When your marriage has emerged from the Bad Time and its poor communication into a time of communication mainly, apparently, through Herman Melville biography - the wife’s obsession. I wouldn’t like to be alone, the husband notes as he emerges from his pandemic isolation period. It could be far worse, the wife must think to herself as she notes the realities of married life for Mrs. Melville and other wives of men who were great at literature and bad indeed in relationships. It might be thought of as sad, but on the other hand, it might be thought of as productive and not unpleasant.

At least I think that’s what is being said about the marriage. Mostly it is hints and implications among all the Melville and associated bits. ( )

There is something intriguing about a husband and wife creating a book together during a Covid lockdown -- about a couple in a Covid lockdown -- and heavily heavily about Herman Melville for some reason. Just the intertwining of facts here, how things are linked, is impressive and inspiring. My mind can't juggle facts like this, hold so many facts like this, and make these connections. The character mentions post-it notes lost in their bed, and I'm pretty sure this book was probably assembled by using post-it notes. Otherwise, it is an amazing feat to hold so much information at once. For example, even minimally thinking of all of Melville's books chronologically and also matching things to his history or world history. While I am reading a book by Melville, I'm probably not skilled enough to align it with so many things at once. (The focus of 'Moby Dick' on whiteness shortly before the Civil War is one large example.) The line about "when can we stop disinfecting boxes of frozen waffles" hit me, indicating immediately this was a Covid book, but otherwise it is hard to see the overall point of creating a book so much about Melville that is not actually a biography. I would consider myself a minor fan of a couple of Melville's books? Glad I read them? Wish there had been more about 'Bartleby' here. But I'm definitely not a Covid book fan. So this was fine overall. I admire the skill with fact juggling here though.
*Book #141/340 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books ( )

A woman goes through her days during covid in a house with her husband and children, researching Herman Melville's life. Told in single sentences spaced apart on the page, a format that delighted me the first time I encountered it (Jenny Offill's excellent Dept. of Speculation) but began to annoy me soon after, as book after book was published in this form, seemingly as a way of turning a collection of linked thoughts into a novel. String those bad boys together, I would think, you can just use entire paragraphs! But here, they work, reflecting the scattered nature of the narrator's thoughts. She's lost her focus, if not her interest, and goes off on tangents about people who interacted with Melville, or who wrote about him.

Running through the book are the words of The Biographer, who wrote two weighty volumes about the man, who idolized him, defending him from all criticism. The counterpoint to the hagiography are the many accounts of Melville being abusive and of his disregard for his family's welfare. Just as in the narrator's account, there are issues she has with her husband and moments of closeness, of shared history and fond affection.

I was charmed by this book, despite its format.

One really doesn't need to have read Moby Dick to read this novel, although MD is both worthwhile and a lot of fun, but a basic knowledge of Melville's life might be useful. ( )

The high points of DAYSWORK involve the curious idiosyncrasies of Herman Melville's personality and his relationships with his contemporaries, especially Hawthorne. The novel paints a picture of a tremendously talented introvert who might have been considered a failure by his contemporaries. Yet, he clearly knew the things he liked doing (e.g. writing, traveling, reading) and doggedly pursued them with little regard for others or conventional measures of success.

Instead of being a straightforward biography, this narrative frames around the narrator's readings about the famous man while quarantined during the Covid 19 pandemic. Clearly, she is quite knowledgeable about her subject and what his colleagues, then and now, thought of him. However, the novel takes on a meandering structure that seems to reflect Melville's own eclectic personality and perseverance. For a person who enjoys spending time with a scholar who knows a lot about a particular subject but tends to ramble, reading this novel could be an enjoyable experience. However, for a reader looking for something a bit more analytical, it is disappointing. ( )

What a delightful journey this novel took me on!

It was like a room with many doors, the doors leading to more rooms with more doors, and yet taking one back to where one started. The narrative segues into asides, sharing the stories of Melville admirers and biographers. One such tangent is about Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, which is also a story about marriage.

Hardwick wrote that Melville was “given to violence in the household,” based on family stories and letters. After his death, his wife promoted his work and pressed for reissuing of the books, which fed a consequent “Melville Revival.”

We realize how elusive Melville is–can we really know him? Even his New York Times death notice called him “Hiram Melville,” and he was “Norman Melville” on a crew list.

His Moby Dick is extolled as an eloquent masterpiece, inspirational, life-changing. “How much that man makes you love him!” (Hart Crane) “Herman Melville is a god.” (Maurice Sendak) And by others, particularly high school students, as a big snooze.

The story is set during the pandemic, with a woman researching Melville and discussing her findings with her husband.

There is much about Melville’s love for Nathaniel Hawthorne, famed for his beauty, his visits documented by Sarah Peabody Hawthorne, who noted his linen was dirty, and their son Julian, who loved Melville.

Melville’s early novels sold well, but his long poem Clarel and Moby Dick were failures. He worked for nineteen years as a customs inspector.

The first Melville I read was a volume that included Typee and Omoo that I found on my father’s bookshelf when I was a teen. I read Moby Dick as a young woman–skipping the Cetacea and whaling chapters, and then finally read it in whole it in middle age when our son read it in high school. In between, I read Billy Bud and The Confidence Man and Bartleby the Scrivener.

I was charmed when the narrator describes reading an old paperback of Howard’s End–the exact edition I discovered and read and fell in love with. I recalled reading Lowell’s Life Studies and Day by Day and Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights, sad that my copies were sacrificed in one of my dozen moves. But I have Moby Dick still, and this has inspired me to revisit it, to see how I experience it in my senior years.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. ( )