Melville's Short Novels: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

I enjoyed this book. It's interesting to read

I'd previously read the three short stories (calling them 'novels' is kind of silly) in this book several times over several decades, and I assume that would be the case for most people reading this book who aren't students using it in a class. They are very much worth revisiting again -- Billy Budd and Bartleby are the best things Melville wrote after Moby Dick and Benito Cereno is superb too -- but probably for most non-students the question about the Norton edition is how much value added the additional materials bring. I've been reading a lot of the Norton Editions of great books in recent years, around 15 or 20 of them now, and they all have brought quite a bit of value added. But I've found the extent of the value added by the Norton edition is critically dependent on the choice of editor, who seemingly has pretty much a free hand in selecting the background materials and critical essays and plays a very important role in deciding how diligent to be in providing important context and explanations in footnotes to the text of the books.The editor of this book, Dan McCall, did a great job. Excellent choice of background materials and critical essays and thorough footnoting of anything that might be questionable to a reader in the text of the stories. As a re-reader of these stories, I was particularly interested to discover sharp critical disagreement in interpretations of them that never would have occured to me. I had thought it obvious that Captain Vere in Billy Budd and the lawyer boss in Bartleby were fundamentally good men dealing as best they could with impossible situations. But, no, it turns out that the lawyer and Vere are viewed as villains by many critics. And this seems to turn in large part on political bent. Left wing professors just have a very hard time viewing a Wall Street lawyer or a military officer as good, well-intentioned people was the impression I got, so they interpret the texts in ways that make them ill-intentioned or cruel in their treatment of Bartleby and Billy. I didn't find their arguments at all convincing, but the arguments aren't frivolous, and it was interesting to learn about the existence of such a debate and hear both sides. Also quite interesting was the sharpness of the disagreement about whether Babo and his followers in Benito Cereno were portrayed as pure evil or were actually portrayed as heroic freedom fighters. Good arguments are made on both sides and probably the answer was ambiguous even in Melville's mind (Melville was completely open-minded about race after his experiences at sea and abhored slavery pre-Civil War, but it seems impossible to me not to feel a dark villainy in Babo's portrayal all the same even if objectively and morally his cause is just).

What I liked most about this excellent edition are the background and criticism on Melville's Bartleby The Scrivener. Editor Dan McCall chooses excellent essays that all support his view that the narrator, not Bartleby, is the hero of Melville's story. Some people would quibble that an editor should strive for objectivity and balance in their choice of material, but McCall is so persuasive in his choice of essays that Melville's odd little story about a very curious personality becomes a profound exploration about spirituality (or the lack thereof) in booming 19th century America.McCall shows that the central theme of Melville's story is charity and that Bartleby, though no Christ figure, is Christ-like in some of his behavior. McCall also shows Melville to be making jokes about cubicle and office humor long before such humor became popular in our modern America. But, most of all, McCall presents "Bartleby" as a story about the lack of spirituality and religion in a materialistic society. Any Christian will tell you that true charity begins with love of God and moves outward to connect with your fellow human beings. Without God or any concept of God, we all live lives of isolation. Your choices are the secular humanism of the narrator's three subordinates, the joyless asceticism of Bartleby, or the obtuse Christian humanism of the narrator. McCall insists that at least the narrator has a warmth and cheerfulness that are ultimately superior to Bartleby's isolation and misery. Bartleby is essentially a second rate monk, pitiful but not sympathetic.McCall's excerpts and materials on Benito Cereno are solid but a bit more predictable. He and his chosen critics follow the accepted notion that the slaves on board the San Dominick are representative of people's republics and popular revolutions throughout history. The moral of Melville's story is that popular revolutions begin with promise and hope but always result in broken promises and more violence. The American captain Delano represents the cheery, obtuse optimism of Americans toward popular revolutions. Melville's ultimate predicament is how to preserve political idealism after confronting the reality of political corruption and human depravity. Finally, McCall's excerpted writers reject the notion that Melville's story is racist or ignorant of then-contemporary debates about slaves' rights.As for Billy Budd, my biggest problem with this story is that Melville clearly left it unfinished at his death. Consequently, his intentions about the book's meaning are too unclear to make out. McCall brings in a diversity of writers and views, but the ultimate effect is to create more confusion then enlightenment. My favorite excerpt is Pauline Kael's review of the Peter Ustinov film version, not because of what she says about the film, but for her quick comparison of Billy Budd to Dostoyevsky's Prince Myshkin ("the Idiot") during the course of her review.What I got from McCall's excerpts and my own re-reading of the story is that Billy is supposed to represent some kind of political idealism. Melville seems to be observing that such idealism does exist in the world because it's a necessary ingredient for meaningful change in a corrupt and evil world. However, Melville is suggesting that maybe Billy and the values he represents have no place in our modern world at the present time. I might go further and say that Melville is saying that the conflict between good and evil is too disruptive. The only way to resolve it is to control it with military power and armed conflict--at least in the short time. We can only wait for the spirit of Billy--the spirit of peace and resolution--to return at some later date like some Messiah to deliver us from evil. Alas, we are waiting, we are still waiting...As you can tell, if you've read a lot of Melville and you're ready for a challenging read, buy this book and enjoy it. It's no introductory approach, but rather aimed squarely at the intermediate and advanced crowd.

Type is small.

Really--when Melville is good, he is very, very good, and these are among his most significant achievements aside from Moby-Dick. If you don't like him, fine. But he's the most important American novelist of all, and not to know him is not to understand one of the strangest minds in all of American letters. He never stopped striving to understand the world, and "Billy Budd" is about as good as anything America has ever produced as fiction--short or long. And if you want to know why "Bartleby" is part of the American cultural idiom, read it and find out. "Benito Cereno," with its deliciously ambiguous story and truly unreliable narrator, is as fresh a work of fiction as anything written today about race and privilege.

Got this for a university classexactly as stated

This book arrived quickly, very very quickly, in excellent condition, and made a terrific gift to my son who had just finished Moby Dick.

The Melville text is fine. The notes are somewhat condescending. The major problem is with the selection of secondary and supportive literature. I bought this, expecting to read essays on Melville by Thomas Mann, Hannah Arendt, Robert Lowell, Camus, et al. What I found was one page selections from these authors (in the case of Mann, just a few sentences saying he wished he had written as well as Melville - how is that informative or valuable in any way?). Sorry to have to say it, but the editor, Cornell professor or not, is an idiot, apparently. Will try to return this and get the Library of America edition which at least gives you more Melville for your buck.

Livre très sympa à lire, cependant je n'ai pas beaucoup aimé le fait qu'il y ait autant de références dans les nouvelles.. Sinon c'est un bon livre, je recommande, l'anglais est facile à comprendre.

Du 19eme siècle mais aux thèmes indemodables et actuels.Un peu moins d'affinités pour la première nouvelle qui est assez courte, par contre Beniton Cereno et Billy Budd Sailor sont super!Et à la fin du livre, une foule de critiques très interessantes pour mieux comprendre l'auteur et son style et ses nouvelles.Attention, le livre en photo n'est pas le même que celui reçu, mais il est bien en VO.