" of one's subject. By listening to the voices of dozens of biographers excitedly describing their working methods, their obstacles, and their triumphs, Parker makes his inside narrative an essential resource for biographers and students of biography.

The Index is a full, meticulous guide to the players in Melville biography and the issues that have dominated Melville biography. Recently some prominent academic presses have stopped including names and concepts in Endnotes in the index, but MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE very carefully includes both sorts of references in the index so that skirmishes and bloody battles among biographers of Melville and other writers are highlighted along with areas of agreement. Even for readers not especially interested in Melville or Melville biography the endnotes constitute a fascinating, accessible guide to what has been going on in the theory and practice of biography in the last half century and more.

Postscript on The Donald Does Melville

The fantasy I just posted fits into a category I had not recognized--the being contorted and transformed so as to fit into people's fantasies. Recognizing the category comes from living long enough and having access to Google Alert . . . .

And "Prurient Fantasies" as a subcategory. Who would have thought it? I'll post a list someday.

The Donald Purportedly Handles a 2-Volume Biography of Melville

http://sobsandmoans.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/my-rejected-shouts-and-murmurs-story/

Another example of entering into other people's fantasies by way of a misspelled name.

sobs and moans

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My Rejected Shouts and Murmurs Story

by televisioncollector

                          IT’S A TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP WORLD
                                         copyright 2012 by Andy Jaysnovitch
       It all started innocently enough.  It was the morning after the Super Bowl and  advertising whiz Donny Deutsch was on The Today Show brainstorming new uses for old slogans.  Everybody just loved his favorite  –  “Things Go Better With Trump.”  The Donald, watching his pal from his Fifth Avenue aerie while he proofed his latest book, Genghis Khan, My Brother My Mentor: Negotiate Like a Mongol Warrior, gently handed Melania his Limoges tea cup and sprang into action.  Knowing that Coca-Cola was on the ropes fighting the junk drinks tax, Trump was able to quickly forge a deal to use the new slogan — so quickly in fact that he was able to do it before The Today Show had left the air.  Hearing about this, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry stood there speechless while Al Roker uttered the words that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the mighty Trump empire, a crash that would make the fall of the Roman Empire look like a minor dust-up.  And all it took was a new Rokerism:  “Well, I guess it’s a Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump world!”
           * ****************************************************** *
     Trump soon found he had little interest in the Presidency.  He’d heard that the Rose Garden was often beset by swirling winds that would wreak havoc with his hair.  There were no unkind air currents in caves though, and besides his hair looking good, caves would protect him in case this madly spinning sphere of ours was in as much trouble as it appeared to be in.  Now that he had the market cornered in caves, there was only one piece of unfinished business to tidy up  –  to take revenge on all those name-stealers.  While mere mortals would have folded here, Trump was just beginning to fight.  With the instincts of the champion he was, Trump retreated to his stately library to mine the wisdom of the ancients.  Sadly, he quickly discovered that he had failed to stock his library well.  There was no Aristotle, no Plato, no Socrates.  He did however discover a book by his pal, Donny Deutsch.  As he pulled it from the shelf though, he winced.  Even in its hand tooled leather binding, the book offended him.  How can you title a book Often Wrong, Never in Doubt.  He made a mental note that a future project for the apprentices could be renaming the book.  In its present state, the title alone was enough to get you fired.  Not a hypocrite, he winced again as he saw the title of one of his books.  It was unseemly for a man of his stature to lay claim to a book with a title like that, but there it was staring him in the face  –  Think Big and Kick Ass.  The apprentices could fix that one as well.
     Just as Trump was getting ready to give up, his eyes fell on Herschel Parker’s monumental biography of Herman Melville.  How it had found its way into his library, Trump couldn’t say, but one thing was for sure  –  he wasn’t prepared to read all two thousand pages of it.  At first he thought of assigning it as a project for the apprentices, but he wasn’t sure those dolts could read anything more challenging than James Patterson, so rather reluctantly he dragged the books over to his favorite chair and settled in for a quick skim.  Trump had spent years nurturing his brand, growing it from a tiny seed into a giant redwood.  Now it was a pile of sawdust.  His brand was in tatters.  The branding problem was clearly Trump’s white whale.  He wondered what the ever resourceful Melville would do if he were in his shoes?  Trump began to skim the epic story of the great writer and the pesky whale, but a man unaccustomed to frittering away even a millisecond of his valuable time soon had a better idea.  He sat still as a yogi and willed himself into a transcendental state.  Just before he lost conciousness, he spied the harbor of New Bedford, and soon thereafter his senses were assaulted with the stench of an ocean positively brimming with whales.  Time passed and when Trump finally stirred again, he noted that lengthening late afternoon shadows were falling over Central Park and that the weird whale smell had almost completely disappeared.  Suddenly he knew just what to do.  As Trump put the Melville books back on the shelf, his eyes fell for a moment on another book, Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon.  Trump beamed.  First the caves, and now this.  Trump couldn’t believe his good fortune.  Most men got one good idea their whole life if they were lucky.  Good ideas were just elbowing each other for attention in Trump’s brain.  Where some men just saw lettering on a book’s spine, Trump saw his whole life stretched out before him.  He truly was the luckiest and smartest man on this wildly spinning sphere.