Spadework for a Palace

"László Krasznahorkai’s deranged protagonist, herman melvill – a small librarian with fallen arches and the grand delusions of John Milton’s fallen archangel – yearns to gain true understanding of Herman Melville’s genius, which he idealizes as a palace of eternal knowledge. Roaming New York City’s Lower East Side, melvill links Melville’s humble, post-Moby Dick existence at 104 East 26th Street to Malcolm Lowry’s harrowing experience at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, and to the apocalyptic, seemingly nonfunctional architectural designs of Lebbeus Woods – who lived in Tribeca and taught at Cooper Union. Breathtaking and hypnotic, this unorthodox novella boldly merges fiction, travelogue and literary criticism into one 96-page sentence."