Novellas usually focus on a situation, and Herman Melville’s most famous (and perhaps most successful) incursion into the genre is a magnificent example. The text bears as its title the protagonist’s name, but this figure is so enigmatic that we cannot justly call _Bartleby, the Scrivener_ (1853) a character study. The situation explored is extra-ordinary, yet simple: an employee refuses to do his job. Like most of the literary giants of the nineteenth century, Melville wrote a novel that secured him a place in the canon, _Moby Dick_ (1851), but he also produced exquisite novellas. Because our society values quantity, voluminous novels are often favored, but it seems to me that it is more difficult to produce a memorable novella than a memorable novel. _Bartleby_ is, if you ask me, just as impressive as _Moby Dick_; it simply has different narrative purposes.
_Bartleby_ is a psychological mystery that prefigures the work of Franz Kafka. Melville understands the anxiety of modern life, especially the form it takes in our cities. The novella’s subtitle is “A Story of Wall Street.” Bartleby is an ordinary man, just like Ivan Ilyich in that other famous novella (please see my review). It is not clear why the protagonist all of a sudden decides to rebel and reply to every request with, “I would rather not do it.” Can we even call them acts of rebellion? This is part of the mystery of Bartleby, and because the novella (unlike the short story) doesn’t rely on revelation, the mystery remains even after one has closed the book. Short stories and novels tend to answer the questions they raise; the novella simply enjoys raising questions. It is more often than not an open text, and there lies its charm: we may continue to discuss it, and as we do so we participate in the creative process. The narrator does not really tell us who Bartleby is. He lest us decide.
Whether conscious or not, Bartleby’s curt reply is a challenge to pragmatism and the Protestant work ethic, two of the tenets of American society. In a society that regards almost everything--including human beings--in terms of its practical value or usefulness, Bartleby makes himself useless. The year after the publication of _Bartleby_, Henry David Thoreau would write, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Bartleby incarnates this silent cry of despair.
Novellas, you will find, may often be described fairly in one short sentence. What is _The Death of Ivan Ilych_ about? It’s about a man who becomes aware of his mortality. What is _The Metamorphosis_ about? It’s about a man who tries to adapt after finding himself turned into a bug. This is also true of _Bartleby_, and of that other literary gem that is _Benito Cereno_ (1855). Both of these novellas are included in _The Piazza Tales_ (1856), along with three short stories and a collection of sketches on the Galápagos Islands. The novella is the genre of repetition and reexamination. We may feel the text has us going around in circles, and in a sense it does. The movement is circular, but we do not come back to the exact same place: the novella has a spiral structure. Bartleby repeats, “I would rather not,” but every time he says it it’s different.
I observed that the novella does not rest on a revelation. In the case of _Bartleby_, there is a revelation at the end, as the narrator tries to make sense of his unaccommodating employee, but rather than providing answers this revelation leads only to more uncertainty. The nucleus of the novella is unknowable. The novella is a series of conjectures that revolve around a void. The more we ask, the less we know.
_Bartleby, the Scrivener_ is one of the best American novellas ever written, by one of the American masters of the novella. It is no coincidence that a publishing house that focuses on the novella has chosen the name Melville House. And yes, they do have an edition of _Bartleby_. This novella is so refreshing within the Melville corpus that it will delight both lovers and haters of _Moby Dick_, for basically the same reasons. If you enjoy _Bartleby_, I recommend _Billy Budd_ and _Benito Cereno_, in that order.
Next on my list, Dostoevsky’s _Notes from Underground_ (1864).
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2021
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2019
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Francesca GarofoliReviewed in Italy on December 6, 2014
Tra uno e nessuno... Preferirei di no
