275: Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Summary

Summary of Classical Stuff You Should Know - Episode 275: Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Classical Stuff You Should Know
• Hosts: A.J. Hanenburg, Graeme Donaldson, and Thomas Magbee
• Episode: 275: Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"
• Release Date: March 4, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 275 of Classical Stuff You Should Know, hosts A.J. Hanenburg, Graeme Donaldson, and Thomas Magbee delve into Herman Melville's classic short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener." Intended as a precursor to their upcoming discussions on Melville's epic Moby Dick, this episode provides listeners with an insightful exploration of the novella's themes, characters, and its enduring relevance in both literary and modern contexts.

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Herman Melville: A Glimpse into His Life

Early Life and Education

Thomas Magbee (00:10) kicks off the episode by introducing the trio and setting the stage for their deep dive into Melville's work. They begin by outlining Herman Melville's early life:

• Birth and Family: Born on August 1, 1819, in New York City, Melville was the third of eight children to Alan Melville and Maria Gansevoort Melville (04:03).
• Education: Despite early setbacks, such as contracting scarlet fever at age seven which affected his speech and comprehension (06:14), Melville excelled academically, eventually attending the esteemed Albany Academy (06:27).
• Career Struggles: After his father's untimely death in 1831, Melville faced financial hardships that led him to various jobs, including teaching and whaling. His experiences at sea on vessels like the St. Lawrence and the Akushnit profoundly influenced his literary work (08:20).

Literary Career and Personal Life

• Early Works: Melville authored several successful books in the mid-19th century, including Typee and Omoo, which garnered him popularity (12:00).
• Marriage and Family: In 1847, Melville married Lizzie Knapp Shaw, and the couple had multiple children. Despite his prolific writing, Melville faced critical and commercial failures later in life, notably with Pierre and The Piazza Tales (16:44).
• Later Years: Struggling with nervous exhaustion and societal pressures, Melville eventually took a stable position as a customs inspector, where he remained until retirement (23:35).

Notable Quote: Thomas Magbee [04:20]:
"Melville's dad, Alan, didn't go right to college, but went to France, where he learned fluent French, which makes sense as he is an importer of French goods."

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Exploring "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Plot Overview

AJ Hanenberg (02:24) introduces "Bartleby the Scrivener," highlighting its concise yet impactful narrative:

• Setting: The story is set in a Wall Street law office in New York City.
• Main Characters:
  • Narrator: An elderly, unambitious lawyer managing his small practice.
  • Bartleby: A quiet, enigmatic scrivener who initially excels but gradually refuses tasks with his catchphrase, "I would prefer not to."
  • Turkey and Nippers: Existing scriveners with contrasting temperaments.
  • Gingernut: The young office assistant responsible for fetching cakes.

Key Themes and Analysis

1. Isolation and Alienation:

   • Bartleby's solitary existence and eventual withdrawal symbolize the pervasive sense of isolation in modern urban life.
   • Quote:
     AJ Hanenberg [41:27]:
     "Bartleby died from refusing to eat the food."

2. Passive Resistance:

   • Bartleby's consistent refusals challenge the narrator's authority and highlight the futility of attempting to control individual autonomy.
   • Quote:
     AJ Hanenberg [35:00]:
     "I would prefer not to, he replied in a flute-like tone."

3. Compassion and Charity:

   • The narrator's wavering between empathy and frustration underscores the complexities of human compassion when faced with inexplicable behavior.
   • Quote:
     AJ Hanenberg [43:47]:
     "I will briefly mention it. The report was this: that Bartleby had been subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington..."

4. Bureaucratic Indifference:

   • The story critiques the impersonal nature of bureaucratic systems that can alienate and dehumanize individuals.
   • Quote:
     AJ Hanenberg [52:41]:
     "Dead letters. Does it not sound like dead men?"

Host Discussions and Perspectives

• Melville's Intent: The hosts speculate on Melville's motivations, suggesting that Bartleby represents both a personal and societal critique.
• Modern Parallels: They draw connections between Bartleby's passive resistance and contemporary workplace dynamics, likening his behavior to modern-day phenomena like the refusal of unnecessary corporate tasks.
• Psychological Depth: The episode explores the psychological dimensions of Bartleby's character, contemplating his underlying despair and existential choices.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Thomas Magbee [04:01]:
  "He had a great home life, though his dad was devoted, sensible, warm-loving. The mother was devoted to her husband and her brood and was simple and industrious."

• AJ Hanenberg [34:57]:
  "It's literally his job. Saying no, he just says, I would prefer not to."

• Graham Donaldson [17:12]:
  "But I think it's the rise of the psychological."

• Thomas Magbee [58:07]:
  "Bartleby is in one sense, like you were saying, he's free. He's definitely like he's rejected all the things that he doesn't want to do."

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Comparative Analysis: "Bartleby" and Moby Dick

The hosts draw parallels between "Bartleby the Scrivener" and Melville's later work, Moby Dick, emphasizing themes of obsession, humanity, and the struggle against insurmountable forces.

• Obsession:

  • While Moby Dick centers on Captain Ahab's monomaniacal pursuit of the white whale, "Bartleby" examines a different kind of obsession—Bartleby's relentless adherence to his own principles, irrespective of external consequences.

• Human Condition:

  • Both works delve deep into the human psyche, exploring motivations, despair, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world.

Host Reflections:

• Thomas Magbee:
  "He did what he could and kept trying, but he kept getting rejected."

• Graham Donaldson:
  "Everyone has a dream of freedom, right? I want to be able to live a life where I don't have to. I can only do what I want to do..."

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Concluding Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the profound impact of "Bartleby the Scrivener" and its relevance to contemporary issues of autonomy, mental health, and societal expectations. They express anticipation for their upcoming discussion on Moby Dick, encouraging listeners to engage with Melville's works to uncover deeper insights into the human experience.

Closing Remarks:

• AJ Hanenberg [62:04]:
  "I cannot recommend it more. It's a fun little tale. It's Herman Melville. And if you enjoyed that, hopefully you'll enjoy Moby Dick, which is coming up."

Listeners are invited to connect with the podcast through their website, email, and social media platforms for additional content and future episodes.

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Find Us Online:

• Website: classicalstuff.net
• Email: [e-mail]
• Twitter: @classicalstuff
• Patreon: patreon.com/classicalstuff

Transcript

[Thomas Magby]

Hello, and welcome to Classical Stuff youf Should Know. A podcast about. Let's see. Not ideas about the ancient world.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Just listen and find out.

[Thomas Magby]

Figure it out for yourselves.

[AJ Hennenberg]

You clicked on it. Figure it out. You have to be going on some information for.

[Thomas Magby]

Oh, my goodness. My name is Thomas Magby. I'm joined, as always, by AJ Hennenberg in Graham Donaldson.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Hello.

[Thomas Magby]

And today I'm really excited. We're talking about one of my favorite pieces of software, Scrivener. Now, I'll go ahead and take the introduction on this one. So I got a little. This is from Wikipedia. This is all going to be really helpful for your episode, right, A.J.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Well, there's a lot from Wikipedia, so Scrivener.

[Thomas Magby]

So it truly is a classic classical stuff. It's a podcast about us reading Wikipedia articles to you for an hour. So Scrivener is a word processing program. It's an outliner. It's designed for writers, provides a management system for documents, notes, and metadata. I feel like I'm giving away, like, promotion.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Right? Yeah. None of this. Yeah, you. I mean, you should make them pay for this.

[Thomas Magby]

Wait, hold on, A.J. can you cut all of that and just have it start right here? So, like, no one will know that I just did that part right before? Right, sure. Okay. I appreciate that.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah.

[Graham Donaldson]

I use Scrivener. Like, the actual software.

[Thomas Magby]

I use Scrivener also. I think I still use it. What does it do? It's for authors, but it lets you kind of write sections and then reorder those sections so you can write up whatever you're thinking about, and then you can move that within an outline.

[AJ Hennenberg]

That's right.

[Graham Donaldson]

So if you wrote chapter 13, but you're like, oh, man, it should probably come earlier in the story. You can move it without doing, like, cut and paste in your Word Doc.

[Thomas Magby]

Because, like, Word, it's just, like, one long document.

[AJ Hennenberg]

And Scrivener, gosh, Cutting and pasting.

[Thomas Magby]

It's the worst. It's terrible.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I know.

[Graham Donaldson]

So you have to create less complicated.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I love it.

[Thomas Magby]

It's a great software. Now you are talking about a Scrivener, not this software.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Bartleby the Scrivener.

[Thomas Magby]

Thank you.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Today I read because I was gonna do Emma by Jane Austen, but turns out that Graham is also doing Emma by Jane Austen, so I had to.

[Thomas Magby]

We should have Dueling Episodes.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Take a. Oh, we should.

[Thomas Magby]

Why don't we all three do Emma, and then we figure out which one did it the best? Next time.

[Graham Donaldson]

I'm in.

[Thomas Magby]

Next time on Classical Stuff.

[Graham Donaldson]

I have taught the book.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I was gonna say he teaches this one.

[Thomas Magby]

We should do one that we have. So you think he'll do a good job? What else should we do? Instead? We'll do no Moby Dick. Y'all just said you each want to do an episode. Good. Okay.

[AJ Hennenberg]

We have competing Moby Dick episodes.

[Thomas Magby]

Do it.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Okay. Speaking of Moby Dick, we're talking about one of his, one of Herman Melville, who wrote Moby Dick. We're talking about his short story called Bartleby the scrivener. It's about 30 pages. It's not too long of a read and it's wonderful. And so today is sort of a ramp up to Moby Dick, which we'll be doing in the coming weeks. So that's another one of those big ones that we, you know, it's a huge classic that we just haven't done yet.

[Thomas Magby]

I'm surprised we haven't done it.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I'm surprised we haven't done it. It's a fantastic book. I think because it's so long and so complicated that it's one of those ones that if you're going to do it, you really kind of have to commit, which is great. Like, it's definitely worth doing it. It's also a book that intimidates everybody. So hopefully this will be your first taste to get you interested in Moby Dick. So today I'm going to talk a lot about Herman Melville. Like I said, this is sort of a run up to Moby Dick episode. And then we'll talk a little bit about his short story, Bartleby the Scrivener, which I found to be absolutely delightful. I'm a big Herman Melville fan. I tried what twice to read Moby Dick before. Finally it took on the third time and I actually finished it. Many of you are probably in that same boat. And hey. Oh, the Pequod.

[Thomas Magby]

Oh, it's a boat. See what he did there?

[AJ Hennenberg]

That was good. Okay, so many of you are probably sailing those high seas of being double down, hesitant to jump into Moby Dick. But it's a great book and hopefully we can get you into it. So Herman Melville, he was born in New York City on August 1st of 1819 and died September 28th of 1891. Which. What makes him. What? Maths. Let's see. 72.

[Graham Donaldson]

I didn't hear the birth date. Okay.

[AJ Hennenberg]

1819 to 1891. 1872.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He was the third of eight children to Alan Melville and Maria Gansevoort Melville. He had seven siblings, Gan Savoort Helen, Maria, Augusta, Alan, Catherine, Francis, Priscilla and Thomas.

[Thomas Magby]

Hey, there we go. There you go.

[AJ Hennenberg]

His dad traveled a bunch. He was a commission Merton and an importer of dry French goods. Both of Herman's granddads fought in the Revolutionary War. One was part of the Boston Tea Party, and the other commanded the defense of Fort Stanwix in New York in 1777. Melville's dad, Alan, didn't go right to college, but went to France, where he learned fluent French, which makes sense as he is an importer of French goods. He was a Unitarian and married Maria Gansevoort, who is committed to the Dutch Reformed version of the Calvinist creed.

[Graham Donaldson]

With a name like that, she's probably Dutch.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He was baptized three weeks after his birth, and his early childhood was pretty nice. He lived in an opulent home which was supported by as many as three servants at a time. Every four years the family moved to a more spacious and elegant house, settling eventually in Broadway in New York in 1828. But Alan was living well beyond his means. So this is again Melville's childhood. Alan is his father, on borrowed money from his father and his wife's widowed mother, apparently the elder Gansevoort, Maria's mom. Maria thought her mom had an infinite supply of money and that she was entitled to it while her children were young. So they were taking all of this cash and making an opulent living on Broadway in New York. Eventually, the elder Gans of Wurtz cut them off and they owed more than 20,000 to them. That would be 600,000 in today's funds. So they were well in debt because of their opulent lifestyle. It was a great home life, though his dad was devoted, sensible, warm, loving. The mother was devoted to her husband and her brood and was simple and industrious. They had a great home life. He started Melville started his education at 6. At 7, the year he got scarlet fever, Allen described him as very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension.

[Thomas Magby]

Wow.

[AJ Hennenberg]

But Herman got it together and proved eventually to be one of the best speakers in his class.

[Graham Donaldson]

I mean, dude has scarlet fever. Poor kid.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I know. And also, like, give a little hope to people who have kids that are maybe a little slow on the uptake. You know, you might got a little Herman Melville in there.

[Graham Donaldson]

Write the great American novel.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah, right. Eventually he transferred to the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, and Alan wrote in May of 1830 to Major Melville. And without being a bright scholar, he maintains a respectable standing and would proceed further if only he could be induced to study more. Being A most amiable and innocent child. I cannot find it in my heart to coerce him. So he would have been a better student if he actually, you know, applied himself to his books.

[Thomas Magby]

Right.

[Graham Donaldson]

Sounds like an American teenager.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Right? Exactly. There's nothing wrong with this kid's upbringing. Behind on rent, Allen moved the family to Albany, New York and went into the fur business. Herman attended the Albany Academy. So school switch. In early August of 1831, Herman marched in the. Marched in the Albany city government procession of the year's finest scholars and was presented with a copy of the London Carcanet Carsonet, a collection of poems and prose inscribed to him as first best in ciphering books as Melville. Um, let's see. The. He had a lot of classical reference in his published writings, and so his ancient. His studies of like ancient history, biography, literature doing during his school days clearly heavily influenced him and left an impression that would come out later in his books. He left the academy in October of 1831. We don't know if it was fine for financial reasons, but considering his family and how much debt they were in, I imagine it was for financial reasons. Alan. His dad started to show signs of delirium in December of 1831, and by January 28th he had died just before reaching his 50th birthday. He's pretty young Clerkedom. So they are now without a father, running the business. So Gansevoort enters the cap and fur business. I think that was the eldest brother. Ganzevoort and his uncle got Melville a job as a clerk for $150 a year, which is equivalent to 4,700 a year today, which is not great. It's not great. That's not much at all. Melville did a good job. His grandpa died and left an inheritance to the family, but the family only received 20 bucks in inheritance because they had pretty much burned through all the rest of it. That'd be about $600 today, so not much. Then there was a fire in the skin preparing factory and so he had to quit his job and go and man the fur store. As they tried to recover again, he was in and out of school. He decided to enter the academy when he was 16 and then left again when he was 18. When the fur business went bankrupt and Gansevoort Voort took up law. Melville got a job as a teacher in Massachusetts, which baffles me considering how much schooling he's been through.

[Thomas Magby]

Right.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Not much. Right, right. He eventually left that job. No, that's later. So then he. After that he Starts. So he finishes out the term, and then he begins a term of study at Lansingburg Academy to study surveying and engineering. But he couldn't make that turn into a job like he had tried, but it didn't really coalesce into anything. So he. After that he published his first essay and then turned his eyes to the sea. Right. So in 1839, he was 20 years old. He got a job on a merchant vessel, the St. Lawrence. And that was a fairly successful little stint on the sea. So they did their little journey. He came back later that year and resumed teaching and then eventually quit teaching because he hadn't been paid. I know nothing about that. That is totally foreign to my. I'm just kidding.

[Graham Donaldson]

We get paid.

[AJ Hennenberg]

We get paid pretty well, actually. The check comes through, it comes in the mail. So he later that he later signed up for a whaling vessel called the Akushnit. And this is where his life gets even more interesting than it has been. So he ended up sleeping in a room with 20 other guys and they went whaling. So whales are found near the Bahamas. And in March, by March, 150 barrels of oil were sent home from Rio de Janeiro. The whole whale thing. So let me read you a little bit. He cutting in and trying out boiling. A single whale took about three days. And a whale yielded approximately one barrel of oil per foot length and per ton of weight. The average whale weighed 40 to 60 tons. So the oil was kept on deck for a day to cool off and then was stowed down below, scrubbing the deck, completed the labor. An average voyage meant that some 40 whales were killed to yield some 1600 barrels of oil. That's a lot. So on this little journey, they caught some whales. Not necessarily a ton, but enough. They got some oil. And apparently you do a lot of whaling with other vessels. Like when you find a big pod to kind of manipulate, you know, you'd link up with other whaling vessels and all kind of do the same ground. So they linked up with. Apparently there were enough whales to go around back then. Makes sense. So he did that for a long time, and then he and a buddy jumped ship at Nikuhiva Bay and stopped wailing for a little while.

[Graham Donaldson]

What is that?

[AJ Hennenberg]

That's a great question.

[Graham Donaldson]

It's like Fiji or something.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Nikuhiva.

[Thomas Magby]

I'm trying to. I don't even know how to spell it.

[AJ Hennenberg]

It's N I K U H I V A. Sorry. N U K U Nuku, not Niku.

[Thomas Magby]

I got nothing on this. Whale Bay. Is it now called Whale Bay?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Probably Makes sense.

[Thomas Magby]

I'm sorry, Marlborough, Is that a place? It's about 25 minutes by water taxi from Havelock. Is that helping?

[AJ Hennenberg]

None of this is helping me.

[Thomas Magby]

Awesome. This has been a really good decision.

[Graham Donaldson]

He's making up words.

[Thomas Magby]

Cool.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Sweet. Okay. By August, he left the island aboard another whaler, the Australian Lucy Ann, bound for Tahiti. But he took part in a mutiny.

[Graham Donaldson]

Aw, buddy.

[AJ Hennenberg]

And was briefly jailed.

[Thomas Magby]

Wow.

[AJ Hennenberg]

And he and a buddy escaped from jail.

[Thomas Magby]

Cool guy.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Then they spent a month. He spent a month as a beachcomber and island rover. So his first book called Type E, was about his time having jumped ship in Nuku Hiva Bay. His second book, omu, was about this period after his escape from jail where he was a beachcomber and island rover, from what I remember. And this is something that Wikipedia had nothing to say on when I read his.

[Thomas Magby]

You mean the primary sources you were reviewing?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah, obviously. Well, I've also read his biography in my copy of Moby Dick, and I remember that he was widely renowned as kind of a sexy author. Like there's some sexy things that happen in his first couple of books which were pretty big hits. So Type E went pretty well. And then he was. And so if. When you read Moby Dick, if you keep in mind that he had sort of a reputation for being an author that pushed the limits sexually, it comes up in a couple of spots. There's a couple of chapters that you're like, ah. He knew that there was what he's doing a subtext here. Okay. So then he got another job on a Nantucket whaler, the Charles and Henry, for a six month cruise and ended up in Hawaii. After spending some time in Hawaii for a few months doing some odd jobs, he joined the U.S. navy on Aug. 20 on the frigate U.S. united States. The Navy experience was the basis for his next novel, White Jacket, which was his fifth book.

[Graham Donaldson]

And what year are we talking now?

[AJ Hennenberg]

I stopped recording 40 years. So, yeah, he returns from that little stint in 1846.

[Thomas Magby]

Okay.

[Graham Donaldson]

Because we're coming up to the Civil War. I'm just super curious what he did during the Civil war in the 60s.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Let's see. I'm sure we'll get there. Okay. So upon his return, obviously he had some stories. Right. He has spent some time in the Bahamas. He spent some time on some whaling vessels. And he regales his friends with these wonderful stories. And his friends and family encourage him to turn these into books. And so he wrote Type E and it was published in London in 1846 and became an Overnight bestseller. He eventually contacted the buddy that he jumped ship with and wrote Ohmu, which was also a success. He tried then to get a government job, failed at that. Eventually got engaged to Lizzie Knapp Shaw after being turned down by her dad the first time he asked. They married in 1847 in a private, private ceremony at home and then settled in New York City. Apparently she was a great wife. She liked to shield her pleasant her husband from unpleasantness. She did all of the little drudgery house chores like darning socks and she had an adventurous spirit and abundant energy and was like, apparently that's. He just loved her good humor and so started off with a pretty solid marriage. He had his first kid when he was 30 in 1849. Son was named Malcolm. He published Marty shortly after their kid was born, shortly before their kid was born and then Redburn shortly after. So in this period he's pretty prolific. He writes a lot of books. White Jacket was the next year. In September of 1850, he borrowed 3,000 from his father in law to buy 160 acre farm, calling it Arrowhead because they had dug up a bunch of arrowheads there. He developed a weird friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne who deeply inspired him. They had a 15 year age difference and Hawthorne wasn't always super jazzed to have Melville around. Melville was kind of manic and I think Hawthorne was a little more brooding and so he wasn't always stoked. Hawthorne would invite, at one point invited him to come out to the farm and. Or Melville invited him out to the farm and Hawthorne just didn't like didn't come. He was working I guess. But he will. He did inspire Melville a lot and he dedicated one of his books to him. I think it might be Moby Dick. Anyway, Moby Dick was published in 1851 and then they had their second kid shortly before publishing. Third kid. Second kid. It says second kid, but I'm sure it was third. Nope, first kid Malcolm. Yeah, this was their second kid, Stan Wicks. His next book was not well received. It was called Pierre or the Ambiguees. It was like a psychological book and it earned him a headline that said Herman Melville Crazy. Here is a quote from the news story. A critical friend who read Melville's last book, Ambiguities Between Two Steamboat Accidents told us that it appeared to be composed of the ravings and reveries of a madman. We were somewhat startled at the remark, but still more at learning a few days after that Melville was really supposed to be deranged and that his friends were Taking measures to place him under treatment. We hope one of the earliest precautions will be to keep him stringently secluded from pen and ink. So not a hit, Right?

[Graham Donaldson]

This is really interesting because, like, the 19th century is a century where you started to get novels about, like, psychomania, Right. You started to get novels about thinking about people going crazy. Nietzsche, latter 19th century, Dostoevsky in the middle. Mel, if Melville's writing a book, that's kind of on this too. That's really. That's really kind of fascinating because Nietzsche, Melville, Dostoevsky, they're not hanging out together.

[AJ Hennenberg]

But I think it's the rise of the psychological.

[Graham Donaldson]

But I think that's just what it is, is that you've just got this. This time period that this is kind of in the. In the. I don't know, in the air, in the water, in the zeitgeist, in the culture that the people who are on the. On the edges sort of thinking about. About people and novels and stories and. And, you know, Melville's traveled, so he's got to see the world and he's got to. You know, that's probably. I know, in Moby Dick, that kind of like, strips away a little bit of. Or he has to come to terms with, like, what do we do with Christianity in the face of, like, a globe that also doesn't necessarily believe it? You know, like, it's sort of, like, disorienting. Maybe that's what I'm getting at is that the 19th century ends up being kind of this, like, disorienting time for lots of people. And you start to get these psychological novels about split personalities and, you know, you know, think crime. Raskolnikov is a two people. And. And I know it's just kind of an interesting. An interesting thing that's happening. And then the people that are reading his books who don't get it, they're just like, oh, gosh, what's this? This is a crazy book. I want to go back to, like, you know, you know, I want to go back to adventure stories or whatever.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. Do you think it's the deterioration of, like, the medieval sense of an organized reality after the Enlightenment, maybe, I think.

[Graham Donaldson]

In the 19th century. So you've got, you know, you've got sort of a similar mix as to what's happening in the 21st century. You've got a rapid rise of technology that is changing society faster than institutions and even. And faster than people's ability to synthesize and organize their thoughts to those that changing times. People can't keep up with it. And that's just sort of a disorienting feeling. Definitely in Europe you got this sense that everybody was trucking towards some sort of conflict. And that comes in World War I, I don't think. I wonder if you have that in in the US because he's 10 years away from the Civil War, so there must be. But I just don't know enough about American, the history of sort of pre antebellum American, you know, fiction to really speak more into it. But it's just, it's just interesting that there's another book that's in the 19th century that's about like psychosis or people. You know, Joseph Conrad is coming up, so maybe it's like end of colonialism kind of stuff.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I don't know.

[Graham Donaldson]

Anyway, it's interesting. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to.

[AJ Hennenberg]

No, no, it's, it's fine. I need. Yeah, yeah. Supposed to talk.

[Graham Donaldson]

Cool.

[Thomas Magby]

It's a podcast.

[Graham Donaldson]

Awesome.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah, turns out. All right. So then they had their third child and they couldn't find a publisher for his next novel. It was published serially and called the Piazza Tales and included Bartleby the Scrivener. And then he had his fourth kid, Francis or Fanny, in 1855 and. And then in 1855, Israel Potter was published. So he's just publishing like crazy. He's got a lot of books. His father in law eventually lent him some money to travel. Since when he was writing, he sort of worked himself almost to distraction. Like he would just go into his hole and write all day and you know, it made him nervous and irritable. And so they're like, you need to, you need to get some exercise. You need to get away from your nervous afflictions. So he took a six month grand tour of Europe and the Mediterranean, which sounds amazing, right? At one point he met up with Hawthorne. And here is an excerpt from that meeting from Hawthorne's journal. Melville, as he always does, began to reason of providence and futurity and of everything that lies beyond human ken and informed me that he pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential. He has a very high and noble nature and better worth immortality than most of us. It's pretty nice. In 1857, he published his last full length novel. It was not well received, but is now fairly well acclaimed as sort of a masterpiece. He took up lecturing. His lectures were also not well liked. They were kind of universally panned by his contemporaries later, in 1860. So at this point, he is 41. He tried to publish a collection of poetry, but it wasn't accepted and it's also now lost. He published another book of poetry about the Civil War, but that was too. That too was also a failure. And then he sort of gave up, became a customs inspector and held the post for 19 years. He was reputed to have been very honest in a pretty corrupt institution. He suffered from nervous exhaustion and sometimes he behaved like his tyrannical captains, so much so that in 1867, well, this is a different thing. So Lizzie's brother tried to arrange for her to leave Melville, and she was going to go before a jury and claim that he was crazy, but whether or not it was because she still loved him or because she didn't want to suffer the indignity, she refused to go along with the plot. And in 1867, Malcolm, his eldest son, killed himself with a gun. We don't know if it was intentional or accidental. The kid was 18. That's rough. He published then an epic poem, and this I'm really interested in, called A Poem and Pilgrimage, which is the longest single poem in American literature. It is 18,000 lines, my goodness. Which is a lot. And we do still have it. We do still have it. It did fail, though, and he burned many of the unsold copies because he wasn't even able to buy them back at cost. So it's rough. Lizzie eventually got her inheritance and then melville retired in 1885. His wife and he were supported then by relatives. In 1886, Stan Wicks, their second son, died of tuberculosis. So, like, really rough go in the last set of years. He died in September 28 in 1891 from cardiac dilation and is buried in New York. So I wouldn't. Yeah, he's not. He had a rough one. Yeah. I mean, sort of a roaring young, young world when he was in his 20s and 30s, you know, whaling and all that stuff, and turned that into some decent, decent money there. But on the whole, lots of poverty, lots of not having money and trying his best and getting rejected.

[Graham Donaldson]

I think he shouldn't be an author.

[Thomas Magby]

There's your life advice. Yeah, yeah. It's just don't be an author. Yeah, probably good advice.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. Become a customs inspector. You can hold that post for 19 years pretty successfully. I mean, he lived like. He lived a big life. Right. And it seems like. I don't know, I can understand why he was eventually worked to nervous exhaustion. He'd seen a lot of places. And it did give him sort of an outsider's perspective onto Western culture because he had spent so time. So much time in the Bahamas and with other cultures and on, you know, on the sea. It was hinted that he had sort of met the vastness of the sea and become disillusioned of religion at some point. It reminds me of a section of Moby Dick. Where was it? Pip. Is that his name?

[Graham Donaldson]

Pip's the kid that falls in the ocean.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. So Pip has sort of this realization of how big and scary and that the ocean is and kind of like sees the face of God. And I wonder if Melville had sort of the same experience. Okay, Bartleby. You wrote a short story called Bartleby the Scrivener. I told you. It was published in the Piazza Tales. It's great. I will read you some excerpts because the excerpts are really entertaining. At some point, I'm going to have to flip back between my Kindle app and this normal app because it stopped allowing me to copy over into my notes. So if that goes a little bit slower. Just a heads up on that. So the premise of the tale is that it's written by an elderly lawyer who works with legal documents in New York. He employs two scriveners, or copyists. Turkey and nippers and a boy, Gingernut. Gingernut gets them cakes.

[Thomas Magby]

Okay.

[AJ Hennenberg]

And eventually his business grows to where he needs another scrivener. So here's a section where the narrator describes himself. And when we're done with the tale, which, you know, isn't long or complicated, there are some implications, I think, that are worth discussing. So the narrator describes himself. Oh, that is the wrong paste. Oh, no. Okay. I must not have copied it correctly. Hold on. Let me. Let me go find it in the old Kindle.

[Thomas Magby]

Do you need a copy of the. Of the story?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Huh?

[Thomas Magby]

Do you need a copy of the story?

[AJ Hennenberg]

No. I mean, I have it already pulled up and as right at the beginning. It's just. It copied that little bit about Herman Melville from the Journal of.

