The People's History & the Cold War

[alice wellintown]

Like Bartleby, the lawyer narrator also loses his job to the politics
of Washington and Albany.  His loss of income does not equal
Bartleby's loss of income, but his losses are as great, moreover, one
could certainly argue that his losses are greater, for like the
letters that cannot be delivered, and are burned by Bartelby at the
DLO, our narrator cannot be delivered and is burned because he fails
to deliver Bartleby. On Melville's Wall Street, the Cross, while it
still has a Y axis, delivers one on the Democratic X axis when one
delivers and is in turn is Delivered by one's brother in labor. Who
ain't a slave? One could certainly argue that Bartelby's passive
resistance is mocked by the author. Melville did not live at the end
of Emerson's rainbow nor swing in Thoreau's halter; he knew, too,
because of the politcs of his brother and his father in law, the
events that exploded on his door step, his experiences on ships (see
"The Town Ho's Story in Moby-Dick), that anarchy, resistance, passive
or armed, like the red hand hammering the red flag to Pequad's mast,
would save but one castaway, one orphan,  and He alone would live to
tell ye.

Clarel is a slog; we read it and Battle Pieces on Ishmail.