In a 2017 interview for The New Yorker, Philip Roth insisted that Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) was the right book to read today and that it was a "darkly pessimistic, daringly innovative novel." 1 It is true that modern critics have welcomed the text's originality and praised its flow of vivid descriptions and dialogues sketching the various characters, which differed considerably from the author's earlier (adventure) novels such as Typee (1846), Omoo (1847) or Moby-Dick (1851).Published purposely on April Fools' Day, the exact day the narrative starts, 2 by Dix, Edwards & Co., the novel did puzzle its contemporary reviewers who perceived it as a sort of practical joke and immediately pointed to its lack of unity 3 and deceiving promise that "something further may follow"(251), 4 making interpretation and progress through the plot all the more difficult for the reader.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.