[Thomas Magby]

Do you want me to start? I am a rather elderly man.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Nope. It starts right here. Okay. In Primus, I am a man who, from his youth upwards has been filled with the profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I'm one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury or in any way draws down public applause, but in the cool tranquility of a snug retreat do a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title deeds. All who know me consider me an eminently safe man. So he's not a particularly interesting fellow. Does his business, continues on. Okay. And here he describes his office. My chambers were upstairs at number Blank Wall Street. You know how they do that in British things where they blank it out? Yeah. So number Blank Wall Street. At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior space of a spacious skylight shaft penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise deficient in what landscape painters call life. But if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered at least a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade, which wall required no spy glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all near sighted spectators, was pushed up to within 10ft of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern. So not an interesting office. Right, okay. He describes a little bit his two current scriveners. So we have Turkey, to quote Turkey was a short Percy Englishman of about my own age, that is somewhere not far from 60 in the morning, one might say. His face was of a fine florid hue. But after 12 o'clock meridian, his dinner hour, it blazed like a grateful of Christmas coals and continued blazing, but as it were with a gradual wane till 6 o'clock PM or thereabouts. After which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face which, gaining its meridian with the sun seemed to set with it to rise, culminate and decline the following day with the like regularity and undiminished glory. So this guy's red face would sort of like get redder through the day and then set like the sun. And he's like. After that I saw no more of the man. So I don't know, like, you know, it rises and sets. He goes on to say that Turkey is. He's. He gets like more peppery as the day goes on. And it's hinted very much that he drinks around midday. And so like he has his own private vice and his own private vice is alcohol. That's why his face gets redder and he gets in the latter half of the day, he gets a little more testy and irritable and loose with his ink. Like, he puts blots everywhere. And at one point he sort of suggests the. The proprietor suggests to Turkey. He's like, hey, man, you're pretty old. How about after lunch you just go home? He's more of a problem after lunch than anything. And the guy's like, no, I come and I do my business and I gotta do it right. And he's like, but the blots. The blot you'll be getting all over the papers. And he's like, yes, sir, I might blot here and there, but I'm gonna do my. Yeah. So he sticks around Nippers. Oh, sorry. One. One last fun quote about Turkey one winter day. Because he dresses in, like greasy old clothes and doesn't do anything with them. He's just shabbily put together. So one winter day I presented Turkey with a highly respectable looking coat of my own. A padded gray coat, a most comfortable warmth, and which buttons straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no, I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so danny and blanket like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him. Upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats. So Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom prosperity harmed, which is a line that I love. Okay, nippers. Here is the description of nippers. Nippers. The second on my list was a whiskered sallow, and upon the whole rather piratical looking young man of about 5 and 20. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers, ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened on an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over mistakes committed in copying, unnecessary maledictions hissed rather than spoken in the heat of business, and especially by a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn. Nippers could never get this table to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts bits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisite adjustment by final pieces of folded blotting paper. But no invention would answer if for the sake of easing his back, he brought the table lid to a sharp angle, well upwards towards his chin, and wrote there like a man using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk, then he declared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the table to his waistbands and stooped over it in writing, there was a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was nippers knew not what he wanted or if he wanted anything, it was to be rid of a scrivener's table altogether. It's also hinted that he does some sort of dark, underhanded work in the background. He. He has people visit of all hours, and he calls them his clients. And it seems like either he owes them money or they owe him money. There's something. There's something that nippers up to on the backside. It also points out that nippers gets less testy towards the afternoon. Like his indigestion sort of settles down. And so he's like, put together, they both kind of even each other out, right? Nippers is the worst in the morning. And then by the time he's mellowing out, that's when turkey gets a little agitated. And so. But also we find out that nippers does not have the same vice as turkey does. He does not drink. So he's there. The. The last in the. In the bunch. Gingernut is a little page boy, and mostly he exists so they can give him pennies and send him out for little cakes, which he supplies them with throughout the day. So he'll come back with six or seven cakes each. Eats five or six. It's like their office snack. Okay, so he's got this office and he decides to hire a fella named Bartleby. To quote now, my original business, that of a conveyancer and title hunter and drawer up of recondite documents of all sorts, was considerably increased by receiving the master's office. There was now great work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but. But I must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now. Pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn. It was Bartleby. After a few words touching his qualifications, I Engaged him. Glad to have him among my. Sorry. Glad to have among my core of copyists. A man of so singularly sedate. An aspect which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey and the fiery one of Nippers. So you want someone who's just even keel. Chill. So he puts him in his office. So his office is divided by a windowed wall. Kind of right down the middle, you know, like a double door. And his two clerks are on the other side of that. He has his own little office space. And so he sets up Bartleby kind of behind a folding screen in his office. To have him close at hand should he need anything. And, you know, Bartleby doesn't really bother anybody. So it's pretty. He feels pretty private, and it feels okay. And at first he is great. He's a great copyist. He gets a ton done. Until one weird day. So let me read you the first encounter now and then. In the haste of business. It had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document. Myself calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen. Was to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me. And before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined. That, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand. I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance. I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk. And my right hand sideways and somewhat nervously extended with the copy. So that immediately upon emerging from his retreat. Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay. In this very attitude did I sit. When I called to him. Rapidly stating that it was what it was I wanted him to do. Namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation. When without moving from his privacy. Bartleby, in a singularly mild, firm voice replied, I would prefer not to. I sat a while in perfect silence. Rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me. Or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply. I would prefer not to.

[Graham Donaldson]

What was the request again?

[AJ Hennenberg]

To come and look at a piece of paper that he. Like.

[Graham Donaldson]

He's a.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He's.

[Thomas Magby]

It's his job, right?

[AJ Hennenberg]

It's literally his job. Saying no, he just says, I would prefer not to. Prefer not to? I echoed, rising in high excitement and crossing the room with a stride. What do you mean? Are you moonstruck? I want you to help me compare this sheet. Here, take it. And I thrust it toward him. I would prefer not to, said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed, his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience, or impertinence in his manner? In other words, had there been anything ordinarily human about him? Doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises, but as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster of Paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him a while as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I, what had one best do. But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So, calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily examined. So we just prefer not to. All right. Second bizarre second encounter. Page 11.

[Graham Donaldson]

It's like Gen Z in the workplace.

[Thomas Magby]

Okay, that's what they said about us when we that's what they said about us. Now look at us.

[Graham Donaldson]

We're vice president.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Okay, so there's another time. There was an important suit, and the greatest accuracy was imperative. So he calls in all of the scriveners. So Turkey, Nipper, and Gingernut from the next room, meaning to place four copies in the hands of his four clerks while he reads from the original to make sure there are no mistakes, he so accordingly, Turkey, Nippers and Gingernut had taken their seats in a row, each with his document in hand, when I called to Bartleby to join this interesting group. Bartleby, quick. I'm waiting. I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, and soon he appeared, standing at the entrance of his hermitage. What is wanted? He said mildly. The copies. The copies, said I hurriedly. We are going to examine them. There I held toward him the fourth quadruplic. It I would prefer not to, he said, and gently disappeared behind the screen. For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at the head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced toward the screen and demanded the reason for such extraordinary conduct. Why do you refuse? I would prefer not to. With any other man I should have flown outright into a Dreadful passion scorned all further words and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me. I began to reason with him. These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is common usage every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it not so? Will you not speak? Answer. I prefer not to, he replied in a flute like tone. It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made, fully comprehended the meaning, could not gainsay irresistible conclusions. But at the same time some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. You are decided then not to comply with my request. A request made according to common usage and common sense. He briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was sound. Yes, his decision was irreversible. Okay, here's one of so there's a couple of interesting parts that I think give clue to what this story is really about.

