Then, still upbeat about the simplicity of the novella, I was sure that he was meant to be an Ironic figure, someone to be understood and assimilated. On second thought, with a slight sinking feeling, I felt he might be a Romantic figure, someone to be eulogized and applauded. Otherwise we are doomed to be Bartleby, dismantling ourselves little by little, uttering-in small “I prefer not to” portions-The Everlasting No.Īt first, as I tried to contain my surprise that Melville, who awed me in Moby Dick, was now writing with such humour and lightness, I felt that Bartleby was a Heroic figure, someone to be admired and emulated - and a welcome break from the complicated characters of the doomed ship. Either we reduce our personalities to caricature and numb ourselves through substance abuse (the clerks Turkey and Nippers) or we deceive ourselves through a pattern of benign neglect disrupted by fits of compassion (the Manhattan lawyer). I also marvel at the literary landscape which flows past the windows of this tale, for Bartleby, though it speeds non-stop from the village of Dickens to Kafka Terminal, yet gives us a glimpse of the cities of Dostoevsky and Zola, their chimneys darkening sunset in the hills beyond.īut the truth which haunts me is how precisely Melville delineates how we all survive-or do not survive-our workaday worlds. I think of Melville the prophet, warning of the starkness of the coming metropolis and the small brutalities of cubicle capitalism. I think of Melville the innovative writer, his popularity-and income-waning as his daring increased, contemplating the act of writing considered in itself as a bleak task performed for money. I think of Melville the sailor, accustomed to wide sea vistas and many sea duties, recoiling at the confined, reduced lives of New York City office workers. What a pleasure it is to return to a work of genius and find it inexhaustible! What a host of insights, what a web of subtleties, are contained within this short account of the breakdown of one man in a five man office!
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