Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville - Book Review

Note : I read the French translation of the novella

Afin de lire mon avis de lecture en français, cliquez ici

Publisher’s write-up (translated by me from the French edition):

‘The world described by Melville in this 1853 novella is already the world of ‘start up nation’, automation, surveillance, uberisation, the world of ‘bullshit jobs’, of open space, a world that is empty and impersonal, digitized and petrified in which all forms of resistance are criminalized. The world of copyright, the fast life of the megacity. To summarise, a mercantile world, brutal and closed, born during the first half of the 19^th century in Wall Street, and that which has become ours today. It is thus not surprising that ‘I would prefer not to’ is a slogan that was used by the protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement’.

Bartleby the Scrivener is a novella written by the American author Herman Melville, who is known for his novel ‘Moby Dick’. In this, Bartleby is a new scrivener employed by a Wall Street advocate who was at first impressed by Bartleby’s sincerity at work. However, little by little, he loses interest in everything and thus, always responded to every question or request with his famous phrase ‘I would prefer not to’.

Even though the novella was written two centuries ago, it is still relatable as mentioned by the publisher, that the text is still relevant in the world of Uber and ‘Bullshit Jobs’ (to read my review on Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, click here). Through this novella, the author had also shown the absurdities in the work environment, where the advocate did not lose anything even when Bartleby was doing nothing, never sacked him owing to sympathy and he was forced to eventually sack Bartleby not because of ‘cost cutting’ but because his reputation was being damaged in front of his clients who were observing that there was someone in the office doing nothing. If not for that, there was no impact in paying Bartleby for doing nothing.

The study of psychology and psychiatry was not that developed in the 19^th century but today, Bartleby might have been diagnosed as someone suffering from a severe depression. It was also a commentary on the American society of this era, where the a person’s profession defined who they were, which is even the case today where the society prefers a person who does some ‘work’ even though it is not useful for anyone rather than someone who does nothing (though the value added to the society in both these cases is nil). As mentioned earlier, there were many similarities between what was described in this novel and the 21^st century essay written by David Graeber on the phenomenon of ‘Bullshit Jobs’.

I would also add a point on the translation, I normally hate reading translations if I know the original language, especially in this case where the original language is my native language. However, the French translation was done very well and had a lot of footnotes which are required for the understanding of a 21^st century audience, for example, the book talks of a ‘dead letter office’, a concept which people are unlikely to be familiar with today, but, my French edition had a footnote explaining what it was and I could understand Bartleby’s plight further, thanks to that.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel, even though it was at times a caricature and the situation described by the author was an extreme and totally absurd, but still, sometimes it is these absurdities that help us think of more important questions on the society and the discussions that we need to have. On that note, I would award the book a rating of eight on ten.

Rating – 8/10

Have a nice day,
Andy