The tales in this selection of Melville's shorter works were all written after the publication of "Moby-Dick" and after "Pierre", his first commercial failure. They are products of Melville's complex imagination in its maturity, possessing the power of his earlier work. Included here are "Bartleby", "The Encantadas", "Benito", "Cereno", "The Piazza" and one of Melville's masterpieces, the posthumously published "Billy Budd, Sailor".

Customer Rating:
Summary: Juicy nuggets of goodness.
Comment: By a freak chance, this collection of stories was my first exposure to Melville. My impression was most favourable. Each of the stories here is eloquent and deep, whether it be a gazette-like overview of the Galapagos or the thrilling story of a revolt on a slaver-ship. Melville's style, wordy and full of Biblical diction, rang pretentious at times, even for 19th-century prose, but was over all delicious to read.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville show the great author at the top of his game
Comment: Herman Melville (1919-1891) is the great misunderstood and underappreciated genius of nineteenth century American literature. In Penguin's compilation of some of his best short stories we see his genius at full display of the authorial craft.
Billy Budd is the tale of an innocent naive young foretopman on a British ship during the time England fought Napoleonic France. A recent mutiny of British tars at Nore had recently been put down. Billy is picked on by the burly and crude John Claggart. In retaliation against Claggart young Billy hits the bully. Claggart dies and Billy is forced to undergo a drumhead court martial. Captain Vere is forced to execute Billy for mutiny even though he knows the lad is an innocent soul. This tale presents the reader with a moral dilemma. Should persons in authority be merciful or should they see that strict justice is accomplished.? Vere
(his name means "truth") is a complicated man. Billy Budd has been seen symbolically as a Christ figure beloved of the men aboard the ship upon which he serves. Composer Benjamin Brittain later turned this tragic tale into a successful opera. Billy is the innocent outsider who is a sacrifice to the realities of a tough world. I wonder if Melville who had lost a young son saw himself as Captain Vere and Billy as his deceased son?
Benito Cereno deals with a seizure of a slave ship by Africans on their way to America. The ship is commanded by Benito Cereno a Spaniard but when it encounters the American whaler ship under Captain Delano deception is planned by the slaves. Delano believes the ship is still led by Cereno only to learn he is a prisoner under the crafty slave Babo. Melville was against chattel slavery. The story is a complex examination into the stain of slavery and the deceptions we face in life.
Bartelby is an unusual story about a New York scrivener who labors in a laid back lawyer's office. Bartelby likes to say "I prefer not to..." in refusing to do certain duties he is asked to perform. He later is sent to the Tombs prison and dies. We learn he once worked in the dead letter office. Bartelby may be a portrait of Melville whose works were received as dead letters by the fickle public.
The Encatantas or Enchanted Islands is a series of vignettes of visits made to the Galapagos Islands. Melville considered penguins to be the most worthless animals on earth. There are also stories of shipwrecks and the strange flora/fauna of the islands. I found this story to be a delight.
The Bell Tower deals with an inventor who dies following making a clock striking device. The story is set in the Middle Ages and indicates the futility of human striving and creation.
The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Women is a slight tale of the joys of being a bachelor and the hades of women forced to worked in a paper mill.
Herman Melville is not an easy author to digest and understand. My few comments on these profound works only scratch a small surface of their
complex artistry. The reader who wants to understand Melville is invited to a lifetime of reading pleasure as the stories yield a multiplicity of
interpretations.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Masterpieces
Comment: There are two great masterpieces in this book, "Billy Budd" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener" ."Benito Cereno"is perhaps a third.
"Billy Budd" was Melville's last work of genius. It is a complex tale of Innocent and Evil, of the seemingly perfect and pure hero, Billy Budd, and his nemesis , the evil Claggart. In between and acting as judge but unable to prevent the tragedy is Captain Vere, the man of truth.
"Billy Budd" has always had me a certain enigmatic and troubling feeling. And despite sensing its greatness I have not identified with the work the way I always have with 'Bartleby the Scriver'.
In this tale the scribe who says "I prefer not to" and seems yet another variant of Lonely, Isolated , anomic Western Man( Dostoevsky's "The Underground Man" to Camus' "The Stranger) is at once infuriating, pathetic, and admirable. He is the American hero of Thoreau "hearing the sound of a different drummer". And yet he is the pathetic lonely figure similar to Gogol's Akaky Akakayevich in " The Overcoat".
His stubborness while driving us crazy, is somehow felt to be admirable , and a sign of his integrity. He somehow cannot be bought and co-opted.
Melville himself was too a lonely, lonely figure especially in the long years when he wrote no prose, worked in the New York harbor, and did not receive recognition for the masterpieces he had already written, including what most consider the greatest of all American Novels,"Moby Dick."

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Calvinism
Comment: This collection of short stories gives a very fair view of Herman Melville's literary capacities as well as his vision of the world and humanity.

In Billy Budd (BB) the main character 'Adam before the Fall' is a victim of natural human depravity.
Bartleby's (B) perfectly harmless passivity is the personification of humanity's lost hopes.
In 'Benito Cereno' (BC) the black revolt is crushed by 'superior' whites.
'The Piazza' is a description of a fairyland inhabited only by 'like some Tahiti girl'.
In 'The Lighning-Rod Man' (LR) the author doesn't need a lightning conductor, because 'In thunder as in sunshine, I stand at ease in the hands of my God.'
In 'The Bell-Tower' (BT) the great mechanician, the unblest foundling Bannadonna, wants to become a new Prometheus, 'man, the true God'. He is killed by his own robot. The whole tower crashes in an earthquake.
'The Encantadas' are 'Apples of Sodom'.

Herman Melville's worldview is that of a true calvinist. His religion is the dominant theme in these stories: 'All is owing to Providence' (BC), also the alleged superiority of the white man. After the Fall, man became naturally depraved. More, 'civilization is auspicious to depravity, because the latter can fold itself in the mantle of respectability.' (BB)
Melville's anti-rational, anti-scientific and anti-progress stance is clearly exposed in the fate of Bannadonna and his realisations(BT).

So, why should we still read an outspoken 19th century conservative author? Because Calvinism poses the fundamental question of evil-'owing to Providence'. Melville is obsessed by evil. For him, it is an irrational 'mystery, a matter for psychologic theologians.' (BB)

Melville is a master in staging characters driven by 'pale ire, envy, despair' (BB) or 'pride' (BT). The deception in BC is formidably sketched; the indomitable reaction of the stuttering Billy Budd is a lightning blow and the suicidal behaviour of Bartleby is baffling.
These are the main reasons why some of his stories continue to be fascinating reads.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the first rating!!!!!
Comment: Billy Budd is NOT a story of "good versus evil"! If you read it and only get that out, you're an idiot. Furthermore, this was Melville's very last work and was not found until after his death; it is heralded as being just as well-written and compelling as "Moby Dick". The ship is a microcosm for our world, and each character represents different people/ideas. It is not a story of protagonist and antagonist. Melville was not concerned with Claggart or Budd, but rather Captain Veere. Heck, just read until the court martial scene; you'll see.

In closing: Forget the loon who told you this book was nonesense. He/she apparently has never READ the book for UNDERSTANDING.

PS: I'm a college sophomore majoring in English. I should know what I'm talking about. Toodles.

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