Saturday 27 June 2026
“Are you crazy!” Steve hollered.
Standing in the cereal aisle of my local supermarket, and gripping my cell phone, I resisted the urge to say: “Yes, Steve! I AM crazy. Thanks for telling me. I didn’t know.”
Yes, I was a madman for getting a doctorate. I sacrificed. I lost some things and people to get one. Sometimes I felt like I gave up too much of my life for the PhD; I also considered my doctorate as one of my greatest achievements.
I was crazy for writing about Moby-Dick. Like Herman Melville himself, I chose to battle with the Universe. An 1852 book reviewer indeed called Herman Melville “crazy, adding:
A critical friend, who read Melville’s last book, Ambiguities, between two steamboat accidents, told us that it appeared to be composed of the ravings and reveries of a madman. We were somewhat startled at the remark, but still more at learning, a few days after, that Melville was really supposed to be deranged, and that his friends were taking measures to place him under treatment. We hope one of the earliest precautions will be to keep him stringently secluded from pen and ink.
What did that make me? (Queue in Ozzy Osbourne’s song, “Diary of a Madman.”)
I thought about the future. What would I work on next? Which American artist could be as large and important enough like Melville? Should I continue with the nineteenth century?
Should I even remain as an Americanist by specialty?
My dissertation was baptized in sweat, tears, and blood. I never liked the order of importance found in the popular idiom: “blood, sweat, and tears.” Which of the three conditions hurt more? Cost more? Scar more? Are “tears” more consequential or painful that “blood”? And why “blood”? Mine? Someone else’s? “Sweat”? I consider it to be the least important of the three. I thought you should “sweat” while working hard to finish the dissertation. It wasn’t easy work, but I managed.
I almost abandoned my Melville dissertation (and graduate school) because at the time, I lost the twins. I felt as though I sacrificed them. And for what? Three letters at the end of my last name? Steve was right when he said my skepticism became darker and more emotional after the twins. For these reasons, I prefer—even now I can’t avoid referencing Melville—my version of the common saying because “blood” carries more significance.
Even teaching Melville wounded me—the psychological associations between Melville and death were too much. I didn’t hate Melville; nonetheless, the last time I taught Melville was while I worked at West Point. Not because I wanted to teach “Bartleby” or Typee, but because I had to. Both Melville texts were required departmental readings.
The semester before my dissertation defense (Fall 2005), I thought I could work on American playwright, Eugene O’Neill. I respected and appreciated O’Neill’s artistry; however, I tried to imagine my future teaching and scholarly career writing about O’Neill. After writing on Herman Melville, every other American artist seemed rather slight, even boring. Alas, even the mighty O’Neill seemed small next to Melville. I continued to search.
(And note the irony of calling other American writers “boring” given that my dissertation focused on the existential consequences of the boredom Melville’s literary characters wrestled with.)
The competition among my fellow other Americanist graduate students to teach “American Literature” was intense. I taught once “American Literature” as a full-semester course. I wanted to teach an advanced literature course during my final semester as a graduate student and while defending my dissertation. I imagined it as my biding adieu to my alma mater, maybe even to the profession.
I sensed that the department wouldn’t be offering me another “American” class. The other Americanists and I basically pitched the same syllabus, same approach, same everything. Since I already taught one, other doctoral students were considered. I couldn’t be “greedy” and fight to teach it again.
I wanted to avoid being disappointed. The course needed to be “different.” It needed to be monumental. The course needed to be “unique.” It needed to overwhelm me… in a good way. It needed to be follow-up to Melville.
Holocaust literature.
“That” was my proposal to teach a radically new literature course. “That” was not only me walking away from nineteenth century American literature, but it meant stepping into the twentieth century and focusing on war crimes and Evil.
Steve repeated himself: “you’re crazy!”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I change my pathway, career, and professional identity before I even have the Ph.D. in my hands. Besides, I’m tired of American literature… it reminds me too much about the twins.” I tried explaining, not finishing my thought and not sure if I convinced Steve.
“You have a dissertation to defend next semester. You need all your strength to finish Melville, not starting something entirely new,” he sounded so sensible.
“You just bought and moved into a new house,” Steve added. “Save that [the Holocaust course] for later. You have a lot on your mind,” he counseled.
For months, Steve had been ribbing me about becoming “bourgeois” for buying a new home, “settling” down, starting a family, becoming predictable and safe.
“How could they say ‘No’?” I countered. (My department almost did say no.)
“You have no experience teaching it,” Steve shouted.
