Poet Gentleness's Reviews > Bartleby and Benito Cereno

I absolutely loved reading Bartleby. I haven't had the opportunity of reading Melville's novels before and I was greatly impressed by his work.
I cannot do this review without spoiling quite completely the story. So, be warned! ;)
(view spoiler)[Bartleby, the scrivener is an enigma from the beginning to the end of the novel. The story that is being told by a supposed second character, the lawyer, in his limited first person POV, is supposed to be about him, Bartleby but in the end turns out to be about the misunderstanding of a relationship and the difficulty of society in dealing with mental illness.
Professional relationships are sometimes even more closer and deeper than personal relationships. We spend hours - awaken hours - working, eating, drinking and even partying with our colleagues. If counted in hours, most of the personal relationships we have are less longer, in those terms, than working relationships.
But Bartleby has no relationships! How can Bartleby be without relationships when he works with more 4 persons, in the same room that turned out to be his house? And, more, his weird behavior determines and affects all the persons in the lawyer's office and his partners outside it. His answer to the lawyer's requests, I would prefer not to, spreads throughout the office as a plague, turning what was already a weird place into a chaotic, surreal office.
His extremely polite, negative answers create discord between the narrator and his other employees. When it culminates in no answers at all, as Bartleby turns into a shocking silent breathing statue in the middle of the working office, a supreme force against the changes, the new, the future as he alienates himself from the world in a clear mental illness, it creates discord with his business partners. It's then that the financial abuse and total neglect of the lawyer in understanding and in communicating with Bartleby, show themselves.
The lawyer, to rid himself of Bartleby's presence, moves to another office and leaves a stationary, autist Bartleby to his own luck, to his unchangeable, almost unstoppable I prefer not to. (hide spoiler)]
Now, that I have told you almost the whole story, go read the book to know how its end if you haven't already guessed!
Enjoy! ;)