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rstadler 's review for:
Bartleby and Benito Cereno
by Herman Melville
I'm not sure how best to enter this since the book I read was two short stories. If they were thematically linked... I guess it was more or less lost on me.
Of the two I found Bartleby to be the more difficult read. Difficult in the sense that it didn't grab my attention. In both stories I feel like I only barely scratched the surface in my initial readings.
I'm not really sure what to make of Bartleby and his steadfast preferring not to. The narrator and his cast of variously incapable assistants make for interesting contrast to Bartleby the (initially) industrious scrivener but soon thereafter the imperturbable and undischargable burden. I suppose it might bear some further thinking about; considering what did the narrator owe to Bartleby that he so consistently failed to put him out, and even after trying to evade by simply moving out, he found himself trying to support Bartleby by financing a better food supply once at the Tombs (not of course that this mattered at all). The narrator seems to view himself quite charitably of course.
I don't know.
And Don Benito, along with the hapless American narrator and the kind of fascinating Babo, this was a pretty interesting read. I feel like it would do me well to read it again with a more careful eye... I'm not sure how to read Benito. The narrator seemed kind of bumbling. The relationship between Babo and Benito seemed pretty interesting and I'm guessing there is a lot more for me to tease out yet in thinking about it, and what else is suggested in their backstory and by the way that Babo haunts Benito until Benito's demise not long after.
Both stories were a bit dense as I guess is normal for Melville but it definitely seems like there's a lot that I'm just not quite getting in both of these. Maybe not getting at all, I could be nowhere close, but either way much more than I've understood so far.
Of the two I found Bartleby to be the more difficult read. Difficult in the sense that it didn't grab my attention. In both stories I feel like I only barely scratched the surface in my initial readings.
I'm not really sure what to make of Bartleby and his steadfast preferring not to. The narrator and his cast of variously incapable assistants make for interesting contrast to Bartleby the (initially) industrious scrivener but soon thereafter the imperturbable and undischargable burden. I suppose it might bear some further thinking about; considering what did the narrator owe to Bartleby that he so consistently failed to put him out, and even after trying to evade by simply moving out, he found himself trying to support Bartleby by financing a better food supply once at the Tombs (not of course that this mattered at all). The narrator seems to view himself quite charitably of course.
I don't know.
And Don Benito, along with the hapless American narrator and the kind of fascinating Babo, this was a pretty interesting read. I feel like it would do me well to read it again with a more careful eye... I'm not sure how to read Benito. The narrator seemed kind of bumbling. The relationship between Babo and Benito seemed pretty interesting and I'm guessing there is a lot more for me to tease out yet in thinking about it, and what else is suggested in their backstory and by the way that Babo haunts Benito until Benito's demise not long after.
Both stories were a bit dense as I guess is normal for Melville but it definitely seems like there's a lot that I'm just not quite getting in both of these. Maybe not getting at all, I could be nowhere close, but either way much more than I've understood so far.