Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville

Billy Budd and Other Stories Reviews

• 
  Roy Lotz

  For me, Moby Dick is compelling for its flaws as much as its genius. It is somehow both brilliant and overly-ambitious. One can feel, on every page, Melville straining to write something Miltonic, Shakespearean, even Biblical in its reach and power. But like some over-educated Icarus, his soaring flights of gorgeous prose are always followed by plunges into tedious pedantry. And yet, the book holds together, in part because Melville’s doomed stabs at greatness reveal him to be another Ahab, chasing the impossible. No other book better dramatizes the paradoxical fight to overcome one’s own nature.
  
  I add this little sketch of Moby Dick because I wanted to explain why that particular book is so special to me—and, by common consent, so much better than anything else Melville wrote. It is like an enormous spark, cast off by Melville’s throwing every bit of his intellectual weight against the rock of immortality. But when he set his sights a little lower, and his ambition is cooled, his defects as a writer come more fully into view. At least, that was my consistent impression as I made my way through these stories.
  
  The title piece of this collection has proven to be a challenge to editors. Written during the final years of his life, and published only decades after his death, the manuscript of Billy Budd was, apparently, disorganized and difficult to read. Given that it was left unfinished—and that Melville did not try to publish it—I think it would be uncharitable to judge it too harshly. Even so, I think even the most generous critic would call it uneven, awkward at times, and often infelicitously written. Yet as the story crescendos near the end, it achieves a striking and memorable beauty.
  
  Even so, I would rank “Bartleby” as the highlight of this collection. Written in the first person (which helps to dampen Melville’s tendency toward the fustian), the story almost seems to presage Kafka in its absurd premise. “Benito Cereno” is also a strong piece of writing, even though its racist treatment of the black slaves will likely unsettle the modern reader. And “The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles” almost reads ike Moby Dick in miniature, focusing on the Galapagos Islands rather than a white whale. I cannot say I cared much for the other stories in this collection.
  
  It is interesting to encounter Melville from the perspective of the present. Despite all the radicalism and experimentation in the century and a half since most of these tales were published, it is clear from reading Melville that the novel has become more, not less, rigid as a form. He puts so many things into his fiction—authorial comments, learned allusions, technical details, philosophic asides, naked moralizing—that just do not seem to belong there now. It often seems as though, for Melville, the story is merely a vehicle to convey his ideas. He was not trying to create the kind of immersive experience—like a movie playing in our heads—that we have come to expect from fiction.
  
  For my part, even if I found many pages of this collection to be tedious, dull, or clumsy, I still came away with a great deal to think about. And perhaps that is what Melville wanted most of all.
• 
  Jonathan

  This, ladies and gents, is what we call round these parts a darn good sentence:
  
  "By the side of pebbly waters--waters the cheerier for their solitude; beneath swaying fir-boughs, petted by no season, but still green in all, on I journeyed--my horse and I; on, by an old saw-mill, bound down and hushed with vines, that his grating voice no more was heard; on, by a deep flume clove through snowy marble, vernal-tinted, where freshet eddies had, on each side, spun out empty chapels in the living rock; on, where Jacks-in-the-pulpit, like their Baptist namesake, preached but to the wilderness; on, where a huge, cross-grain block, fern-bedded, showed where, in forgotten times, man after man had tried to split it, but lost his wedges for his pains--which wedges yet rusted in their holes; on,where, ages past, in step-like ledges of a cascade, skull-hollow pots had been churned out by ceaseless whirling of a flint stone--ever wearing, but itself unworn; on, by wild rapids pouring into a secret pool, but soothed by circling there awhile, issued forth serenely; on,to less broken ground, and by a little ring, where, truly, fairies must have danced, or else some wheel-tire been heated--for all was bare; still on, and up, and out into a hanging orchard, where maidenly looked down upon me a crescent moon, from morning."
  
  According to many reviewer on here and other sites such a sentence is "unreadable" or "meandering" or "too long and confusing".
  
