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2.85 AVERAGE
2.85 AVERAGE
Melville used unnecessarily large words to cover up the vague, terrible plot.
There was no point to read this novel.
If you want philosophical, read anything else.
And I mean anything.
In his usual style, Melville continually kept my brain working by using numerous historical, biblical, and mythical allusions.
I'm not sure I get it -- why do people think this is a story about a dilemma? Why isn't Captain Vere just straightforwardly wrong?
5 stars for the prose alone, less for the first 40 pages of boredom
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.
This tale was...interesting. One of these moral tales, filled with lots of lessons and reflections about justice. Billy is a likable character, and I felt very sad for him while reading the story. It made for an interesting opera in Warsaw!
Like much of Melville's work, I find Billy Budd hard to describe. It is the final, arguably incomplete, work of a brilliant madman; yet, despite its short length, it is more dense with themes and ambiguity than most complete works of other authors. Or maybe I'm just reading into it too much and Billy Budd is just an easy allegory for Christ. I think that's doing it a serious disservice, but I think I'll most definitely need to revisit this.
so-called free thinkers when bartleby would prefer not to
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes