Reviews - Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-Street

1.18k reviews for:

Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story Of Wall-Street

Herman Melville

3.73 AVERAGE

vernittae's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

marinetucker's review against another edition

2.0

challenging funny reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Bartleby rebuffs even the most gentle demands of his Wall Street job with "I would prefer not to"; the mutinying slaves of the San Dominick skin their owner alive and tie him to the prow under a ragged sheet reading FOLLOW YOUR LEADER. Both stories start with a fissure or slip in the series of performances that produce authority, and proceed about how you'd expect until the fissure is sewn up again.

The collective rebellion seems a lot more real than Bartleby's withdrawal from life, but the slaves are defeated quite easily. Which is also realistic. That's usually how it went. I felt frustrated and bored by the motions of Benito most of the time. This is corny but I want to see it get an Inglourious Basterds type adaptation where the slaves pull off their scheme and set for the high seas.

Bartleby on the other hand was a perfect modernist story and a breezy read, felt more like Kafka than Melville.

kevvvin's review against another edition

5.0

review this story?

I would prefer not to.

Yeah, you know, I think about this story often and whenever I get the urge, I just pick it up and read it over again. It doesn't fail to amuse or stoke interest. A timeless classic.

ejrathke's review against another edition

5.0

This is a deceptive little book, partly because it's such a joy to read. I found myself accidentally at the end, it seemed. Not that it doesn't end naturally or anything like that, but I honestly could've probably read this for 100 or 1,000 more pages.

It's so effortless and funny while also being extremely complex. There's a lot of emotions in here even though it has a very postmodern detachment to the text. This is my first Melville since finishing and falling in love with Moby Dick several years ago. Not sure why it took me so long to come back to him but I think I'll be living in his pages for a while now.

This is just utter brilliance and is such a clear influence on so much 20th century world literature. I found everything from Camus to Barth in here.

dylan_larson_'s review against another edition

4.0

Funny at times, but predominantly tragic. This is a well written story that still feels difficult for me to fully articulate my thoughts on. Melville lays some breadcrumbs for interpretation, and there are overarching themes of work in capitalism, nonviolent resistance, and something more elusively melancholic, but I'm still not sure what to make of ol' Bartleby.
I could probably read some essays and think about it some more to gather more coherent thoughts, but I think I would prefer not to (ba-dum tsss).

manolitagafotas's review against another edition

4.0

dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

sarashadman's review against another edition

3.0

I'm not sure; I feel like every single day that I wake up, I'm gonna have a different interpretation of this piece. However, I am sure that it evokes perspectives to question our existence and everything that has to do with our stiff placement in the world.
Do we stop? Or do we keep going in the direction which the water flows? If we decide to stop, will the water knock us down?