  It is interesting (well, mildly interesting) to note how stating a text is "unreadable" (as though this was some sort of universal category into which it can be placed) allows one to deflect the potential damage to one's self-esteem in admitting the truer statement that one was unable to read it. The blaming of the text rather than admitting one's own limitations is usually also accompanied by a dismissal of any other reader who had a more positive view as being "pretentious", or somehow something performative designed to shape the way the reader is perceived.
  
  The idea that someone could read the above quote and receive nothing but sincere joy, genuine pleasure, from the reading, is rejected.
  
  I am not quite sure why I am writing this, other than that I am bored at work. I am growing increasingly convinced that no one reads these reviews anyway. I would be lying if I did not admit that part of the reason for writing them is my own thinking out loud, as well as the fact that I like typing word after word after word and seeing where they take me. The lure of the echo chamber remains.
  
  After all, this is Melville for god's sake. What on earth can I possibly add to the discussion?
  
  Anyway. All the stories here are well worth your time, particularly those (if you are anything like me) you may have read before and forgotten or never even heard of.
  
  Billy and Bartleby and Benito (he does like his "B" names!) are pretty damn essential reading.
  
• 
  Jonfaith

  Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
  
  Billy and Bartleby are old friends, portraits of bejeweled philosophy. Strange as it may appear, the selection which punched me in the jaw was Cock-A-Doodle-Do: a tale told by a fellow traveler (he drinks porter and reads Rabelais) about a magical fowl which is a fount of bliss, an actual agent of earthly happiness.
• 
  E. G.

  Introduction
  
  --Bartleby
  --The Piazza
  --The Encantadas
  --The Bell-Tower
  --Benito Cereno
  --The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids
  --Billy Budd, Sailor
• 
  Ben Winch

  Herman Melville – of course, it’s understood – was a genius, but I find his work difficult and, more importantly, not always enlightening. His prose, to say the least, is mannered and contorted; reading it can oftentimes seem like negotiating a thornbush. But at its root (and this is what makes the going slow, since I can’t simply push through without its grasping me) it’s strong, wedded to meaning as to earth, deep-reaching. As a prose-writer, then, Melville is dazzling, always sure of what he wants to say even as the twists and turns of his sentences make the likelihood of his having planned them slim, able to think on his feet, deft, agile, and most importantly, always alive-seeming, his effects all movement and indrawn-outdrawn breath, not the static wood-carvings of other mannered nineteenth century writers. That said, its the meaning – the roots of it all – where I take exception, or at the very least question what could possibly motivate the man, whose more obscure concerns seem rarefied at best and semi-autistic at worst, and when the message is clear (or seems so; am I missing something?), as in “Benito Cerino”, it’s so clear as to be confounding, because surely he couldn’t have required 100 pages just to tell us that, could he? (Where’s the mystery? Within ten pages everyone, surely, knows the score, except for his witless narrator. A nice trick, for ten pages.) Of course “Bartleby” is the exception, a masterpiece, but it makes me all the sadder when I can’t find that heft (or what seems to me heft; let’s just say a plane on which our concerns/perceptions can meet) in the other stories. Which is to say, so much of meeting, of seeing, of finding a book comes down to temperament, the author’s and the reader’s. It’s not just what Melville writes, or how he writes it, but why he does so, why he thinks it’s important. I may not grasp that why, may not be able to elucidate it, but I have to share a sense of it, an inkling. In Melville’s case, for the most part, I have an inkling, but not much more. Except for in “Bartleby”, never does he blow me over. The power of “Bartleby” comes from its being both a howl and a chuckle, and granted that’s a common theme here. But why’s he howling? I may come to grasp it; I’m not ruling it out. For now let’s just say he’s a genius, but not quite my kind of guy.
• 
  Czarny Pies

  Herman Melville est un de très grands romanciers de la littérature américaine. On trouve les plus examples de son genie dans ce livre. Billy Budd et Benito Cereno sont des chefs d'oeuvres incontestables mais il y a bien de bijoux dans cette belle collection qui represente beaucoup mieux le genie de Melville que Moby Dick qui est à mon avis sur évalué.
  
  Je recommende fortement aussi l'opéra de Benjamin Britten.
• 
  Adrian Alvarez

  I would prefer not to say what I thought.
• 
  Christine Norvell

  One of Melville's finest. I like to think it took his whole life to write this short piece because it condenses his finest diction, symbolism, and commentary on human nature. By story’s end, Melville’s descriptions have created a singular character of innocence, one he calls a “childman” of simple-mindedness. Every character who meets Billy knows that he has this unique and noble quality, though they each react differently to it. Many sailors love him, the Dansker mentors him, Vere fathers him, and Claggart destroys what he can’t become himself. Through all of these experiences, Billy remains distinctly human, for an innocent nature is not perfect.
• 
  Richard

  Otherwise known as "Billy Budd, Sailor", this, along with the other book, about the white whale, never brought fame to Herman Melville during his lifetime. In fact, "Billy Budd", a novella, started in 1886, was left unfinished at Melville's death in 1801, and was not published until 1924. Like "Moby-Dick", it contains elements from Melville's personal experiences aboard sailing ships in the Nineteenth Century, and plumbs the dark depths of human emotion.
  
  Billy is a strong, capable, cheerful and charismatic fellow who is happily employed as a seaman aboard the English merchant "Rights-of-Man" when the ship is boarded by a press gang on the high seas, from the Royal Navy ship "Bellipotent." This occurs during the early years of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1797. The Royal Navy was chronically short of manpower throughout this period, due not only to the need to fill crews for a hugely increased number of ships built for the war, but also to compensate for the constant desertions caused by the poor food, exhausting work conditions and draconian punishment served on the sailors as freely as their daily rum rations and dollops of figgy dowdy pudding on Sundays.
  
  Billy, true to his nature, performs his duties as foretopman cheerfully as a member of the "Bellipotent" crew after his impressment into the navy. He becomes an admired role model to all of the crew except one, the dastardly ship's master-at-arms Claggart, who apparently never met a saint he didn't hate. While remaining outwardly friendly to the gullible Billy, Claggart retains a growing hatred which culminates in a visit to the ship's commander, Captain Vere. Since Claggart's position on the ship is a sort of First Sergeant to the ordinary sailors, he is allowed to approach the Captain. He falsely tells Vere that Billy is involved in mutinous conversations with other crew members and urges Vere to take action against him.
  
  This is a very serious accusation to make against any sailor, but it was especially alarming at this time in history. It is no coincidnce that Melville picked 1797 as the date of the story. That was the year that the Royal Navy was beset by mutinies on ships and at its naval bases; the latter included the mutiny at Spithead and what became known as the "Great Mutiny at Nore." These disturbances were put down by force in some instances, and by promises by the navy to improve living conditions for sailors. Now the surviving mutineers could rest assured that their efforts were rewarded, with living conditions for sailors in the navy improving from intolerable to barely tolerable. Nevertheless, the officers on every ship in the Royal Navy at this time were extremely sensitive about hearing rumors of anything that sounded like mutiny.
  
  Captain Vere addressed this accusation by having Billy brought to his cabin to be confronted by Claggart's accusations. Billy was allowed to voice his defense after hearing the case against him. Unfortunately, Billy spoke in a stammer which caused him to be increasingly incomprehensible the more excitable he became, and he was virtually speechless. In his extreme frustration, he lashed out and struck a blow to Claggart's head. Claggart died on the deck of the ship almost instantly. Vere, aware that justice had been served on Claggart, spontaneously declared "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!" Pontious Pilate couldn't have said it any better.
  
  Vere almost immediately convenes a drumhead court martial on the ship to try Billy. This is a form of military summary court convened under field or sailing conditions. The court was presided over by three of Vere's officers. The deck was stacked against Billy, since the court's officers were commanded by the Captain and no defense counsel was provided. A case could be made that a trial could have been delayed until the ship returned to port, or to the remainder of the fleet, where other naval officers could be used. Nevertheless, the officers, especially the Royal Marine commander, were fair in their personal assessments of the justifiability of Billy's actions. Couldn't a finding of guilt with extenuating circumstances be rendered? Vere, in a meeting with the three officers, reminded them that it was their duty to observe the law, in particular the Articles of War (which prescribed a mandatory sentence of death for such crimes as mutiny; deliberate burning of a ship; murder; and buggery or sodomy of man or beast), and that swift and decisive action to acquit or condemn was required. In the case of the former, they were told to consider the possible encouragement a finding of not guilty would have on other mutiny plotters.
  
  The court of course felt it had no choice but to find Billy guilty, and he was ordered to hanged from a yardarm at dawn the next morning. As the time approached for Billy to be taken up on deck for his execution, the ship's chaplain kissed him on the cheek. Billy's last words were "God bless Captain Vere" as the sun's rays shot through the clouds to create "a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God" when he was hanged.
  
  Waves of danger and anger break over this well told story. Its meaning can be considered from different perspectives. Frederick Busch, in his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, describes the story as allegory for, first, the Christian Passion, and second, for the anguish Melville felt in his own life after the (apparent suicide) death of his son in the Melville home. Captain Vere can be seen as a father figure. Later in the novel, Vere is mortally wounded in a sea battle, and he dies with the name of Billy Budd on his lips. It can also be seen as a an example of the realities that the condition of war means that individual lives are expendable in pursuit of greater ends; and that the preservation of individual human rights are sometimes sacrificed by institutions when they feel themselves in peril.
  
  Melville's motivation may also be driven from the need to air examples of man's inhumanity to man that occurred in his own life. Ian W. Toll, in his excellent "Six Frigates" (W.W. Norton & Company, 2006, p. 474) notes that Melville enlisted as an ordinary seaman on the United States Navy frigate "United States" in Honolulu in 1843. There were 163 reported floggings on the ship during the fourteen months he spent there, an example of extreme naval discipline still in use 46 years after the events in "Billy Budd." Toll connects these experiences with the stories told in Melville's novel "White-Jacket" and "Billy Budd."
  
  
• 
  Adam

  Like the tell-tale stripe in the King's rope, Melville's yarns are spun with a distinctive thread of cantankerousness, misanthropy, and all-around fuck-offishness. His prose, piling clause upon clause, preserves the torturous process of writing and the private gnashing of obscurity. He wrote what he knew and made absolutely clear that a writer's job is to make the reader know it just as thoroughly. To give it all away, the ship (or whatever) is a mere pretext for examining The World. Each story contains its fair share of rambling, usually at the beginning as the situation is being laid out in pedantic details not to be appreciated until later, an awkward and laborious mobilization of a mass of material. The reader has to shoulder this burden and push on if they are to earn the rights of insight. And Melville's eye has not dimmed: anyone can portray a character, but Melville can tell what makes characters people--trapped, complex, contradictory people. Building and springing these traps, tracing the complexities, and lavishly embroidering the contradictions are Melville's metier. It's good for us that he knew it better than his era.
• 
  Bartleby

  I am looking at the river, but I am thinking of the sea...
• 
  Ben

  Ever since I read Moby-Dick for the first time last year, I’ve held Herman Melville in high esteem, and have been eager to read more of his work. I expected to like this a lot, but my experience reading his selected short stories was average at best. In spite of this, it was still an insightful one.
  
