Genoa

This is a great book, particularly for those interested in knowing more about the Herman Melville legacy. The writer of this text is Herman Melville’s grandson, and a good portion of this book showcases the author’s thoughts while forcing himself to come to terms with his place in this legacy. However, this is not a documentary book or a biography, so please don’t dive into this literature with inappropriate expectations.Paul Metcalf’s style is also worth mentioning here. He appropriates text from other writers, in proper form for a postmodernist like himself. For this reason, his writing style reads more like poetry than prose in many instances. I say this because his use of short excerpts breaks down the sentence/paragraph organizational structure in a way that makes it feel less simple narrative and more like quasi-verse.As was mentioned before, Paul Metcalf takes portions of writings from Christopher Columbus’s memoires, segments from Herman Melville’s books and biographies, and fragments from medical journals (along with many other texts) to assist in the writing of his book. Thus, the continuity of Genoa is broken up by sedimentations from all of these texts. On every page, the author executes multiple double carriage returns (implying that the texts are nested amidst one another, as if initiating a chain of block quotes) to emphasize the textual cross-pollination each insertion provides the topic at hand. Some literary critics explain this style as an assemblage or a juxtaposition used to mythologize events. Thus, analogies or similitudes are not merely revealed for their own sake, but serve to further confound events, relationships, and characters in a meaningful way. Another description, this time by Guy Davenport (eminent writer, artist, and critic), describes this style as “architecture,” since a building up or sedimentation of meaning occurs as bricks/layers from many outside texts are integrated together. The connecting mortar is provided by the writer as Metcalf combines all this together to generate a structure precisely organized to produce meaning.Also, within this book, motifs such as deformity, violence, and fantasy are elaborated upon. Indeed, Paul Metcalf uses this eccentric style to grapple with some pretty meaty subjects. I will not give the plot of the story away, but the ending of this book is quite fascinating, telling, and unexpected, a book well worth trudging one’s way though even if you are not always satisfied with the author’s digressive and meandering style. Give it a chance and you will find something worthwhile here.

Genoa is an unusual book. Paul Metcalf engages Herman Melville, Christopher Columbus, and other historical figures in an amazingly parallel streams of fiction and reality which together form their own other picture like three different musical instruments whose voices blend to create a fourth. The picture of Carl's progressive breakdown is sad to see. The war moments are very disturbing. What are the choices made that lead him to where he ends? Paul Metcalf is something rare an original writer. You won't find too many voices like his. Pound used the technique of quotes in The Cantos, using John Adams' writings and Homer, etc. Paul applied this to prose masterfully.