Billy Budd & Other Tales

Herman Melville

Billy Budd, Foretopman: What Befell Him in the Year of the Great Mutiny

Yes, that’s the title of the book.  A reasonable read, once you sort of get used to the diction (why does language seem to change so quickly?; this was written yesterday, metaphorically speaking).  But I didn’t like it.  But I couldn’t read Hitchhiker’s Guide at eleven, perhaps at 55 I’ll read Melville properly.

An excerpt:

Mellville disses chess in praising the frank sailor

Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head; no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straightforwardness, and ends are attained by indirection; an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth the poor candle burnt out in playing it.

Page 74.

Melville, Herman.  Billy Budd & Other Tales.  New York: Magnum Easy Eye Books / Lancer Books, 1970.
Billy Budd, Foretopman: What Befell Him in the Year of the Great Mutiny.  Begun 1888; Finished 1891.

This book is in the Maurice Institute Library collection.

Book read (that is, the part read at all) circa early 2002.

Review written from 2002 February 25 to 2002 May 6.