Enchanted by a Line: Herman Melville

I'm consistently drawn toward the ability of short bits of writing – sentences, phrases, single words – to cause visceral reactions in us. I can't clearly identify the catalyst for this, but it may have been a flash-fiction unit of a creative writing class I took in college. The parameters of "flash" as a genre depend largely on whom you ask, but the bottom line is: these are really short stories. Like 20 words, sometimes. It's about being efficient, making every word do some narrative heavy-lifting. At the most elemental level, it's about decisions. Maybe I'm so compelled by these ephemera of language because I'm decidedly bad at packing a lot of punch into limited real estate. In fact, I tend to do quite the opposite, on the page and out loud: over-explaining, over-indulging, words, details, more words. In any case, I thought I'd start a series, of sorts, about brief lines from various media – stories, poems, songs, movies – that moved me, positively or otherwise.

I'll try to avoid the interpretive, often hopeless "what did they mean by that?" analyses, a la Genius, and instead focus on how a particular line of writing made me think and feel in the moment I experienced it. In doing so, I suppose there may be some level of "analysis" going on, but only as it is necessary to express my own reaction to the words. I also thought this would be a more substantive way to share my thoughts and feelings about writing than posting a cropped photo of a book or web page on my Instagram (check that out, too, though...some good stuff on there).

I've never read Moby Dick. Does that make me a Melville-fanboy poser? Maybe. Probably. But I've read some other stuff he's written, including Billy Budd, supposedly the final work (albeit unfinished) of prose that Melville ever wrote, the deliciously weird Bartleby the Scrivener, and the quasi-autofiction novel Pierre, assigned (thank god; I never would have picked it up on my own) by my Irish, Melville-obsessed literature professor in grad school (yes, he loves Joyce, too).

When the book came out around 1850, apparently (I wasn't there, you see) everybody hated it. Not only did it follow inconceivably close behind Moby Dick (just nine months!), which received a tepid response in its own right, but it was confusing, both in its themes and its style. It's at once religious and secular, Shakespearean and modern, an apparent but not-so-obvious simulacrum of Melville's life. Its grammar largely ignores rules and conventions, some of its words are making their grand debut right there on the page. Twentieth century postmodern fiction has conditioned us to accept, if not be comfortable with, these things. But back then, people were like, "wait, Chapter 4 happened before Chapter 3?" Fair enough.

Admittedly, I don't always respond well to this literary experimentation. And to be sure, I struggled with Pierre from the jump. But every so often, there'd be these lines that grounded me, not only because they were among the few-and-far-between bites that I could digest, but because they felt deeply relatable, nearly two centuries later. I chose my favorite of these lines to share, and it feels especially poignant as we start a new year, trying to be better, amidst (for many of us) the cold, dark, discouraging winter.

"There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last."

-Herman Melville, Pierre, or The Ambiguities

Big shouts to snug sofas! No, but really: a sentence written before the Civil War about couch-rot? That's pretty incredible.

This line comes early in the book, and it's actually presented as a sort of excuse for why the narrator goes on a digression about merit and intellect, wisdom and naivete, nonsense and the "first-fruits of genius." The lounging allows Pierre to "wax harmlessly sad and sentimental" about his life and the lives of others. Of course, the world Melville and his characters inhabit resembles very little of our own. It's especially easy for us to submit to the seduction of our sadness when we can throw something on the TV to drown out any thoughts – god forbid! – that may come our way. Pierre is thinking and reminscing because he doesn't have Disney+.

I feel like I'm constantly trying to resist and reject the "slippery allure" of just, you know, lying around. But when I inevitably give in, maybe I can be more like Pierre (at least in this sense; he's a pretty thoroughly fucked up character). I could actually think about things, instead of letting someone else's thoughts assault me in an audiovisual format. Some folks might subscribe to this via meditation, or journaling, or yoga, and those are great things! But they take work, too, and they aren't for everyone.

Perhaps above all else, this line felt immensely validating. Of course, depression is a lot more complicated than "having nothing stirring to do," and we all know that it's perfectly normal to be sad. But I don't think we always recognize how difficult it can be to become unsad, sofa or no sofa.

Winter is a challenging time for so many, but the sun shines a little longer each day. Hang in there.