After reading my first story of Herman Melville, ‘I would prefer not to’ post an opinion, I thought, as I turned disconcerting after ending this. The author played tricks leaving me with an addled brain!
But I have to say something anyway. Because I enjoyed every bit of this story till the last two pages, every line of this story, I cherished indeed. No flaw anywhere. I am very much impressed with the authors’ style of narrating an extraordinary story, drawn from such ordinary and quotidian affairs around the life of an elderly lawyer. It was remarkable. He used extremely simple prose yet there was a striking charm in it. I was not at all irritated by that constant “I would prefer not to,” phrase emanating from that befuddled scrivener named Bartleby. Indeed this phrase was the all-pervading conundrum throughout the story. This phrase wooed me to the end.
But, last two pages spoiled everything for me. Herman Melville, perhaps, in my opinion, could not finish it well. And ‘I would prefer not to’ hesitate in saying this. I tried to read two-three times the last two pages, but I could not extract the purport clearly. It was ambiguous. All readers can take in their own sort of learning but I was not impressed with the ending. Some will say it was about human psychology associated with those dead letters, some will talk about the behavioral dynamics of human relations in professional and personal capacities, but for me as a reader who read it to the end in one go, in an expectation of a thrill, thrill I am saying at least in my own sloppy literary sense. It put the lid on those expectations and thus it hampered my overall reading experience.
Scrivener is a historical term, which means either a clerk or a notary, as you see them in a lawyer’s premises. The narrator who is an elderly lawyer says that he will waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby. He was the strangest among all, the lawyer further said. With this sort of statement, the author made a curious case for the reader. Turkey, Nipper, Ginger Nut, and Bartleby, were the names of the fellowmen this elderly lawyer was associated with. An interesting way of telling the attributes of his employees, I admired. Ginger Nut was a lad of 12 he did not in the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It involuntarily rolled from his tongue.
When his strangest scrivener Bartleby stop heeding any attention to his orders, he describes him as,
“He had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as a necklace but afflictive to bear.
Bartleby, The Scrivener
Though most readers will find that the most strange fellow in this tale, was Bartleby, don’t you think this elderly lawyer was no less strange. How much tolerance he had, so much sympathy! Had I been in his place I would have thrashed this befuddled fellow Bartleby even in the beginning, tho I should also admit that towards the end I could have regretted my act!
Apart from self-seclusion and the self-destructive feelings of loneliness, that had been probably portrayed by the author through this tale, I felt this was more about handling a disinclined psyche in the social fabric when the case is almost obstreperous to handle through human maneuvers! However, this story is a unique one and definitely deserves to be read once by all short story aficionados out there! The story is well written. It is intriguing, moving, and tricky as well.
“Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. “
― Herman Melville
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