Far from being a dutiful, pliable assistant, Bartleby is a man with an iron will – and he’s not exactly afraid to say no to tasks he doesn’t like the sound of…īartleby, the Scrivener is a short tale, but one that’s very cleverly constructed. Very soon, however, the lawyer discovers that his new employee is not all that he seems. Initially, the newcomer fits in well, his quiet industry actually making him preferable in many ways to the slightly flawed characters who share his work.
I can see that figure now – pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. With an increase in work and, in pre-photocopier days, a need for another hand to write out fair copies of contracts, the lawyer decides to add to his merry crew, with help soon arriving: While his office is a step up from its Dickensian equivalents, it’s still rather dingy and devoid of sunlight, and our friend’s description of his work environment, and the two-and-a-half men who assist him, feels very familiar to those raised on all things V-Lit. Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivenertakes us back to nineteenth-century New York, where an amiable lawyer makes a comfortable living in the bustling American metropolis. Here, then, is a review of a short, classic tale, one which will be familiar to different readers for different reasons – whatever their preference… That’s something I plan to redress next year (one a month should be possible, surely?), but with a few weeks of the year remaining, let’s see if I can start on that idea now. Once again, this has been a big year for fiction in translation on Tony’s Reading List, to the extent that reviews of books which were originally written in English have hit an all-time low.
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