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gabriel_sakoda's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
historyofjess's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Silly me, thinking that a 19th century book about a slave revolt would be about anything except the white men surviving the brutal "negroes" that overtook the ship. For a short novel, this dragged for me. The first chunk of it is clearly meant to provoke intrigue, but I just had trouble getting attached to the various sailors and the narrators' cold, anthropological observations of slaves on the ship. And then the actual action of the story is introduced, it's all reported in a cold, recap of someone just reciting facts.
shaynanima's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
voglesby's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
dutchcrunch's review against another edition
4.0
As a companion piece to Herman Melville’s incomparable and visionary American whaling epic, Moby-Dick, I chose to read Melville’s 1855 novella, Benito Cereno. I chose this text from Melville’s oeuvre due to it being the only piece of writing in which he documents slavery and the slave trade. Also, what drew me to the novella was its ambiguity, unreliability, and tension. Upon beginning its first page, however, what enamored me was Melville’s prose. The introduction to Benito Cereno is lush with symbolism and Melville’s signature flourishing language, which remarkably sets the tone for the oppressive environment of which he ushers the reader into. This tone begins with its title; the name Benito meaning “good” or “blessed” and Cereno meaning “quiet” or “serene.” Already Melville foreshadows the ambiguous oppression of the novel: Benito Cereno (“Be good” and “Be quiet”).
Fingerprints of slavery are also imbedded in every line of the introduction to Benito Cereno. The first line reads:
In the year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor, with a valuable cargo, in the harbor of St.Maria—a small, desert, uninhabited island toward the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water (Melville 35).
Although not explicitly referencing slavery, there is already a conspicuous absence in the novella’s first line. What “valuable cargo” is Delano’s ship harboring and why, being that this vessel seems well-established, can the narrator not release information on its cargo? (Melville 35). After reading Melville’s first line, I had to discover what was so “valuable” on this ship that it must remain ambiguous (although there were evident hints to slavery) (35).
I was not disappointed.
Fingerprints of slavery are also imbedded in every line of the introduction to Benito Cereno. The first line reads:
In the year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor, with a valuable cargo, in the harbor of St.Maria—a small, desert, uninhabited island toward the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water (Melville 35).
Although not explicitly referencing slavery, there is already a conspicuous absence in the novella’s first line. What “valuable cargo” is Delano’s ship harboring and why, being that this vessel seems well-established, can the narrator not release information on its cargo? (Melville 35). After reading Melville’s first line, I had to discover what was so “valuable” on this ship that it must remain ambiguous (although there were evident hints to slavery) (35).
I was not disappointed.
pwizzy's review against another edition
2.5
they should use this book for a reading comprehension + racism test. the test is if you can put up with this old ass writing and also how long does it take you to figure out what has happened when you are in the mind of a racist. I would recommend this book, insightful as it is, especially for its time, only to white oldheads who think they might be or might not be racist.