This May Day I prefer not to....

[Mark Kohut]

The earliest gatherers, called out so quietly by a notice in Adbusters may not have had Bartleby in mind. 
So, no direct inspiration at the very start, maybe.

But, early in the Occupation, there was at least one major scheduled group reading aloud of Bartleby.

And, i must defend the enigmatic genius of Melville...he seems to have both invented and reflected and,
from lots of other work---not least Moby Dick and its madman-driven Ship of State---he could see at
deep resonant levels the economic and social situations of America.    

It IS Wall Street in that story. Bartleby resists in a way only genius could create in fiction then. 



----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: This May Day I prefer not to....

I somehow doubt theAtlantic writer's  premise that occupiers owe a debt of inspiration from this work. There are a limited range of forms of resistance and they can be found throughout history and literature.  That Bartleby represents something real I don't dispute, but whether Melville invented or reflected is impossible to say.  
On May 1, 2012, at 9:54 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> The Atlantic‏ @TheAtlantic
> #OccupyWallStreet owes a lot fo Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'