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A review by frodolives
Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville
4.0
As a reading experience this can perhaps be considered a form of torture because my man Herman never got a chance to finish it to polished standards so it kind of reads like scattered notes pasted together rather than a cohesive narrative and trying to decipher what the hell he’s on about in some parts can give you a headache BUT the prose still has its banger moments and the actual story here is just so incredible like I’m talking one of the most perfect and beautiful and haunting stories ever thought of and so calling this anything less than a masterpiece feels goofy as hell. Melville you really outdid yourself one last time, to know this was almost lost is crazy so it definitely feels like a gift to read even if it’s a bit annoying lol.
This is one of the rare instances I’d recommend checking out an adaptation alongside reading it because the man the myth the legend EM Forster helped write the Britten Opera and the basis of the 1962 film and they both do a pretty good job at making the story actually cohesive IMO and are just artistically interesting in their own right.
This is one of the rare instances I’d recommend checking out an adaptation alongside reading it because the man the myth the legend EM Forster helped write the Britten Opera and the basis of the 1962 film and they both do a pretty good job at making the story actually cohesive IMO and are just artistically interesting in their own right.