![]() ![]() In this regard the story has broad appeal, just as it was intended to have: Melville originally wrote it for a magazine to make money after the critical and commercial failure of Moby-Dick, and in terms of his prose it at least has the vibe of a straightforward story, simply told. If you ever find yourself in a job you don’t especially like, but which you find it impossible to leave, you will find something to enjoy here. It’s about a certain kind of resignation which is not felt in terms of surrender but in terms of safety. It’s about the opposite of the ambition we are all supposed to nurture. Something of its popularity has to do with its form: it’s a short existential comedy about a strange man who will never leave his office it is not a million miles from the bits of Kafka that everyone knows about, and it’s not far removed from Seinfeld either. ![]() ![]() I don’t have any particular problem with this but it does mean the story now comes with baggage which is at least worth unpacking before we dispose of it altogether. You can buy t-shirts and coffee mugs with ‘I would prefer not to’ on it seems unlikely that most other characters from Melville’s other fiction could become currency in the same way. I’m sure that nobody could have predicted that a stage in the afterlife of poor Bartleby would be to become a semi-niche meme amongst literary millennials. ![]() Some words regarding the stories collected in this volume: ![]()
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