“I did take that Holocaust course as an undergraduate; remember, the Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld taught that class!” I said, believing I won the argument. “I’ll teach his books in my class. It’s not like I’m completely a novice on the subject matter,” I defended myself.
“Not good enough,” Steve uttered. He was right.
“After writing my Melville dissertation, and as I’m looking for another American project, I realized no other American artist—besides Herman Melville—deep dived into Evil to the extent Melville did. Hawthorne shies away from the deeper implication of Evil. “Young Goodman Brown” is great but short; intriguing but hesitant; promising but immature.”
“Emerson, too. Remember I wrote that paper on Emerson and Waldo, the beloved son who died quite young? How could he write in “Experience”:
In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,—nothing more. I cannot get it nearer to me.
“I cannot forgive him for such a lie. His son was his beloved Waldo. I do understand he had enormous pressure to praise American self-reliance; nonetheless, he, too, like Hawthorne, is afraid of Evil. And what ‘evil’ are we talking about? There’s ‘evil,’ and then there’s ‘Evil.” Which one was Hawthorne writing about? Melville was kind to Hawthorne, reviewing his stories and seeing Hawthorne’s ‘power of darkness.’ I didn’t see it. Sometimes I wonder why Nietzsche considered Emerson to be important. All the good stuff has already been written; so, where do I fit in? I was even told by someone—and not just once—that I’m not allowed to teach certain American writers…. I’m tired of that, too,” I said.
Steve was silent.
“When I was a kid, I heard stories about Auschwitz. One time I met an old man with the Auschwitz ID numbers that the Nazis tattooed on people in the camp. I remember my mother telling me: ‘that man. Over there. He was in Auschwitz. He has tattoo numbers on his arm.’ I also heard accounts of other Nazi horrors. I even went to visit Auschwitz as a kid—when Poland was still a communist state; the experience marked me. I saw photographs of kids my age being processed into the Auschwitz camp. My age! I felt a connection. I haven’t felt like that in a long time,” I explained, still standing in front of many colorful cereal boxes.
“After writing my Melville dissertation, I realized I needed something else, something even more profound and terrifying than Melville. I guess when I started using Polish/American artist Czesław Miłosz in my Melville dissertation, circumstances were changing. I was more excited by Miłosz’s writing rather Melville’s. I relied on him for my understanding of Evil; he even hijacked my dissertation. Unconsciously I was writing two dissertations: one on Melville and one on Miłosz. He wrote about the ghettoes, man’s heart of darkness, World War II… everything!”
“Remember, when I was rewriting my dissertation Introduction, and needed “more theory,” Czesław Miłosz became my lead “theorist;” he also introduced me to French philosopher, Simone Weil. My last graduate school course, the one on Dostevsky, also inspired me to head into this new direction, too. Is there an American version of Dostoevsky? No,” I pleaded.
“Even Melville would agree with me. I’ve been thinking a lot about that Melville 19 November 1851 letter to Hawthorne where he writes:
Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So, now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; – I have heard of Krakens.
“I need my ‘Kraken.’ Where is it?” I demanded.
Steve didn’t say a word; so, I continued:
“The first time I read Tadeusz Borowski, the Polish writer and journalist whom the Nazis arrested and sent him to Auschwitz… the one who committed suicide likely because he felt ‘survivor’s guilt’… I was completely stunned. Borowski pushed me to the very depths of the abyss. I felt this with Melville; no one else,” I emphasized.
I heard the loud silence on Steve’s end of the telephone.
“Just several weeks ago I saw—by accident and due to insomnia—that Soviet movie, Elem Klimov’s Come and See. The film is set in war devastated Belarus during the Operation Barbarossa campaign. Genocide, rape, everything. You watch as the Nazis set aflame entire villages. You watch the murders of Soviet and Jewish people. While flipping through cable TV channels, there it was. Late night public access channel, and someone decided to air that movie. I managed to catch the last fifteen minutes! Holy smokes! Klimov didn’t run away from portraying the immensely dark ‘Evil’ being committed by the Nazis. 3:30 in the morning, and I found this movie! That’s what I want to write about and teach. It feels like a moral obligation. I need to do it,” I exhausted myself justifying that I need to study World War II, war crimes, and mankind’s ‘Evil” heart of darkness.
“And besides, you wrote ‘the book’ on Joesph Conrad. Conrad was my first choice to write about for my doctoral studies. After you, there’s really nothing left to say,” I whispered, utterly exhausted.
“And… Melville will always be a haunting presence in my life and career. There is too much ‘blood’—the twins’—that has drenched itself on Melville’s literature. Death’s specter hangs over Melville. I’m tired of that, too.” I muttered.
“So, what do you think…. Steve?”