Customer Reviews

Billy Budd, Sailor (Thorndike Press Large Print Perennial Bestsellers Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Stored away in a tin box and unpublished until 1924, "Billy Budd" has since been released in a number of forms. The confused state of the various drafts and manuscripts and the resulting (significant) disparities among the work's many editions have only increased the multiplicity of interpretations of what is already an extraordinarily complex (but not all that difficult) work. Readers' understanding or pleasure of this deeply textured novella may well depend on the text they select; the version widely considered the standard is Hayford and Sealts's "reading text," which is reprinted in any number of editions, including those available from the University of Chicago Press, Penguin, and The Library of America.

"Billy Budd" is often labeled an "unfinished" work--but I think that this intimidating tag does the story an injustice, leading readers to believe that the tale will end mid-sentence, with Billy dangling from the plank of a ship. But this is no "Mystery of Edwin Drood" or "The Castle"; Melville's novel is complete. Instead, one might say it is "unpolished"--although the work's ostensible inconsistencies and errors may have been part and parcel of Melville's clearly unreliable narrator--an aspect common to many of his late works, particularly "Pierre" and "The Confidence-Man."

So what's it about? And, more perplexingly, what does it mean? This tale of the sea relates the adulation and eventual persecution of the ever-trusting Billy Budd, the "Handsome Sailor" on a British merchant ship who, at the book's opening, is forcibly impressed by the warship "Bellipotent." In his new post, the innocent naif is worshipped by the rest of the crew, which arouses the dangerous jealousy of the master-at-arms, John Claggart, the protective watchfulness of the old salt Dansker, and the conflicted paternal instincts of the ship's captain, Edward Vere. The dynamics of the tensions among these four shipmates lead to a horrible accident which tests the principles of each of the survivors.

At its most basic, Melville is a retelling of the biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac (a parallel made explicitly in the text), but in this story God remains aloof: Captain Vere must decide on his own whether Billy is to be sacrificed on the rock of military discipline. And, even more obviously, Billy is the ship's Christ figure.

But, biblical allusions aside, Billy can also be seen as the common man controlled by the paternalism of nobility. The ship from which Billy is kidnapped is the "Rights-of-Man," and "the dry and bookish" Vere (who shares his name with one of the more famous Earls of Oxford) is unsubtly modeled after that idol of conservatism Edmund Burke ("his settled convictions were as a dike against those invading waters of novel opinion social, political, and otherwise"). Billy's eventual transformation as a symbol of the strong arm of the law disguises what's really at stake: is it the preservation of aristocratic power--or the prevention of anarchy? (Melville's own sympathies were equally ambiguous.) More subtle still is the issue of race: the archetypal Handsome Sailor, mentioned in passing on the first page of the book, is "so intensely black that he must needs have been a native African." Through the compulsory act of impressment, Billy (whose "lily was quite suppressed" by his tan) becomes a slave under the arbitrary white rule of the ship.

The book's finale and its understated aftermath never fail to amaze and sadden me. My amazement results from Melville's ability to turn what could be a treacly ending into a statement on democracy and humankind (much like he did in the less successful "Israel Potter"); the sadness stems from the obvious truth in the author's views on power and subservience. In spite of its being a slim and "unfinished" novella, "Billy Budd" remains one of the most multifaceted classics of American literature.

Melville's short novel, Billy Budd, relates the late eighteenth century story of a naive, innocent, young sailor, who is hated by John Claggart, the ship's master-at-arms. Good versus evil, the individual versus society, absolute law versus mercy are all themes in the novel. Billy Budd contains many Christian allusions, and some commentators have suggested the novel is a Christian allegory that depicts the sacrifice of an innocent man. The narrator repeatedly draws comparisons between Billy Budd and Christ and Claggart and Satan. Although the reader must be willing to wade through many unfamiliar allusions and difficult vocabulary, the novel has a simple, but gripping plot line with universal themes.

