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2.85 AVERAGE
2.85 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fine
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I am on the fence with this book. About halfway through I started to pick up on the rhythm of the language and become interested in the story. Melville's sentences are so labyrinthine and filled with archaic words that I struggled to understand what was going on, let alone enjoy it. By the end of the book though I see where Melville was going with it and can appreciate this story. I did not enjoy the telling of it, though, so I'm going to give it 2 1/2 stars.
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Nothing about this book captured my imagination. And that is not the fault of the language being too rich for me to understand. Let me put aside immodesty for a moment and tell you that I have no difficulty at all devouring the most dense of books. No, this feeling is particular to Billy Budd.
I will preface what I am about to say by noting that I am not a religious person. I believe in living for myself and being moral for that same reason, not for some higher power. But that aside, I can appreciate a well placed metaphor, no matter its connotations. The metaphors that the last half of this book are consumed by could not be deemed thus. It screams christ figure, as well as just general biblical references. There is no way that you could escape its grasp. Creating Billy as a vision of Christ is, on its own, an interesting underlining message and had it been put to work in a different way, accompanied by Herman Melville resisting his urge to bore readers out of their skin in the first 30 pages, the book could have been great. And I will not forget how the themes explored in the final two chapters gave me hope and almost fooled me into forgetting how hellish the read had been prior to that moment. But alas, it was not to be.
Shame shame on my AP lit class for giving me this to read. After Pride and Prejudice no less! What a travesty.
I will preface what I am about to say by noting that I am not a religious person. I believe in living for myself and being moral for that same reason, not for some higher power. But that aside, I can appreciate a well placed metaphor, no matter its connotations. The metaphors that the last half of this book are consumed by could not be deemed thus. It screams christ figure, as well as just general biblical references. There is no way that you could escape its grasp. Creating Billy as a vision of Christ is, on its own, an interesting underlining message and had it been put to work in a different way, accompanied by Herman Melville resisting his urge to bore readers out of their skin in the first 30 pages, the book could have been great. And I will not forget how the themes explored in the final two chapters gave me hope and almost fooled me into forgetting how hellish the read had been prior to that moment. But alas, it was not to be.
Shame shame on my AP lit class for giving me this to read. After Pride and Prejudice no less! What a travesty.
Because Benjamin Britten composed an opera for it with my beloved [a:E.M. Forster|6472669|E.M. Forster|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1345510639p2/6472669.jpg] on the libretto, I thought perhaps this was worth checking out. It was when I realised that I was not Melville's biggest fan. It's a novella and didn't look long but it took me so many tries and at the time I felt there was little pay-off.
This novella and a few stray comments about Captain Ahab are also the reason I thought until recently (last week) that Melville was considered an established part of the LGBT literary canon.
This novella and a few stray comments about Captain Ahab are also the reason I thought until recently (last week) that Melville was considered an established part of the LGBT literary canon.
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Well, fewer rabbit trails than in Moby Dick, but I guess that was necessary for a short story. This was a weird little story and I'm still thinking about it from a management perspective. Was the Captain justified in his decision because of the consequences for the whole crew? I don't know.
YES, YES, Melville, WE GET IT. Weirdly, this would make a great companion piece to Martin Eden, and I'm sure we'll have that extremely niche conversation at book club.
Enjoyable in parts, I feel Herman Melville can real write powerful pros. The overall antagonism against the new legislative regime going around Britain at the time didn't really sit well with me. I had the feeling the writer wanted to talk about that, though I didn't really strike me as something pertinent today. Interesting talk at times about naval justice, good case study.