Wisdom and Woe

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" (1853) is one of Melville's most studied and enigmatic works. It weaves dark comedy with surreal tragedy, evoking life's existential absurdity and provoking questions of what makes us human.

The narrator, an unidentified Manhattan lawyer, hires a new office assistant by the name of Bartleby. One day, Bartleby starts responding to inquiries with a stubbornly innocent "I would prefer not to." As the story progresses, Bartleby's refusal grows increasingly uncanny, correspondingly perplexing, paralyzing, and crucifying the narrator's conscience.

Nathalia Wright argues that "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is medical fiction, wherein each of the various office workers are portraits of the four humors: phlegmatic (the narrator), melancholic (Bartleby), sanguine (Turkey), and choleric (Nippers). In fact, "Everyone wants to diagnose Bartleby. Autism, catatonia, schizophrenia, depression, anorexia, agoraphobia--you name the disorder, and it has been applied to the scrivener." (Herman Melville and Neurodiversity)

But the story (strangely reminiscent, in its own way, of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven") resists simple interpretation. Its ever-crowding walls--both literal and symbolic--seem to affront the characters and readers alike with their impenetrability. Eventually, one begins to suspect fault in the narrator's pathologically oblivious (if not deceptive) point-of-view.

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Bartleby, the Scrivener:

Michael Mills, the narrator of Genoa: A Telling of Wonders (Paul Metcalf, 1965), is a trained physician who has abnegated all medical practice. Paralyzed by his professional responsibility and haunted by the crimes of his brother, he retreats to an isolated attic, where he meditates on fatherhood, loss, madness, health, faith, Herman Melville, Christopher Columbus, and the mysteries of the human body.

He particularly directs his thought to the grim science of "teratology," i.e., congenital birth defects. (The phenomenon, which originally signified "monstrous portents or wonders," renders the novel's subtitle.) The themes of inheritance and monstrosity converge upon American myth and history, where Michael wrestles with notions of genetic and historical determinism, and his withdrawal turns emblematic of the failures of science and civilization. The book itself presents like a "Frankenstein patchwork" of ruminations, memories, and quotations set off in disparate italics, boldface, and indentation.

Paul Metcalf (1917-1999) was the great-grandson of Herman Melville. He said that he wrote Genoa in order to escape the long literary shadow of his progenitor (not unlike the burdened quest of its narrator). The result is "truly, unmistakably original": a "helixing of quotation and consciousness, with its multiple fonts and its open-ended grammatical structures... and its huge, unquenchable obsessions with the past." (Rick Moody)

Schedule:

• Week 1 (8/23): Chapters 1-3
• Week 2 (8/30): Chapters 4-7

Genoa: A Telling of Wonders:

Michael Mills, the narrator of Genoa: A Telling of Wonders (Paul Metcalf, 1965), is a trained physician who has abnegated all medical practice. Paralyzed by his professional responsibility and haunted by the crimes of his brother, he retreats to an isolated attic, where he meditates on fatherhood, loss, madness, health, faith, Herman Melville, Christopher Columbus, and the mysteries of the human body.

He particularly directs his thought to the grim science of "teratology," i.e., congenital birth defects. (The phenomenon, which originally signified "monstrous portents or wonders," renders the novel's subtitle.) The themes of inheritance and monstrosity converge upon American myth and history, where Michael wrestles with notions of genetic and historical determinism, and his withdrawal turns emblematic of the failures of science and civilization. The book itself presents like a "Frankenstein patchwork" of ruminations, memories, and quotations set off in disparate italics, boldface, and indentation.

Paul Metcalf (1917-1999) was the great-grandson of Herman Melville. He said that he wrote Genoa in order to escape the long literary shadow of his progenitor (not unlike the burdened quest of its narrator). The result is "truly, unmistakably original": a "helixing of quotation and consciousness, with its multiple fonts and its open-ended grammatical structures... and its huge, unquenchable obsessions with the past." (Rick Moody)

Schedule:

• Week 1 (8/23): Chapters 1-3
• Week 2 (8/30): Chapters 4-7

Genoa: A Telling of Wonders:

Director Tod Browning has been called "the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema," known for his pioneering films of horror and the macabre. His groundbreaking career spanned the silent and sound film eras, including the genre-defining Dracula (1931) and the reputation-ruining Freaks (1932).

Freaks features an unforgettable cast of real-life sideshow performers, portraying a circus troupe on the fringes of mainstream society. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die says "No mere plot summary can do justice to this alarming yet profound movie.... It is a supreme oddity (freak?) of world cinema considered by many to be the most remarkable film in" Browning's remarkable career.

The film was received with revulsion upon release, and is today regarded as a cult classic. It only survives in a softened (expurgated) form that, nevertheless (and even with age), remains provocative and unmistakably unsettling. It "truly must be seen to be believed": is it horror or dark melodrama? Exploitative or sympathetic?

About the movie: