Michael Pugliese wrote:
>
> Clare Spark, an independent scholar, and former programmer at KPFK-FM,
> the Pacifica station in Los Angeles during the 70's and 80's, has her new
> book out. The product of 17 years of archival research, will appeal to those
> of us with interests in literary politics, interpretation, Popular Front
> culture and the critique of populism, nationalism and Stalinism. She also
> has a new article on Ralph J. Bunche and Gunnar Myrdal,
> "Race, Caste, or Class?" The Bunche-Myrdal Dispute Over An American
> Dilemma," International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 14,
> Number 3, 465-511.
> Michael Pugliese
>
> Hunting Captain Ahab: Psychological Warfare and the Melville Revival
>
> Hunting Captain Ahab constitutes a major reassessment of Melville and his
> critical reception in America. Thanks to Clare Spark's in-depth archival
> research, the political dimensions are at last fully brought to light. The
> world of Melville scholarship will never be the same. (Roy Porter, author
> Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World)
>
> Hunting Captain Ahab is a delicious concoction, an irresistible melange of
> Hannah Arendt, Kermit Vanderbilt, Kitty Kelley, Ronald Radosh-Joyce Milton,
> and A. S. Byatt. Usual and unusual suspects are tracked down,
> strip-searched, grilled and served up. FBI files, private filing cabinets,
> and great library archives are ransacked for our astonished delight. Who
> would have though that so many startling family comments on Melville
> remained unseen? Who would have thought those secretive, conspiratorial
> academics would have preserved so many incriminating papers? Anyone who
> writes on Melville must buy this plump plum pudding of a book, this vast
> long-considered trifle, this huge fruit-cake of certifiably weird
> fellow-travelling Melvilleans. Lord, I wish I had known some of them in the
> flesh. (Hershel Parker, Melville biographer and co-editor
> Northwestern-Newberry complete works of Herman Melville)
>
> Clare Spark provides us with an intricate and exhaustive view of the
> politics of literature and of literary reputation. Without succumbing to
> simplistic "right-left" dichotomies, she demonstrates, through an analysis
> of the Melville Revival, how our literary icons are made and endlessly
> remade in the service of ideological, as well as esthetic, agendas. She
> depicts the long, struggle between the obsessions of sundry Melville
> scholars and the titanic obsessions of Melville himself (always, of course,
> at war with each other) with a singular originality of vision. "Hunting
> Captain Ahab", faithfully echoing Melville in its plenitude and bold
> intellectual counterpoint, will give contemporary Melville enthusiasts
> dozens, if not hundreds, of new themes to ponder and deliberate. (Norman J.
> Levitt, Rutgers University, author Higher Superstition: The Academic Left
> and Science)
>
> [e-mail to author:] <cspark at ix.netcom.com>
>
> Salutations Clare Spark,
>
> Erin Holman gave me your e-mail address because I wanted to tell you what a
> phenomenal book you have in Hunting Captain Ahab. I am the proofreader
> working for The Kent State University Press who is having the distinct
> pleasure of reading your book. As a freelancer, I see a variety of
> presentations. Your work offers the most readable, provocative, and
> informative book I have read for work or interest in many a day! An
> exciting addition to the world, indeed. Thank you.
>
> Take care,
>
> Toni Mortimer