Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling, soul-bewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr. Melvilles style), like Melchisedeck, without beginning or end-a labyrinth without a clue - an Irish bog without so much as a Jacko the lantern to guide the wanderers footsteps - the dream of a distempered stomach, disordered by a hasty supper on half-cooked pork chops." So judged the "New York Herald" when "Pierre" was first published in 1852, with most contemporary reviewers joining in the general condemnation: a dead failure, this crazy rigmarole, and "a literary mares nest."