The People's History & the Cold War

alice wellintown alicewellintown at gmail.com
Thu Dec 22 08:54:31 CST 2011


> but such an approach preaches to the choir, whereas with Bartleby you
> tend to see the plights a little more winsomely...

Sermon, not uncommon in Melville's works, including Bartleby, is best
given to a congregation in need of awakening, to natural men, not to
choirs, but to converts.  But what is best is always ambiguous in
Melville.

 In Melville's works, and this is the case with our lawyer-narrator in
Bartleby, the sermons are either ironic distortions (like our Jesuit
in GR), like Father Mapples sermon, or misunderstood, Ishamel fails to
understand the sermon of the Black preacher in The Trap (contrast
Queequeg's walking out of the Whaleman's chapel with Ishmael's running
out of the African American church) and Stubb fails to understand the
Black Cook's sermon to the sharks.

It's not that there is no moral, no truth, but that the balck
unvarnished truth of the human heart is not something history can
touch.




>
> like (to expand, probably equally artlessly as on Zeitsuss), well -
> capitalism (as exemplified by the surroundings of Bartleby and the
> narrator dude) fails to satisfy all human needs
>
> or, maybe, there is something in a person that might be so uninspired
> by all the so-called opportunities afforded by his station in life,
> that he would value telling the truth - "I prefer not" - to the
> exclusion of any other response, even unto his own demise!
>
> so as we see the attempts on the part of the narrator-dude to shunt
> Bartleby into some kind of productive endeavor, the consistency of his
> responses finds a certain amount of agreement in the narrator and (in
> my case, anyway, somewhat grudgingly) in the reader.
>
>
> but is this any kind of inducement to anarchy?
> indeed, what is it?
>
> Is it a cautionary tale or reductio - fake some enthusiasm if you have to?
>
> Is it an indictment of capitalism - so uninspiring, when you ask
> yourself if you really care to do what it requires, that even an
> unseemly death is preferable?
>
> Is it a simple thought experiment in refusal?  seems a bit like the
> spirit of '68...
>
> Is the point that some people just can't adjust?  That sympathy is lost on them?
> or is the point that even sympathetic maneuverings within the
> heartless framework are powerlessness to overcome the negativity it
> can engender?
>
> I don't think it's any one thing, but it's a fertile tale, thought-wise...



More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list