  It brings me no pleasure to deride a writer that I once loved, but I must do it. To appreciate Melville properly, one has to look at him in the context of his time. Part of the reason that Moby-Dick is hailed as such a seminal text is because, taken in its context, it was doing something that no book had ever done before, nor has ever done since. It is a searing epic of the soul that has the capacity to challenge and enrich its reader. Its inspired prose held me in thrall throughout, and I even endured its tangents with relish. Most of these stories, on the other hand, did not connect with me in the slightest. I will chalk this up to fatigue; having recently read and reviled The Scarlet Letter, I think I am tired of the trite writing of white-men living in the mid-1800s. It's not you, Melville, it's me.
  
  I will be sure to re-read some of these stories at some point, and hope that when I do, they will resonate with me in the way that Moby-Dick once did, and still does.
• 
  Boukhalfa Inal Ahmed

  Un livre intéressant! A découvrir.
• 
  Matt

  
  "Billy Budd", as far as I'm concerned, was an airball. A good attempt but it just came up short. The language fairly throttles the story, which is insightful and compelling.
  
  "Bartleby" is a masterpiece. So applicable to today's culture- passivity, negative capability, the ravaging effects of routine, capitalism, The Law, resignation, nothingness. "I would prefer not to".....Brilliant!
  
  "Benito Cereno" is an excellent moral parable about racism, which again I felt was slightly ruined by the voluminous detail (there's such a thing as too much, you know) and over-elaborated plot and storytelling. One could cut about twenty pages from it and I think the narrative would come shining through. Very interesting especially when applied to Hegel's master/slave dialectic....where the slave is REALLY the one in charge, since without him the master's nothing....!
  
  "The Encantadas" I picked up by chance in a bookstore one day and was quickly drawn in. Hypnotic, mediative, surreal, cinematic. Luminous. A slow dream, with travelogue and mystical ruminations for the mind's eye to follow.
• 
  Lindsey

  Melville's syntax can be a pain, but he is nonetheless a great writer who is very aware of the larger issues in society.
  
  Benito Cereno and Bartleby are absolute masterpieces, though Billy Budd is a phenomenal critique on law and human rights as well. Regarding Benito Cereno, I think it offers society a realist's gaze to slavery and slave revolts, which 19th-century America failed to understand. The response to violent and brutal slave revolts, like the Haitian Revolution, are not Uncle Tom's Cabin, which show slaves as colonized, Christianized people. Instead, slaves are rightfully angry and vengeful; they are also intelligent enough to play the white man and his ignorance for fools. While some might say that Benito Cereno fails to condemn racism, I would say Melville's satire, irony, and mockery went directly over their heads.
• 
  Kristopher

  These stories are dense, yes, but reward upon further readings. Particularly, the title story will give you quite a bit to think about if you allow it. When you read these, think of the nature of evil, the nature of ambiguity, the nature of interpretation. And plan a rereading.
• 
  lol

  this was some gay ass shit
• 
  Aaron Arnold

  I'm glad that Moby Dick isn't the only good thing Melville ever wrote - after having finally actually read it, it was great to be reminded how satisfying it is when something that's been endlessly lauded manages to live up to that reputation. Melville's short stories don't have the iconic status that Moby Dick does, but no one capable of turning out that masterpiece could fail to show some signs of that talent for exploring human nature in his lesser works, and there's plenty for anyone who likes his distinctively discursive but acute style to enjoy here. "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "The Encantadas", and "Benito Cereno" are excellent, with other stories like "Billy Budd, Sailor" still being highly enjoyable.
  