Melville's short novel, Billy Budd, relates the story of a naive, innocent, young sailor hated by John Claggart, the ship's master-at-arms. The reason for Claggart's hatred is unknown; he is simply the representative of evil. In the presence of the ship's captain, Claggart falsely accuses Billy of mutiny. In response, Billy strikes Claggart with such force that Claggart falls dead. Concerned with the possibility of mutiny, Captain Vere convenes a court which follows Vere's directions, convicts Billy, and sentences him to death by hanging. The sentence is carried out.

The novel contains many Christian allusions, and some commentators have suggested Billy Budd is an allegory of Christ and the sacrifice of an innocent man. The narrator repeatedly draws comparisons between Billy and Christ and Claggart and Satan.

The most difficult parts of Billy Budd were Chapters 3 and 4, which seemed unconnnected with plot at that point in the novel. Later, the reader understands the connection between the descriptions of two mutinies on other ships and Billy Budd. However, I am not sure the reader is ever entirely clearly ion the relevance of Admiral Nelson in Chapter 4.

Although the reader has to be willing to wade through many allusions and difficult vocabulary, the novel has a great plot and universal themes. The innocent victim, the evil heart, the individual versus society theme, the letter of the law versus mercy theme, the internal conflicts in Captain Vere, the Christ imagery all make for a classic novel. I recommend Billy Budd.

The first time I encountered Billy Budd, I was merely 16 years old and incredibly disappointed with Melville's classic. It was unlike anything I had previously encountered, much to my relief. I was turned off by, in my estimation, its excessive length and wordy sentence structure. I was so turned off, in fact, that I left a less than stellar review of the novella on Amazon. An avid and appreciative reader of classics, I preferred more straightforward reads such as Mark Twain's Huck Finn or Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

The second time I approached Billy Budd, it was six years later and in an upper level American Literature course. Though I had read it before, I gave it a second try because I had recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Melville's short stories The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids and Bartleby. I was astounded at my changed perspective. No longer was the story cumbersome and confusing; I found that it was a beautifully written, intricately symbolic masterpiece. The story had meaning and each page felt significant, which had gone unnoticed and unappreciated with my first reading.

Though I can't find my old review, I wanted to update my remarks, if not alter them completely. Time and growth allowed me to understand and appreciate this classic. Life is all about timing. If you didn't enjoy this the first time around, perhaps you should give it another try, too.

... and my contribution, I admit, raises more questions than it answers.

Is Billy Budd a Political Allegory? Or is it an oblique admission of latent homosexuality? Or a cautious hatchet-job on a domineering father-in-law? Or a somber biblical morality tale, with Captain Vere standing in for Pontius Pilate? Or simply a prose prologue to a ballad in verse, which spilled uncontrollably out of its frame?

None of those interpretations is as indefensible as it might seem. Literary scholars have advanced all of them in their full armor of earnestness post-modernism. Possibly it's the elusiveness of a final interpretation that has made Billy Budd, like Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, so dear to the critics. Among the writings of Herman Melville, Billy Budd certainly remains the most fraught with ambiguities and uncertain implications.

I hadn't re-read Billy Budd in decades -- not since college, when I wrote a very long and stuffy term paper on Melville's treatments of the military -- and I didn't foresee reading it now. But one of my nieces graduated from law school last month and, at a family celebration, I found her telling me about one of her favorite professors, who structured a whole class around discussion of 'justice' as depicted in Billy Budd! It turns out that there are reams of opinions, by lawyers and law students, about Billy Budd! That it's a 'classic' of legal literature, although my niece suggested a widespread reliance among students on Cliff Notes! Whoda thunkit?

Denizens of literature departments have been predisposed to read Billy Budd as a personal revelation of Herman Melville's conflicted sexual identity. The story IS dedicated, conspicuously, to an old shipmate, Jack Chase, whom Melville had long previously portrayed in his complex novel Redburn. That novel vividly revealed Melville's 'alarm' at the discovery of homoerotic attractions. In Billy Budd, the nameless narrator explicitly probes the antipathy of the hostile petty officer, Claggart, for the handsome sailor Billy in terms of latent homoeroticism. The opera Billy Budd, by Benjamin Britten, commits the story utterly to such an understanding. Nevertheless, I find this train of thought a stub line, a siding where the engine gets to idle. There's too much of the text that focuses on law and discipline, on the historical mutinies that contextualize the tragedy of Budd's execution. Herman Melville was not just spinning word-wheels. He was too deep and deliberate a writer. Some readers have complained that the "story" of Billy is postponed too long by the narrator's ruminations; in fact, some fifteen pages pass before Vere and Claggart are introduced. Whatever more it may be, Billy Budd is a story about the sociology of life on a sailing ship-of-war. The pluses and cons of naval discipline mattered to the old sailor, even in his obscure niche as a customs officer.

