"The Confidence Man" - Herman Melville

[p.falk]

A weird book that, so far, doesn't seem to follow a straight narrative.... aside from people being tricked by various confidence men. Or, possibly a confidence man, if it's all being perpetrated by the same guy.

But what really throws me off is that, though you have people being scammed to greater or lesser extents (and, so far, the greater is not even all that great), it almost seems like Melville (via the omniscient narrator) is talking about the virtue of being trusting. That, it's better to be trusting and get duped than being cynical. A lengthy paragraph was given on Tacitus being a terrible thinker for his cynical views on humanity.

There is a wooden-legged man, who is very cynical towards anyone on the steamer (where the story takes place) who seeks charity and especially towards those that give the charity. At one point, meeting again a Methodist clergyman who he had previously mocked for helping a cripple (the wooden legged man assuming the cripple was faking it), he gets into a conversation with 2 other men who are more trusting towards mankind:

“So I did, so I did; how unfortunate. But look now,” to the other, “I think that without personal proof I can convince you of your mistake. For I put it to you, is it reasonable to suppose that a man with brains, sufficient to act such a part as you say, would take all that trouble, and run all that hazard, for the mere sake of those few paltry coppers, which, I hear, was all he got for his pains, if pains they were?”

“That puts the case irrefutably,” said the young clergyman, with a challenging glance towards the one-legged man.

“You two green-horns! Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains and hazard, deception and deviltry, in this world. How much money did the devil make by gulling Eve?”

It's the man with the wooden leg who makes the bolded statement.

Not done with the book yet. Pretty enjoyable though Melville's writing in this book (compared to Moby Dick) is a bit run-on at times. Commas chopping up thoughts to inject sides that seem to muck up the flow of the narrative. But the dialog between various characters is really good in this book.

[Riverboat]

Other than Moby Dick, I had better luck with Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. I finished reading Moby Dick for the third and last time ever. After wading through all that salt water, I'm hesitant to pick up another book by Melville.

[p.falk]

Whew…. Monstrosities of sentences. I think after the letter E, the comma in this book is the 2nd most utilized character.


This is a taste (bitter at that) of a Melville paragraph in this book:

When the merchant, strange to say, opposed views so calm and impartial, and again, with some warmth, deplored the case of the unfortunate man, his companion, not without seriousness, checked him, saying, that this would never do; that, though but in the most exceptional case, to admit the existence of unmerited misery, more particularly if alleged to have been brought about by unhindered arts of the wicked, such an admission was, to say the least, not prudent; since, with some, it might unfavorably bias their most important persuasions. Not that those persuasions were legitimately servile to such influences. Because, since the common occurrences of life could never, in the nature of things, steadily look one way and tell one story, as flags in the trade-wind; hence, if the conviction of a Providence, for instance, were in any way made dependent upon such variabilities as everyday events, the degree of that conviction would, in thinking minds, be subject to fluctuations akin to those of the stock-exchange during a long and uncertain war. Here he glanced aside at his transfer-book, and after a moment’s pause continued. It was of the essence of a right conviction of the divine nature, as with a right conviction of the human, that, based less on experience than intuition, it rose above the zones of weather.

It’s almost comical how arduous it is to slog through some of his paragraphs. And there’s been others longer, and with even more comma-cum-sides injected into the flow of the narrative.

[p.falk]

Gee…. I wonder why this book wasn’t warmly received by the public or critics.

Still, he was far from the illiberality of denying that philosophy duly bounded was not permissible. Only he deemed it at least desirable that, when such a case as that alleged of the unfortunate man was made the subject of philosophic discussion, it should be so philosophized upon, as not to afford handles to those unblessed with the true light. For, but to grant that there was so much as a mystery about such a case, might by those persons be held for a tacit surrender of the question. And as for the apparent license temporarily permitted sometimes, to the bad over the good (as was by implication alleged with regard to Goneril and the unfortunate man), it might be injudicious there to lay too much polemic stress upon the doctrine of future retribution as the vindication of present impunity. For though, indeed, to the right-minded that doctrine was true, and of sufficient solace, yet with the perverse the polemic mention of it might but provoke the shallow, though mischievous conceit, that such a doctrine was but tantamount to the one which should affirm that Providence was not now, but was going to be. In short, with all sorts of cavilers, it was best, both for them and everybody, that whoever had the true light should stick behind the secure Malakoff of confidence, nor be tempted forth to hazardous skirmishes on the open ground of reason. Therefore, he deemed it unadvisable in the good man, even in the privacy of his own mind, or in communion with a congenial one, to indulge in too much latitude of philosophizing, or, indeed, of compassionating, since this might, beget an indiscreet habit of thinking and feeling which might unexpectedly betray him upon unsuitable occasions. Indeed, whether in private or public, there was nothing which a good man was more bound to guard himself against than, on some topics, the emotional unreserve of his natural heart; for, that the natural heart, in certain points, was not what it might be, men had been authoritatively admonished.