  - "Bartleby, the Scrivener". This is possibly the greatest story ever written about the importance of an HR department, as well as a good look at how people cope with the inexplicable in their daily lives. It reads like a 19th century ancestor of the movie Office Space, with the title character's battle cry of "I would prefer not to" encapsulating the oppressed office drone's secret wish of being able to assert at least some volition in a world of meaningless drudgery. That Bartleby was driven into his catatonia of productivity by working in a dead-letter office before his scrivener position in the law firm prefigures a surprising amount about the modern workplace, and the mysterious inability of the unnamed narrator to just fire Bartleby and replace him with someone more like his other copyist assistants is also pretty interesting: when an immovable object like Bartleby drops into your life, what do you do, and what does that say about your management style? A management consultant might have a lot to say about the impact of one bad apple on teamwork and productivity; most other people will identify either with the narrator's inexplicably determined kindness, or Bartleby's justified horror of scrivening and steadfast determination to do his own thing.
  - "The Piazza". I read this as a straightforward study in perception vs reality wrapped in parody of pastoralism. Behind the dense, Shakespearean verbiage, the difficulty the narrator and Marianna have communicating about what they each see as desirable is a good, if somewhat anodyne elaboration on "the grass is always greener".
  - "The Encantadas". One of Melville's great gifts is how good he is at turning something insanely boring into a riveting, almost hypnotic journey. This starts off as a series of "sketches" of Galapagos-ish islands, with Melville seemingly determined to describe every rock and tortoise in ten thousand leagues, but slowly he builds it up until you find yourself actually enjoying things like his slurs on that noble avian the pelican:
  
  "But look, what are yon wobegone regiments drawn up on the next shelf above? what rank and file of large strange fowl? what sea Friars of Orders Gray? Pelicans. Their elongated bills, and heavy leathern pouches suspended thereto, give them the most lugubrious expression. A pensive race, they stand for hours together without motion. Their dull, ashy plumage imparts an aspect as if they had been powdered over with cinders. A penitential bird, indeed, fitly haunting the shores of the clinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented Job himself might have well sat down and scraped himself with potsherds."
  
  The nature descriptions alone would be fine, the envy of travel writers everywhere, but eventually he gets to the adventures of the visitors and inhabitants of the islands and it gets really good. Melville is always very interested in how human nature deals with nature nature, and I see this as a response to the "state of nature" philosophy like Hobbes's work that was so popular in the 18th century. He spends so much time describing how miserable and hellish the islands are so that you're hardly surprised that human beings use them for murder, piracy, slavery, and all that other fun stuff in the sixth through ninth sketches. In particular, the eighth sketch about the marooned newlywed who's lost her husband, brother, and most of her dogs would make the whole story worth the read by itself.
  - "The Bell-Tower". A criticism I had with this one is that Melville tips his hand too early that Banadonna, the chief horologist who's seeking to create the finest clock tower in Italy, is up to something sinister and hubristic. It's fine to drop Tower of Babel allusions on the first page (his creation of the servant automaton Haman also obviously parallels Frankenstein), but the continuous reminder that something about the project is off got a bit repetitive, and made the comeuppance ending anti-climactic.
  - "Benito Cereno". In contrast, this was a fantastic case of well-built tension, where the hints of something amiss actually worked well. A big challenge for an author is to let the reader know things the characters don't from the first person without just coming out and saying so. American captain Amasa Delano's rescue of Spanish captain Benito Cereno's seemingly weather-damaged slave-ship proceeds through a lot of curious incidents, but while the Big Clues in "The Bell-Tower" were clumsily telegraphed, in this story Delano's attempts to rationalize away Cereno's odd behavior in the presence of his sinister "assistant" Babo are actually pretty psychologically revealing. Just like in "Bartleby", when confronted with unusual situations, people with power and authority are just as susceptible to strange lapses as anyone. The contrast between Delano's assessment of the character of the ethnicities and their actual capabilities is another example of skillful ironic juxtaposition, and the climactic reveal of the other meaning of the "follow your leader" slogan is also well-done.
  - "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids". An extended analogy about sexism which boils down to: sucks to be a woman. He contrasts the lavish lifestyle of London lawyers with the grim existence of mill-workers, about which you could probably write some good essays for a gender studies course, or about how different social classes spent the Industrial Revolution.
  - "Billy Budd, Sailor". Cobbled together from draft notes dating from 40 years after Moby Dick, and very reminiscent of its more famous older brother, this is an entertaining but somewhat odd story of a sailor who ends up on trial for a murder at sea. Set in the immediately pre-Napoleonic era following famous British naval mutinies, this is apparently often cited in Law and Literature-type classes for passages like the following, which somewhat reminds me of the parts in Heinlein novels where he'd go off for a few pages about how great military discipline is:
  