[Thomas Magby]

Here's.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Here's one of them. Or no, this is not one of them. This is just more fun. So it is seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and unviolently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. Turkey, I said, what do you think of this? Am I not right with submission, sir? Said Turkey with his blandest tone. I think that you are Nippers, I said. What do you think of it? I think I should kick him out of the office. The reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that it being morning. Turkey's answer is touched in polite and tranquil terms. But Nippers replies in ill tempered ones, or to repeat a previous sentence, nippers ugly mood was on duty and Turkey's off. Gingernut, I said, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my behalf. What do you think of it? I think, sir, he's a little loony, replied Gingernut with a grin. You hear what they say, said I, turning towards the screen, come forth and do your dirty duty. But he vouchsafed no reply. Okay, so he decides not to do anything. He does find out that he does not seem to leave the premises. He asks him to go out and get. I think Ginger knelt, was sick. And so he's like, hey, go get some pies. And the guy's like, I would prefer not to. And. And doesn't.

[Thomas Magby]

So is this all on his first day?

[AJ Hennenberg]

No, this is like.

[Thomas Magby]

This is like.

[AJ Hennenberg]

So the first few days he's incredibly industrious and does work really well. And then eventually just says, I would prefer not to. So Bartleby said, I. Ginger nut is away. Just step round to the post office, won't you? It was about a three minute walk to see if there's anything for me. I would prefer not to. You will not? Why? I prefer not. So that goes on. Yeah, at one point it's on a weekend and he's going to church and decides, well, the office is on the way, I'll stop in, maybe get a little bit of work done. I'm here early and then head off to work. And he knocks on the door. He goes to like open it and open. Well, I think he puts his key in and there's already a key in. And he's like. So he knocks and Bartleby says, in a moment, I'm not ready right now. And he's like, what are you doing, Bartleby? What are you doing? Come out. This is. And he's like, I'm currently not disposed to. Please walk around the block and I'll be with you in a moment. His office. But he doesn't know what to do about it.

[Thomas Magby]

So he like, he does it, walks around.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He walks around the block and then comes back and he's like, bartleby, what are you doing? Like, go home. And he's like, I would prefer not to. It's very clearly that Bartleby is living and loving.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

For sure now. And is not going home at all. And so perplexed, he sort of. No, he comes back and Bartleby's gone. Like Bartleby has left. And then he sort of fishes through things and finds like little blankets. And clearly he was sleeping on the couch. And other little things neatly arranged. And it's clear that Bartleby is living in the office. Right. Okay, so this is one of the quotes that kind of gives us a clue, I think, maybe to the quality. And when he finds that this guy's living in his office, what reaction would you guys have when finding somebody living in the office that isn't supposed to be living there?

[Thomas Magby]

Just like horrified, Right?

[Graham Donaldson]

Yeah, that'd be mad.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah, I guess there's a part of. Like, is everything okay? Like what? Like, why do you need to be in here?

[AJ Hennenberg]

So that's his reaction. He's like, how lonely is this guy? Like, this is. This is happening in the middle of Wall Street. And it's dead. Like, on the weekends. Nobody is here. It is the ruins of Carthage. And he is some distraught general standing in the ruins of Carthage on his own. Like, he must have no family. He must have no resources. This man is profoundly and irrevocably alone. And so he feels a deep charity for the guy. Like, rather than being angry and wanting to kick him out. He's like this poor weird fellow who's clearly very strange. It's. Yeah. What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed. His poverty is great, but his solitude, how horrible. Think of it. And he said, ah, happiness courts the light. So we deem the world as gay, but misery hides aloof. So we deem that misery there is none. So we see happiness because it's everywhere. When someone is miserable, they hold themselves up. And he's like, this guy must be miserable. So. But just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination. Did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So it is true, and so terribly true. That up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections. But in certain cases, beyond that point it does not. They err. Who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor. Common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body, but his soul did not pain him. But, sorry, but his body did not pain him. It was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. So his pity goes past the point of. Of like sorrow into full revulsion. He's like, I cannot help this man. And at that point, the. The. Your. You know, one's mind says to get rid of that sort of pity.

[Thomas Magby]

So does he fire this guy? Like, what's the. If he gets to that point of revulsion, does he kind of get over helping him?

[AJ Hennenberg]

No, he tries to get to know him. The next morning came Bartleby. I said, calling him from behind his screen. No reply. Bartleby, I said in a slight, still gentle tone, come here. I'm not going to ask you to do anything you would prefer not to. I simply wish to speak to you. Upon this, he noiselessly slid into view. Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you are from or, sorry, where you were born? I would prefer not to. Will you tell me anything about yourself? I would prefer not to. But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you. He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which, as then I sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head. What is your answer, Bottleby? Said I, after waiting a considerable amount of time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth. At present I prefer to give no answer, he said, and retired into his hermitage. Oh, poor guy. And then he tries to reason with him, and to which Bartleby says, at present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable, was his mildly cadaverous reply. Okay, so this is bizarre, right? Yeah. Okay. The next day, after you know, more goings on, he consults the other scriveners and they're like, we should kick him out of the office. This guy's looney. Of course, the next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead wall revelry. So he's got the window that looks out to the brick wall. Upon asking him why he did not write, he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing. What? How now? What's next? Exclaimed, I do no more writing. No more. And what is the reason? Do you not see the reason for yourself? He indifferently replied. I looked steadfastly at him and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly. It occurred to me that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impaired his vision. I was touched. So he thinks the guy's going blind? It wasn't that. He just preferred not to. So he says. Eventually he's to the point where, like, okay, what could be done? He's just in the office. He lives in the office. This guy is now a millstone to my neck. Like, I have to get rid of him. So he attempts to fire him, and it's the most gentle firing. He is like, I'm sorry if We've impaired your vision. I'm sorry that this is not the place for you, but really, it is time for you to quit the office. He gives him an extra $20. He says, Here are 32. You are owed 12. I have added an extra 20 for yourself. He puts it under a paperweight on the desk and says, I will not see you tomorrow. Good day and good luck, Mr. Bartleby. And then as he walks home, he congratulates himself on his great sagacity in pulling off this so well put together firing. Can you guess what happens the next morning?

[Thomas Magby]

Comes back.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Oh, Bartleby's still there.

[Thomas Magby]

He never left.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He never left. Like he's there that morning. I think he even arrives early and he's like, hello. And Bartleby's like, just a moment. Bartleby won't leave. They stay for a while longer. And eventually he decides the only way to get rid of this guy is. Is to literally move offices. So one night he just moves out. Like he. He boxes up all of his stuff. He moves out and he's like, bartleby, you gotta go home. And Bartleby's like, I would prefer not to.

[Thomas Magby]

So he just stays in the empty office.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He's in the empty office. The landlord is like, what am I supposed to do with this guy? He's like, I don't know. I don't have anything to do with him. Figure it out. And he's like, uh huh, okay, I'll have to call the authorities. He's like, do it. I don't know what to do with him. So he moves and doesn't for a while. He doesn't hear anything. Eventually the new. The landlord had come by, and then the new tenant comes by and says, we've got this guy. He's still there in our office. Is he yours? And he's like, no, he's not mine. He's like, well, we turned him out of the office because we can't have him hanging out in the office. So now he just sort of sits on the banisters. Like he hangs out in the stairwells. When we ask him to leave, he says, I prefer not to. And so eventually they, they get the guy arrested. Like they bring in the, the authorities and the authorities take him jail. He obviously prefers not to cooperate. Really? I mean, he, like, he does cooperate, doesn't put up a fight or anything. He just sort of passively goes. Eventually they're like, the guy that makes the food is like, hey, could you convince him to eat the food? It's Pretty good food. I make it really well in jail. Yeah. Barbie doesn't eat it.

