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A good friend of mine with impeccable taste says the three greatest novels in English are Ulysses, Moby Dick, and (drumroll) Pierre.

So not everyone thinks it’s horrible. And apparently the first 40-50 pages are not representative of the whole, since they were written to fulfill some serialization deal. He apparently gets fed up with it and starts sabotaging the novel, turning it into a kind of parody. But I’m speaking from what this friend told me 20 years ago. I still haven’t read it.

Hilarious, then, that I would read just up until the part where it actually gets better. My attention span for reading is shot these days, so there's no way I'll try again.

I had a prof in grad school who was fascinated by the book, which is how I ended up reading it the first time. I’ve never been able to buy the idea that Pierre is a parody, although self-sabotaged seems about right. I also don’t find the first 50-ish pages that different, let alone worse, than the rest, although about halfway through the book Melville seemingly reconceives it and tries to turn the thing into a satire on the publishing industry, which ends up rendering the initial gothic story incoherent, among other problems. But even as reconceived the whole thing is still written in that turgid, overblown style that’s so tedious. If somehow you manage to like the style, maybe this would be a masterpiece for you. You certainly can’t read it for the story. Only two things happen in the first hundred pages.

I just don't understand the contingent who actually like this thing. It's impossible to get through without forcing yourself! Matt, I can't believe you would find any pleasures waiting for you in the rest of the book even if you did have the attention span to read it.

2026 article about Pierre:
https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2026/cte ... mbiguites/

Info from 2016 - TV version apparently ran 169 minutes (3 episodes: 61', 55', 53')
https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/progra ... nt/cXyGRq4

2012 Carax interview about Pierre:
https://www.telerama.fr/cinema/entretie ... ,83483.php

I don’t even like Moby Dick which I also find turgid and overblown, but I’m not sure if any of this matters for Carax’s film adaptation, which to me has it’s own purpose and form.