  "We proceed under the law of the Mutiny Act. In feature no child can resemble his father more than that Act resembles in spirit the thing from which it derives - War. In His Majesty's service - in this ship, indeed - there are Englishmen forced to fight for the King against their will. Against their conscience, for aught we know. Though as their fellow creatures some of us may appreciate their position, yet as navy officers what reck we of it? Still less recks the enemy. Our impressed men he would fain cut down in the same swath with our volunteers. As regards the enemy's naval conscripts, some of whom may even share our own abhorrence of the regicidal French Directory, it is the same on our side. War looks but to the frontage, the appearance. And the Mutiny Act, War's child, takes after the father. Budd's intent or non-intent is nothing to the purpose."
  
  Even though I liked the story for the most part, there's a weird tone to the whole thing, in particular the constant reminders of how good-looking and Christ-like the title character is to the rest of the crew, that keeps this from being truly great, especially in comparison with Moby Dick. Budd is no Ishmael, Captain Vere is no Ahab, the central impulsive crime that Budd is tried for lacks the resonance of Ahab's obsession, there's a closing "what really happened here?" section that doesn't add much thematically, and just in general this can't help but suffer in comparison. In part this is due to its unfinished nature, however it's still well-written in typical Melville style, and he never forgets to leave you with thoughtful metaphors for his themes:
  
  "Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will undertake, though for a fee becoming considerate some professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay."
  
  Good stuff.
• 
  Joelle

  Joelle Still Reads Her Bookcase #3
  
  I read Billy Budd in highschool, but I realized I've never read the other stories in this collection. I enjoyed Melville, and it was a good introduction to his work before I tackle Moby Dick.
• 
  Ashley

  LOVED Bartleby and Billy Budd. The Encantadas was not my favorite, and it made me sad to see all the murdered turtles, so that's why I'm giving the book as a whole a 4.
• 
  Chadd VanZanten

  Not super-epic, but a satisfying glimpse into nautical operations, politics, and justice.
• 
  Abbie O'Hara

  I liked The Bell Tower, but only because it was gothic and Frankenstein-esq and very different from the tone of Melville’s other works
• 
  Lani

  Melville writes beautifully. His descriptions at times are near poetic yet concise. I thoroughly enjoyed every story included in this book; however, I didn't like the format of a bunch of random tales told in regards to the volcanic isles in the short, "The Encantadas", and this one was also a bit too eerie for me. But as it was intended to be on the creepy side, Melville delivered. "The Bell Tower" could have been a bit better developed, in my opinion, but if it had had more length, the maybe it could have been. It was a clever idea, though, with a very logical conclusion to the mystery. All in all, this book is worth reading.
• 
  sologdin

  the reason that bartleby's employer can't fire his unionizing ass is because, duh, "I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus," which very plainly signifies that narrator was getting porked regularly by employee.
  
  the antagonist of 'billy budd' has a well-known 'natural depravity,' and the 'paradise of bachelors,' filled with phallic iconography, is hardly opaque.
  
  i.e., am sensing a pattern here.
• 
  Bill Leigh

  Brilliant stories, fables almost. After reading 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' the expression "I would prefer not to" will never sound quite the same again. There is a mysterious sense of power and doom in Melville's writing quite unlike anything I've read before, except perhaps the Bible and Shakespeare. Reading Billy Budd is a almost a religious experience. Billy's cry of "God bless Captain Vere!" still resonates a sympathetic echo.
• 
  J. Aleksandr Wootton

  The stories in this collection are superb, but you have to really enjoy reading, the act itself. Melville likes to use five paragraphs where one would do, were merely advancing the story his goal; his command of language is poetic in every sense save brevity.
• 
  Ron Jon

  Gru abruptly turned around to survey the restaurant, and barked out an order to the minions.
  