[Thomas Magby]

Oh.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Can you guess why?

[Graham Donaldson]

You prefer not to.

[AJ Hennenberg]

You prefer not to. Eventually, our, you know, our main character goes and visits him in jail and finds that he has fallen asleep on. In, like, a small fenced off garden, like, grassy area in the jail and has wasted away to nothing and dies.

[Thomas Magby]

Oh, my gosh.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Bartleby dies from refusing to eat the food.

[Thomas Magby]

What?

[Graham Donaldson]

This is crazy.

[Thomas Magby]

Is that how it ends? Like, is that.

[AJ Hennenberg]

It's totally crazy. It's totally crazy.

[Graham Donaldson]

This reminds me of the music video from Radioheads. Just remember where, like, someone just lays down in the street.

[Thomas Magby]

No.

[Graham Donaldson]

Have you ever seen this?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah.

[Graham Donaldson]

Where someone just, like, lays down in the street and then people are like, hey, man, why are you laying in the street? And he's just laying there. And eventually he's just laying there, and people are kind of getting mad at him. He's not talking to them, and he's just sort of laying down, and people are tripping over him. Hey, man, get up. Get out of the street. And he's just laying there. And then eventually there's, like, a crowd that's drawn around him. And then he says, you want to know why I'm lying on the street? And they say, yeah. And then, like, the. The thing pans, and he says something, and you can't tell what he's saying. They don't have subtitles or what he's saying. And then it pans away and it comes back, and then everybody's laying down, and it's like, there's something. I know there's something about, like, Bartleby's sort of refusal to live in the world that reminds me of that kind of thing. And. But also it's like, why are we so frustrated when someone does that? We are all frustrated that he's not.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He's just not. He's just not buying in.

[Graham Donaldson]

But why does that make us mad?

[AJ Hennenberg]

I don't know.

[Graham Donaldson]

It does make us mad.

[AJ Hennenberg]

It does.

[Graham Donaldson]

I'm mad at that guy.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I want to read one last little bit, like, the very end of the tale. And then I want to read you one little bit about charity. So after Bartleby had, like, he was clearly living in the office, the narrator decided that, like, this was clearly his calling was to care for Bartleby. Like, Bartleby was clearly addled of mind and messed up. Something was wrong with him. And so he's like, God has put me on this earth to be a caretaker for this man. Bartleby who clearly needs help. And then eventually he's like. I think the thing that made him kick him out of the office and eventually move offices was he lost a lot of business. He's like. You got like.

[Thomas Magby]

So the clients didn't want this guy around?

[AJ Hennenberg]

No, I think it was. Oh, so he had clients come into his office. They kept on talking. He eventually lost. Like, he couldn't really support him anymore, so he had to try to get rid of him. I think that was the firing. And then after that, he's like, I really just have to get him out of here. So he left. But there's one point where he decides that this is a divine injunction to love your neighbor. And I must love Bartleby.

[Thomas Magby]

Okay.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Which is ridiculous. You. I think all of us would have fired him ages ago. Right? Okay, so let me read the very end of the story. I think this will give us. I do these last because I think it'll give us some food for discussion. So Bartleby is gone, and he. He can still find out nothing about him. He does eventually hear a rumor when you say gone.

[Thomas Magby]

This is after he's died, right?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yes, after he died. But inasmuch as this. Let's see. Yet here, I hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumour which came to my ear a few years after the scriveners decease. Upon what basis it rested I could never ascertain. And hence how true it is I cannot now tell. But inasmuch as this vague report has not been without certain strange, suggestive interest to me, however sad it may prove, the same with others. And so I will briefly mention it. The report was this. That Bartleby had been subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. You guys know what the dead letters office is?

[Thomas Magby]

No.

[Graham Donaldson]

Is it the letters for, like, people.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Who died, died or that were never delivered?

[Graham Donaldson]

Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah, right. So they're. They're letters that have, like, been lost in the post office and have nowhere to go anymore.

[Thomas Magby]

They go to this place.

[AJ Hennenberg]

They go to this place and they decide. They, like, decide to burn them or try to deliver them.

[Graham Donaldson]

So does he open them and read them?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Presumably, yes. When I think over this rumor, I cannot adequately express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters. Does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness. Can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters? And assorting them for the flames. For by the cartload they are annually burned. Sometimes from the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring, the finger it was meant for perhaps molders in the grave, a banknote sent in swiftest charity, he whom it would relieve, nor eats, nor hungers anymore pardon for those who died despairing hope for those who died unhoping good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities on errands of life, these letters speed to death. Ah, Bartleby. Ah, humanity.

[Graham Donaldson]

So Bartleby's just had his like gotten this bureaucratic job that actually is slowly revealing to him just the sort of the harshness and sadness of life and.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Then gets a new one and then just says like not to. I'm out. Okay, one last thing about charity.

[Graham Donaldson]

This is really interesting, this, this short story.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Is it so good?

[Graham Donaldson]

I mean it's just like again going back to the. My thought earlier about the 19th century and just like this like movement towards like really thinking through what is our more modern industrial life like. And I know and Bartleby is like we have these absurdities, right, where you're having like mountains of mail that are that. That you have to sift through because all these people died. It's like you could write a modern day Bartleby of somebody who's having to go through like people, people's filled up drops Dropbox folders after, after they're dead or whatever to clear up space and. Yeah, okay. Or their Facebook profiles. Like when do we delete someone who's. Who's died their Facebook profile?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Anyway. Yeah. So one last little bit about charity. Let's see. But when this old atom of resentment rose in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby, so he's like, wants to throttle the guy. I grappled him and threw him. How? Why? Simply by recalling the divine injection, A new commandment. Give I unto you that ye love one another. Yes, this it was that saved me. Aside from higher consideration, charity often operates as a vastly wise and prudent principle, a great safeguard to its possessor. Men have committed murder for jealousy's sake and anger's sake and hatred's sake and selfishness sake and spiritual pride's sake. But no man ever I heard of have committed a diabolical murder for sweet Charity's sake. Mere self interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with high tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy. So just being self interested, it'll keep you from doing bad things. You should embrace charity. So he has decided that he will, you know, take care of this poor character. Character Bartleby. Okay. Interesting things. Remember when I read you about the narrator and he talks about himself? He does a tight little business. He's an eminently safe man. He, too, has opted out of life in a way. He doesn't appear in court. He doesn't have adventures. He makes a tidy little sum in a snug little hole. Think of the little office he's in. Right. So does not Bartleby reflect his own opting out of life? Kind of a little bit, yeah.

[Graham Donaldson]

Or someone who's taken it to more the extreme.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. And I'm glad we went over Melville's life today, because people have suggested that Bartleby is sort of like a sectioned off part of our narrator's mind. And he represents Melville's failure as a writer. Right. That he's just like, he's tried and he went after it and then he just sort of gave up. I'm not sure I buy that one. In a sense, didn't Melville keep trying? Yeah, he did.

[Thomas Magby]

His work wasn't good, but he kept trying.

[AJ Hennenberg]

And in a sense, the scrivener was free. Bartleby was free to say no to anything. He was freer than almost anybody else. Like, he did not let societal injunction take hold of him. And the narrator says he's depressed, that it's clearly him handling the dead letters and something else. But we never. Like, he's almost inscrutable as far as what he's doing is weird. What are your thoughts, Thomas? Do you have any on this?

