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A review by beepbeepbooks
Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories by Herman Melville
5.0
I've been reading this for so long it feels good to finally put it down. At the same time, with Billy Budd as the last part of the book, it's a real shame because these shorter works are really quite good. I still got a bunch of Melville to read, but these are really sharp exercises in prose.
Bartleby is undeniable. So funny so sharp and sad. Cements Melville's status as master in novel forms and short stories. But the rest of this collection is amazing. Billy Budd is fantastic, such a gripping novella about justice and history and the uniqueness of certain people. He's fascinated by the relation between truth and myth, and where the rational can be twisted into the transcendental and vice versa. Benito Cereno is filled with dread and horror, and even the Bell-Tower could bring shiver to your spines.
What is difficult about Melville is also what makes him so rewarding. His language doesn't flow, but is chunked and digressed, specified and generalized. In that sense his closest literary companion might be Balzac. Though the sea is his specialty, his ability to extrapolate beyond that to international law, racism, honor and conduct, is unbelievable. He's the goat!
Bartleby is undeniable. So funny so sharp and sad. Cements Melville's status as master in novel forms and short stories. But the rest of this collection is amazing. Billy Budd is fantastic, such a gripping novella about justice and history and the uniqueness of certain people. He's fascinated by the relation between truth and myth, and where the rational can be twisted into the transcendental and vice versa. Benito Cereno is filled with dread and horror, and even the Bell-Tower could bring shiver to your spines.
What is difficult about Melville is also what makes him so rewarding. His language doesn't flow, but is chunked and digressed, specified and generalized. In that sense his closest literary companion might be Balzac. Though the sea is his specialty, his ability to extrapolate beyond that to international law, racism, honor and conduct, is unbelievable. He's the goat!