Scan barcode
A review by nathanlovejoy
Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville
5.0
The three portraits—of Billy Budd the good-natured peacemaker, of Starry Vere the discerning captain, and of Claggart the dastardly master-at-arms—are vivid and (impressive in so brief a book) sufficiently detailed as to elevate the characters beyond mere types. Much as in a longer maritime work of his, Melville is generous with his erudition, and patient readers of Billy Budd will walk away better informed about Horatio Nelson, the layout of a man-of-war ship from the late 18th century, not to mention topics ranging from Calvinistic predestination to phrenology.
I appreciated the narrator’s drawing our attention to something like the military-industrial complex; lantern oil aboard the Bellipotent is supplied by “the war contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death).” I likewise enjoyed his Pavlovian description of the crew’s obedience: “True martial discipline long continued superinduces in average man a sort of impulse whose operation at the official word of command much resembles in its promptitude the effect of an instinct.”
I was occasionally bogged down in the effort to parse Melville’s double and even triple negatives. What, for example, are we talking about when a sentence begins, “Unlike no few of England’s renowned sailors…”? I took “no few” together, reading it to mean the same thing as “Unlike quite a few…” but it’s hard to say, and there are more negatives waiting in the following clause. By and large, though, I cannot not not not love the baroque extremes of his language, as at the moment Claggart’s eyes, “those lights of human intelligence, losing human expression, were gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the deep.”
And on the grander scale, Billy Budd is excellent tragedy. The “natural depravity” of Claggart is Iago-like. Starry Vere and the lieutenants are constrained by law, duty, and the political climate to make decisions that offend their own senses of justice and compassion. Billy Budd, for his part, is the Handsome Sailor who does right by all yet is not loved by all, since these haters, you know, they can't stand to see a good man winning.
I appreciated the narrator’s drawing our attention to something like the military-industrial complex; lantern oil aboard the Bellipotent is supplied by “the war contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death).” I likewise enjoyed his Pavlovian description of the crew’s obedience: “True martial discipline long continued superinduces in average man a sort of impulse whose operation at the official word of command much resembles in its promptitude the effect of an instinct.”
I was occasionally bogged down in the effort to parse Melville’s double and even triple negatives. What, for example, are we talking about when a sentence begins, “Unlike no few of England’s renowned sailors…”? I took “no few” together, reading it to mean the same thing as “Unlike quite a few…” but it’s hard to say, and there are more negatives waiting in the following clause. By and large, though, I cannot not not not love the baroque extremes of his language, as at the moment Claggart’s eyes, “those lights of human intelligence, losing human expression, were gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the deep.”
And on the grander scale, Billy Budd is excellent tragedy. The “natural depravity” of Claggart is Iago-like. Starry Vere and the lieutenants are constrained by law, duty, and the political climate to make decisions that offend their own senses of justice and compassion. Billy Budd, for his part, is the Handsome Sailor who does right by all yet is not loved by all, since these haters, you know, they can't stand to see a good man winning.