[Thomas Magby]

I did not see the ending coming because I could see this working out another way where he actually has this internal strength to say the things he does and doesn't want to do. He climbed up the ranks as a result of that I did not see coming. That he would just, like, die at the end and completely withdraw from it. So that's the. I'm with you on it. Doesn't strike me as hopeless up until you get to that point. Now I'm hearing it secondhand. Like, you make it sound like a comedy. Like, oh, it's funny. It is funny. Up until the guy dies at the end.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Oh, no. Even that's kind of funny. Like, the whole thing is a little bit tongue in cheek silly. It's written in a very comedic way.

[Thomas Magby]

Which makes the ending feel very strange that he suddenly, like, really brings in this heavy theme. Right?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah.

[Graham Donaldson]

But there's so the thing I'm thinking about with it is like, there are we there. Everyone has a dream of freedom, right? I want to be able to live a life where I don't have to. I can only. I only do what I want to do, and no one can tell me what to do. I want to be my own boss. My own boss. Travel the world, be free and. But then there's also, like, the realities I need of conforming to society. There. There are some things that I need to do. Like, we in our ama, someone was asking us about what to rate how to raise a child. And Thomas, the advice you gave was really good one, which is like, you have responsibilities now to raise a family. Like, in many ways you like not. You have to give up on your dreams. That's not what you were saying. But there is a sense of, like.

[Thomas Magby]

This family is your dream.

[Graham Donaldson]

This family is the dream now.

[Thomas Magby]

Like.

[Graham Donaldson]

Like if you. If you haven't moved on from, you.

[Thomas Magby]

Know, starting the band or.

[Graham Donaldson]

Yeah, exactly. And going and doing your own thing like you need to, because that's the mature thing to do. So in many sense, like, a lot of adult life is saying, what am I going to shoulder? And what. And what am I going to sort of like, reject as well? I'm not going to. I'm not like, I'm not going to put my efforts into that because it's. It's futile or whatever. Right. Bartleby is kind of somebody who is in one sense, like you were saying, he's free. He's. He's definitely like, he's rejected all the things that he doesn't want to do. He would prefer, preferred not to.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He seems to reject everything, but there's no other thing.

[Graham Donaldson]

But then he also rejects everything, even life. And so, you know, how much of. How much of living is finding that balance between the things we want to do and the things we have to do? We all have the dream of only living a life, of doing what we want. No one wants to live a life of only doing what you have to, but you can reject doing what you have to do. But if to do that, you're going to be like, homeless, living in an office, you're eventually going, people are going to dispose of you because you are, you know, not useful. But on the other side, that feels a little dehumanizing because it's like, oh, we only care about people because of how useful they are. And so our. Our hero, you know, sort of has a. Some kind of inkling that he's like, I want to love this man because he's a man. He's a human. And, like, we should love our neighbor.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Clearly, he's in a bad place.

[Graham Donaldson]

And he's clearly in a bad place. And I want to be charitable to him, but. But unless. But Bartleby just doesn't have the desire to do anything.

[Thomas Magby]

So our main character hasn't fully gone that Bartleby direction.

[Graham Donaldson]

Exactly.

[Thomas Magby]

Right. So he's. But he's withdrawn, and he seems happy with the place that he's in, or at least content. Right.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah.

[Thomas Magby]

He's not. It seems like an ideal you would, like, AJ of, like, he. He's in a place he likes. He's not striving for something. He doesn't need something else. Yeah. But he's kind of.

[AJ Hennenberg]

He's happy.

[Thomas Magby]

He's happy. He has.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Goes to church on Sunday. Like, does his thing.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah. He's stable. Right.

[AJ Hennenberg]

You know what cracks me up? As you guys were talking about this, I realized that this is office space.

[Graham Donaldson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

But just, like, several years earlier.

[Graham Donaldson]

Exactly.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Right. He gets hypnotized out of having to please everybody else, and he's just like, I don't want to. Yeah, you don't want him.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. No TPS reports for me.

[Thomas Magby]

Sure. And the weird part is Bartleby keeps getting paid also. Right. Isn't that what you just said?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yep. Keeps getting paid. And even when he's fired, they give him a bonus.

[Thomas Magby]

They keep paying him more. Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Which is crazy.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah. So he kind of has a thing working up until he pushes it too far. I don't know.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I don't know what's wrong with Bartleby. Like, it's. It's the inscrutable nature of the character that is so perplexing.

[Thomas Magby]

Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Right.

[Graham Donaldson]

It's the smallness of Bartle. Like, in one sense, you could say Bartleby is free. In other sense, you would say Bartleby's in hell. Right. Like, he's. He's just himself. Right. He is just.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. He's not engaging with anything.

[Graham Donaldson]

He's not engaging with anything. He's not in relationship with anything. Because he prefer not to.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Sure.

[Graham Donaldson]

And so, yeah, he's perfectly free, but he's also the tiniest little circle. Like, he's just so. He's just his own self, and he wastes away to something small and dead on a bench in jail. So in that sense, it's, like, very tragic, but I feel I can. I understand at first blush that there is a little bit of, like, an admiration for that attitude. Like, Thomas, you were hoping that Bartleby was someone who eventually said, like, I'm not going to do the things I don't want to do.

[Thomas Magby]

Right. He rises above this corporate structure.

[Graham Donaldson]

You know, it's the dream. Right. We all want to have, for lack of a better term, the fu. Money. Right. You all want to. Have you ever, I don't know if you've ever seen that John Goodman video of like, you just need to have a 30 year roof. You know, you need to have 2 million in the bank and then you can tell everybody what you will and will not do. A lot of people look at that and say, that's life. And Bartleby just is living that, living that way.

[AJ Hennenberg]

But without the roof, without the money. Yeah, yeah, but we are, we are way over time.

[Thomas Magby]

Are we?

[AJ Hennenberg]

Actually, yeah, we're like 10 minutes over.

[Thomas Magby]

That's office space too. Of the. There him and the neighbor are talking and he talks about he would want to do nothing. Right. If he quit his job, he'd want to do nothing. And the neighbor's response is, you don't need money to do that.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Right.

[Thomas Magby]

Like, you can do that. Now that's what Bartleby does. Right. He. Yeah, he lives the freedom, but to death. Right? I mean, that's the problem. So.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Yeah. Well, man, I really, I really liked it.

[Graham Donaldson]

Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Let me promote it to the listener. Like, I gave you some big chunks of it again. It's only like 30 pages. It's a dollar on Kindle.

[Thomas Magby]

Like, do yourself free online. Yeah.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Gosh darn it.

[Thomas Magby]

You overpaid by a dollar.

[AJ Hennenberg]

I overpaid by a dollar. Well, I want it on my Kindle. It'd be handy. I, I cannot recommend it more. It's a fun little tale. It's Herman Melville. And if you enjoyed that, hopefully you'll enjoy Moby Dick, which is coming up. Moby Dick is also has moments of just wonderful comedy. And it has like, alas, Flask is a butterless man. There's, it's great. There's. There's some really funny bits. There's some transcendent bits. There's some drudgery. Moby Dick is really a great American novel. I'm excited to do it and I'm super thankful that I read this tale. It's really funny.

[Thomas Magby]

Well, this has been classical stuff you should know. You can find us online at classicalstuff.net, you can email us at theguyslassicalstuff.net you can find us on x x.com classical stuff. C L-S S C A L stuff. You can find us on Patreon patreon.com classicalstuff where we host monthly AMAs and we also produce regular in between episodes which we will we will record right now. That's bonus content between each of our episodes where we continue on with the themes from the episode beforehand. I think that is everything. Thank you all so much for listening and we will see you all again soon.

[AJ Hennenberg]

Bye. Sa.