But, maybe Melville even noticed that this was a bit...... much.

The very next sentence states:

But he thought he might be getting dry.

[p.falk]

There is an interesting part (borne under the same problems of other paragraphs) where Melville takes a break from the story to interact with his audience and their expectations of how a character should be written. This comes right after one unwitting victim of the confidence man (men), a fella named Roberts who is more often referred to as "the merchant", expresses a deep doubt as to his trust in something the Confidence Man said.

Previously throughout the book Roberts (the merchant) has been continuously exploited by various "avatars" of the Confidence Man. Giving money to one out of pity over hardship. Giving money to another for a charitable cause that he claimed to be a representative for. Giving money to a 3rd to invest in a bogus coal company. Then, after having champagne with the spurious agent for the coal company, Roberts expresses his doubt.

Melville then breaks into a defense of authors who try to write a character true to facts (those facts that motivate a fictional tale). And, in writing a character true to facts he needs to be more developed than just: Guy 1 is always credulous; Guy 2 is always nice.

To some, it may raise a degree of surprise that one so full of confidence, as the merchant has throughout shown himself, up to the moment of his late sudden impulsiveness, should, in that instance, have betrayed such a depth of discontent. He may be thought inconsistent, and even so he is. But for this, is the author to be blamed? True, it may be urged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefully see to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully look for, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistency should be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonable enough, may, upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does it couple with another requirement—equally insisted upon, perhaps—that, while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fiction based on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact, that, in real life, a consistent character is a rara avis? Which being so, the distaste of readers to the contrary sort in books, can hardly arise from any sense of their untrueness. It may rather be from perplexity as to understanding them. But if the acutest sage be often at his wits’ ends to understand living character, shall those who are not sages expect to run and read character in those mere phantoms which flit along a page, like shadows along a wall? That fiction, where every character can, by reason of its consistency, be comprehended at a glance, either exhibits but sections of character, making them appear for wholes, or else is very untrue to reality; while, on the other hand, that author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at different periods, as much at variance with itself as the butterfly is with the caterpillar into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.

[Highlander]

Here's my take.

The written (and printed) English of the 19th Century should often be taken as a transcription of verbal English. You read it as if you were listening to it. It can help.

I vaguely recall reading some of Twain using that method.

[Riverboat]

It’s almost comical how arduous it is to slog through some of his paragraphs. And there’s been others longer . . .

Looks like William Faulkner without the boats.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Here's my take.

The written (and printed) English of the 19th Century should often be taken as a transcription of verbal English. You read it as if you were listening to it. It can help.

I vaguely recall reading some of Twain using that method.

Reading aloud (or at least subvocalizing) is also the best way to read poetry.

[Highlander]

Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, absolutely.

I still read poetry out loud. It makes me consider each word, the relationship of each word to the others, the meter, the punctuation, and the "music" of the poem. I find reading haiku out loud is essential. No, no in Japanese. Even in haiku's bastardized English versions. Another topic.

That poetry is dying is a 'nother another topic.

Consider my favorite English poem (probably because it evokes haiku):

Daniel Boone

When Daniel Boone goes by, at night,
The phantom deer arise
And all lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes.

-- Stephen Vincent Benet

[p.falk]

Thanks for the tips, gentlemen.

This is something I read Doom once say if one was going to read Shakespeare, that it must be read aloud.


This book is now completed, some entertaining moments of dialog between one token/face of the confidence man.... but in a sea of meandering asides that made the book unpleasant. Who knows, maybe i'll try it again in 5 years.