The narrator of "Bartleby"

[alice wellintown]

>
> but still not sure I apprehend your full intent with the reference
When the lawyer narrator apprehends the meaning that is Bartleby, that
is, that Bartleby is or was his Humanity and that he Lost his Humanity
when he Lost Bartleby, it is too late.

Yes, too late, for this is not a Dickens story, though Bleak is the
House of Astor, black the Lords of Chancery,  Hard the Times for
workers...the ghosts will not save Scrooge and all who depend on his
being saved, for this is a Melville story, and so, we do better to
search the Americans: Irving is no Dickens and Hawthorne is no Scott.

Bryant's book, _Melville & Repose_, has been cited, so, we turn its
pages and find little on Bartleby, but what is there is quite useful,
for Bryant explains that instincts, Bartleby's and the Lawyers, are
the targets of an absurd comedy, the failure to find " ' a good and
natural arrangement ' " because there is "no middle way."

Actually, as in Pynchon, there is a middle way, but it is always just
out of reach or is discovered too late: Ah Bartelby/Humanity.


The Integration remains a secret one/pun.