  "Vring him here! To zhat table!" Gru barked as he pointed at a large, empty table. The minions babbled and seized Spongebob and hoisted him to his feet before throwing him down on the table.
  
  Gru had grabbed some rope in the struggle and bent over Spongebob's body, putting his full weight on Spongebob. His crotch prodded against Spongebob's stomach and a curious sensation was being aroused in Spongebob. Gru tied the rope to the table, and around Spongebob's arms. Before long, Spongebob was restrained to the table by all his limbs.
  
  Gru stepped back to observe Spongebob and to ensure that he wasn't going to escape from his restraints. The minions eagerly crowded around Gru's legs and babbled excitedly.
  
  Gru's hands moved down towards his pants and started to unbuckle his belt. Spongebob's eyes widened and he started thrashing and screaming for help, help that was never going to come.
  
  As he was struggling against his restraints, Spongebob's eyes met Squidward's and he had also started desperately trying to free himself. His screaming was muffled against the gag and tears had started streaming down his face again.
  
  Gru's pants were now around his ankles, and his p***s now bulged against his thin underwear. A bush of pubic hair faintly curled outside of his briefs. His eyes had never once left Spongebob's still thankfully covered lower half.
  
  Almost as if he read Spongebob's mind, Gru suddenly stepped forward and quickly ripped Spongebob's underwear in half. He had moved so fast that Spongebob didn't have time to scream before Gru slapped his hands over Spongebob's mouth.
  
  Gru groaned and grinded his body against Spongebob's, now naked, completely exposed and tied up.
  
  Spongebob whimpered as Gru put his lips next to Spongebob's ear. He licked his earlobe and breathed heavily, as he grinded his d**k harder against Spongebob's tiny body.
  
  "So hot and tight, aren't you?" Gru moaned huskily.
  
  "You a virgin?" Gru asked, leaning back to see Spongebob's face. An evil grin slowly spread across Gru's face at Spongebob's lack of response.1
  
  "Oh ho ho ho, is it my birthday?" Gru chuckled darkly. Spongebob cringed and began to cry harder. Was this how he was going tolose his virginity? He had always dreamed of losing it to Squidward, as his tentacly arms held Spongebob and sweetly, gently, made love to Spongebob. Now this strange man and these creatures were going to...r**e him? This couldn't be happening.
  
  The minions had been watching Gru and Spongebob, completely enraptured. Their eyes were wide with wonder and some of them had hands down their pants, playing with themselves. Soft little moans arose from some of their mouths.
  
  Gru lowered his face to Spongebob's groin, and smiled up at him.
  
  "I'm feeling generous, little sponge. I'll suck you dry, don't vorry." Gru said lustfully.
  
  Gru took Spongebob's little cock into his mouth and began sucking. He could taste the burgers Spongebob the Slut ate all day long. Spongebob whined, but those whines slowly changed to moans as Gru began running his tongue across the tip of his cock.
  
  A knot began forming in Spongebob's stomach and his cock began twitching. Gru smiled, still with Spongebob's cock down his throat. Spongebob moaned as burger juice shot down Gru's moist throat. Spongebob felt like he was in heaven.
  
  Gru drew his mouth away and strings of burger juice connected his mouth to Spongebob's slimy, half-erect cock. Gru suddenly forced Spongebob's mouth open and spat out the remaining cum directly into his mouth.
  
  "Taste your cum, leetle sponge." Gru smirked evilly.
  
  Spongebob's eyes widened as Gru forced his mouth shut and forced him to swallow it. Tears welled in Spongebob's eyes as the sour burger-juice taste of his cum went down his throat.
  
  Gru released Spongebob's mouth and stepped backwards. He started taking his underwear off, and his 40-inch cock was released from its cage. Spongebob's eyes almost popped out of his sockets.