Rating: 
Summary: .
Review: As I read this book, I didn't catch all the subtleties of it, and could never be precisely sure whether each confidence man was evil or not- it seemed ambiguous, or at least, the author never once allows the reader to find out definitively that the 'vicitms' are being gulled. However, by the end of the book, this becomes more clear as the second half settles into sxome extremely thought-provoking conversations and exchanges. After reading literary reviews online, the book in its totality makes even more sense as in retrospect its sublte points become clearer.
That being said, the writing is absolutely superb. Although far more wordy than Hemingway, one cannot avoid comparing to Hemingway's writing, which, like this, is extremely controlled, restrained and pointed. As you read this, you cannot avoid the feeling that the author spent hours on each sentence.
It is therefore very much so worth reading, but don't expect it to be easy. It's certainly not your verbose, nineteenth century romanctic glop, but it can be difficult, as some readers appear to have found it. But try it.
Rating:
Summary: story about story-telling
Review: His contemporaries just did not get it, but then Melville's great works were all written on the eve of the Civil War. Race, region and property were tearing the country apart, and this coming storm is the setting for this April Fool's Day ride on the Mississippi.
The works of Mark Twain are dogged with controversy. In Innocents Abroad, for example, a simple discussion of Lake Como leads to a discussion of Lake Tahoe, leading to a racist tirade against the Washoe tribe of Nevada. (This would be a tame example.) Perhaps we cannot understand the times apart from Twain's Indian-hating.
In The Confidence Man, Melville gives us a whole chapter on Indian-hating. It is a story about story-telling above all else; yet, it also takes us into the minds of Melville's contemporaries.
Samuel Clemens was a great comic writer, and his greatest works remain important historical documents as well as entertaining fictions. Race dogs them, but Melville transcended this problem. In Black Guinea we sense the rich language of American blacks, and we are given a glance at the many levels on which it operates.
When Black Guinea tries to defend himself, he says "dis poor ole darkie is werry well wordy of all you kind ge'mmen's kind confidence." Worthy or wordy, or maybe both? Herman Melville is in control of just about every word in this book.
Moby Dick is adventure; The Confidence Man is entertainment. It puts you into a place that only story-telling knows. Liking puns helps.
Rating: 
Summary: Not completely worthless.
Review: I consider Melville's more famous work, "Moby Dick", to be perhaps the most overrated book in the English language; in spite of that, I decided to try this one on the grounds that perhaps my dislike of that one was a fluke (no pun intended) and that perhaps some other of Melville's works might be more congenial.This book definitely has some advantages over "Moby Dick". It's shorter, for one thing, and the digressions are both shorter themselves, and less frequent. But they are, if anything, even more annoying; if there's anything I LESS need to read than dissertations on the nuts and bolts of 19th century whaling, it's chapters in which an author steps outside of his story to defend details of his writing. What's more, while "Moby Dick" is 400+ pages of story with about 50 pages of plot, this book is 250+ pages with absolutely NO plot; all it is is episodic recitations of one character (a man of 1000 faces) swindling numerous other characters, some more well-developed than others. And if the writing style isn't QUITE as pretentious as in "Moby Dick", it's still too pretentious for my taste. Still, the book is not completely worthless. It brings to mind some interesting points for debate; which is worse, the con man himself, or the people who he CAN'T swindle because they're so cynical and untrusting? Is it worth becoming that cynical to avoid being gulled by such a con man? Is it possible to retain a reasonable amount of faith in people, and still avoid being swindled? What would have been the appropriate response in (pick a scene)? I would recommend that if you are going to read it, do so as a part of a literary discussion group, or something similar, so that you will have someone to discuss it with. That's where its value lies, certainly not as an entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: No Confidence?
Review: I take "The Confidence Man" to be a comedy of confused identities and good humor which together help us look at our notions of trust and kindness. A modern example of this level of the story can be found in the film "The Sting". There are other, more subtler things going on in Melville's book that merit more readings, of course, but much of the book can be enjoyed for its seemingly light-hearted look at our willingness to be duped by salesmen and hucksters. The particular edition that I read seemed to be a re-print of an earlier edition. There is a too-brief introduction to the author and the book. Likewise, there are no notes to help with some of the expressions common in the 19th century but since fallen into disuse in the 21st. For example, when one of the confidence men refers to his "father's friend, James Hall, the judge", I wondered if Melville was referring to his own father-in-law, who was a judge. Hall, it turns out, was a writer whose 1835 book "Sketches..." was one of Melville's sources. A good "companion" to The Confidence Man and other Melville works is The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville, edited by R. S. Levine. And readers interested in pursuing the author in more depth will find fascinating reading in Leviathan, A Journal of Melville Studies.