So then, shall we plump for the 'political' or 'historical' interpretation? Billy Budd, according to the text, was conscripted in 1797, in the context of the British naval actions against revolutionary France. Melville wasn't born until 1819. Why then did he set his narrative so long before his own experience on a US military frigate? The merchant ship from which Budd was snatched was christened "The Rights of Man", and much is made of Billy's 'farewell to the Rights' when Claggart accuses him of mutinous intentions. Could we construct an allegorical interpretation, with the Handsome Sailor representing Democracy in its infancy? [If any grad student takes this possibility seriously and writes a thesis on it, I want footnote credit!]

Melville's father-in-law was the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Lemuel Shaw, one of the most influential jurists in the history of American business law. Melville scholars have brunted the notion that Captain Vere is a guarded portrayal of Shaw. That would, I think, imply a mixture of admiration and resentment on Melville's part toward his much more successful father-in-law. A tinge of inferiority perhaps? I'll wager Shaw was intimidating over the dinner platters during family visits. The narrator of Billy Budd -- unnamed and not to be automatically regarded as the author -- insists that Starry Vere is a paragon of virtue and duty, yet at several points inserts doubts about Vere's deeper character, including a speculation about his sanity! The admirable Vere is despicably inadequate in his handling of the confrontation between Budd and Claggart; both the readers and the sailors on the deck of his ship can be heard to mutter against him. He cloaks himself in patriotic sanctimony but he deserves no adulation for wisdom here. Of course, he stands as a synecdoche for naval authority, for the tyrannical discipline against which Melville had strenuously protested in his early novel White Jacket. What happens to innocent, honorable Billy Budd is a potent example of what was hopelessly flawed in hierarchical society. The reader might be excused, I think, for perceiving Billy as "Democracy" martyred by self-righteous Conservatism.

And how about the Morality Tale? There are flashes of biblical imagery. There is the weird, mysterious description of Budd's execution by hanging, when his body doesn't twitch and jerk, as if he were sublimated into death without suffering. Surely Melville, whose whole life had been an agony of religious impulse in conflict with disbelief, had something in mind, some intended meaning. After all, he COULD have written a different story, a more palatable denouement. Honestly, I find less concern for metaphysics, for questions of God, in Billy Budd than in Moby Dick or in Melville's book-length poem Clarel. I'd argue that in Billy Budd, God no longer has a role. Perhaps that's the message.

Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever made much of the thirty-one line poem that concludes the text of Billy Budd. It turns out that Melville had sketched several such nautical ballads, and experimentally prefaced them with brief prose accounts. These were found in his papers in various stages of incompletion. Billy Budd, please remember, was 'unfinished', published many years posthumously, and subject to the decisions of various editors. There are assorted 'definitive' editions. The ballad Billy in the Darbies strikes most readers as an odd anticlimax to the novella, but if you read it on its own terms, it's as bleak a death-wish as you might find at the end of a Viking saga. The comfort of a burial at sea -- "Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep." -- was denied to Herman Melville, the dutiful husband and conscientious office-holder.

This is a good book if you are not reading to be entertained by a story, but if you want to understand what Melville is really talking about and get a lot more out of it then you ever thought possibly, true some parts are slow but if you look at what Melville is doing with the language and references it is really a very good and well-written book.

Herman Melville is one of the lesser known authors.Still his style and skill are not to be ignored.Whenever you wish to explore the development of the United States , and the regionalisms of the sailors of the northeast ,read him . Exciting
and educational ,and extremely well written.