The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, or the promise of "something further"

Initially criticized for its generic confusion and singular narrative choices, Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) was rehabilitated by twentieth-century critics who praised its modernity. By staging a trip on the Mississippi, the novelist introduces a disguised conman testing the passengers' confidence in an absurd puppet-like show where appearances are deceitful and meaning is elusive. As an echo to the instability of human existence, the narrative's ambiguous promise of "something further" is extremely difficult to interpret - all the more since conventions and established genres are constantly challenged by a writer who refuses to tie his work to a specific category and repeatedly manipulates truth through disguise, digressions or irony. By resorting to a large collection of characters in charge of elaborate narratives and seemingly abstract dialogues, the author succeeds in creating multiple narratives, somehow compelling his public to actively engage in the very act of reading if they want to read beyond words. The novel becomes a real test of confidence for anyone committed to deciphering textual clues and establishing the final meaning. In this context, the narrator's final promise of "something further" may simply signify that while the writer's text is there on the page, his narrative is largely left up to the confident reader.