Rating:
Summary: No Confidence?
Review: I take "The Confidence Man" to be a comedy of confused identities and good humor which together help us look at our notions of trust and kindness. A modern example of this level of the story can be found in the film "The Sting". There are other, more subtler things going on in Melville's book that merit more readings, of course, but much of the book can be enjoyed for its seemingly light-hearted look at our willingness to be duped by salesmen and hucksters. The particular edition that I read seemed to be a re-print of an earlier edition. There is a too-brief introduction to the author and the book. Likewise, there are no notes to help with some of the expressions common in the 19th century but since fallen into disuse in the 21st. For example, when one of the confidence men refers to his "father's friend, James Hall, the judge", I wondered if Melville was referring to his own father-in-law, who was a judge. Hall, it turns out, was a writer whose 1835 book "Sketches..." was one of Melville's sources. A good "companion" to The Confidence Man and other Melville works is The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville, edited by R. S. Levine. And readers interested in pursuing the author in more depth will find fascinating reading in Leviathan, A Journal of Melville Studies.
Rating:
Summary: No Confidence?
Review: I take "The Confidence Man" to be a comedy of confused identities and good humor which together help us look at our notions of trust and kindness. A modern example of this level of the story can be found in the film "The Sting". There are other, more subtler things going on in Melville's book that merit more readings, of course, but much of the book can be enjoyed for its seemingly light-hearted look at our willingness to be duped by salesmen and hucksters. The particular edition that I read seemed to be a re-print of an earlier edition. There is a too-brief introduction to the author and the book. Likewise, there are no notes to help with some of the expressions common in the 19th century but since fallen into disuse in the 21st. For example, when one of the confidence men refers to his "father's friend, James Hall, the judge", I wondered if Melville was referring to his own father-in-law, who was a judge. Hall, it turns out, was a writer whose 1835 book "Sketches..." was one of Melville's sources. A good "companion" to The Confidence Man and other Melville works is The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville, edited by R. S. Levine. And readers interested in pursuing the author in more depth will find fascinating reading in Leviathan, A Journal of Melville Studies.
Rating: 
Summary: An above average work by a great author
Review: If you love Melville, then I suggest this book with little reservation. It is not an easy read, however, and is often bogged down by long discourses. I usually am a fan of heavy annotation, but I found that these notes were distracting at times.
Rating:
Summary: An above average work by a great author
Review: If you love Melville, then I suggest this book with little reservation. It is not an easy read, however, and is often bogged down by long discourses. I usually am a fan of heavy annotation, but I found that these notes were distracting at times.
Rating:
Summary: Never more true than in 2002
Review: No other Melville novel reminds me more of William Gaddis than The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. In other words, Melville's corrosive yet understated, quintessentially American apocalypse is not an easy read but it rewards the attentive reader. Since I first read it I've never heard the word "confidence" spoken without re-experiencing something of Melville's irony. (And I've been reminded of that irony more frequently recently because the word has seems to have become a great favorite of our own president!) Melville's ironic sense, sharper here than in any of his other novels, shines in wonderfully wrought sentences. Such as: "[H]e seemed to have courted oblivion, a boon not often withheld from so humble an applicant as he." (Chapter 2) And, "Gradually overtaken by slumber, his flaxen head drooped, his whole lamb-like figure relaxed, and half reclining against the ladder's foot, lay motionless, as some sugar-snow in March, which, softly stealing down over night, with its white placidity startles the brown farmer peering out from his threshold at daybreak." (Chapter 1) And, "[O]ne of those who, at three-score-and-ten, are fresh-hearted as at fifteen; to whom seclusion gives a boon more blessed than knowledge, and at last sends them to heaven untainted by the world, because ignorant of it; just as a countryman putting up at a London inn, and never stirring out of it as a sight-seer, will leave London at last without once being lost in its fog or soiled by its mud." (Chapter 45)
Rating:
Summary: Skip Moby Dick and read this instead...
Review: OK, well maybe read "Moby Dick" too, but if you're going to read just one book by Melville, I suggest this one. Disregarded in Melville's lifetime, this book could have been written today...except that it exemplifies the cultural moment that produced it. Lyrical, magnificent, prescient, and wonderfully confusing, I'm on a personal mission to introduce this novel to as many people as possible.
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