Pierre

''Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling, soul-bewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr. Melville''s style), like Melchisedeck, without beginning or end-a labyrinth without a clue - an Irish bog without so much as a Jack o''the''lantern to guide the wanderer''s 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 mare''s nest." Latter-day critics have recognized in the story of Melville''s idealistic young hero a corrosive satire of the