As great as Moby Dick is, it tends to overshadow Melville's other novels, which also contain incredible writing. Redburn is a semi-autobiographical novel about a young man's first trip to the sea. It's mostly a humorous romp about an unexperienced scion of a connected family trying to make his stamp on the world, but quickly realizing that the world at large is indifferent to him.

Despite the fact that the novel was written over a hundred and seventy years ago, I actually found the way that Redburn's own personal narrative of discovery and greatness keeps on getting sidetracked by reality relatable.

There's also plenty of typically smart observations about class, culture, and capitalism, which you would expect from Melville. One particular chapter describes a woman and her children who are starving to death. Redburn makes several attempts to help them, but each time is rebuffed by police officers and others who don't see this as their problem. Outside of slave narratives, it's some of the most gruesome writing I've encountered from the 19th century.

Veni - vidi - vici :) I have read Melville´s semi-autobiographical masterpiece ´Redburn´ and decided to include it in my researches around organizational values in corporate environments. My intention was to take an interdisciplinary approach by excavating from literature to amplify the meaning of my findings and to harness the power of literature as a vehicle to discover social dynamics in an organization.

Now my actual review of this Bildungsroman:

Melville´s book was first published in London in 1849. The Bildungsroman deals with the 15-years old Wellingborough Redburn who signs on the Highlander, a merchant ship out of New York City bound for Liverpool, England. Redburn is eager to follow his deceased father´s footsteps to become an importer traveling around world collecting stories and experiences on exotic countries and cultures. However, Redburn soon gets to realize that the voyage is far from what he had envisioned in the first place.

He presents himself as a ´gentleman´s son´ to Captain Riga. Though Redburn´s family is no longer rich and is rather bankrupt in the meantime, he insists on presenting himself as an aristocrat’s´ son clinging on his family’s virtues and image when they used to be rich. Captain Riga reveals to be a duplicitous man who cares only about his image to the world outside his merchant ship, displaying no empathy nor care for his crew on the Highlander.

Trapped on the ship with a crew of seamen of various characters, backgrounds and values, Redburn tries to make sense of the social dynamics and malfunctions embedded in a hierarchical structure. The complexity of social relations and collaboration is augmented by Jackson, the best seaman and a tyrant on the Highlander who manages his crew by fear. Barely educated, Jackson got the hang of the business on the merchant ship by experience and is constantly worried about defending his position by bullying his crew.

Redburn´s voyage starts off with seasickness, sleepless nights, lack of food and no support from his crew mates or leaders. A conservative Christian holding onto the values and beliefs of his religion, he soon makes compromises on them to survive on the Highlander. In all situations including passing through ferocious storms or accidents, Redburn learned the key to his survival is the strict adherence to the rules imposed by Jackson. Only handling his chores and tasks as expected will bring him respect from his crew mates.

Neither the landscapes, the whales, nor the cities in his fantasies live up to the reality. Even the ´prosy old guide-book´ titled ´The Picture of Liverpool´ designed by his father led to a huge disappointment when he set foot in Liverpool to track down some of the places his father had visited there. Misery, famine and human actions resulting from despair make Liverpool no longer attractive to Redburn as once again the city was not what he had imagined, so he is left to experience disappointments at all levels. On top, may it be for his own survival or helping others survive, Redburn is constantly compromising on his core values that were once solidified by his religion and family.

Emigrants who are smuggled on the Highlander on the way back to New York increase the feuds as everyone suffers from parsimony and dysfunctional relations. Redburn is exposed to people of various nations such as from Ireland and Italy, which leads him to challenge his initial assumptions and prejudices on different nationalities by overserving everyone whilst engaging in reflexive processes to make sense of their behavior and actions, though he is not always able to draw logical conclusions from his analyses.

He meets with Harry Bolton, a damaged soul that introduces Redburn to the decadent places of Liverpool and subsequently embarks the voyage from Liverpool to New York. In denial to see who Bolton really is or does, Redburn stays in their friendship with a portion of distrust. His friendship to Bolton is rooted in their common inexperience of sailing and abruptly ends once Redburn disembarks the Highlander in New York. Yet, he will hold himself accountable of Bolton´s tragical death when he finds out only years later.

At the end of the book, a narration by an older and mature Redburn sheds light on his very first journey filled with reflections on his experience.

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Borrrrrring.

Half way through this, young Redburn having arrived in Liverpool after his first sea voyage, from New York. Melville, of course, is wonderful at evoking sea journeys and it goes without saying that he imbues his descriptions with the allegorical and the transcendent. Here, by distancing the absent narrator who heas each chapter in the third person, there is delightful humour and irony at the expense of the growing, often so priggish, sailor. He cannot be other than who he is, and his own map of the human universe is peopled with cartoon stereotypes, including extreme racial prejudice and sheer snobbishness. Yet this is a rite of passage for him, and we see him develop into early adulthood.

Liverpool itself is subject of much of the book, and it's brilliantly evoked. Redburn has with him an 1801 guide to Liverpool (which actually exists) that belonged to his father. He discovers in it his own childhood drawings and scribbles he has made in it. A map of Liverpool shows the north east of the city as a blanks desert-coloured emptiness: child Redburn has illustrated it with monsters and exotica. Accidental irony that such as Norris Green, Fazakerley and Kirkby remain to this day so much screens for the projection of dark imaginings!


Largely drawing on Melville's own experiences, this is a wonderful book. Highly recommended.

Another masterpiece by the great Herman Melville. Now, for myself, it’s time to plan a voyage to Liverpool.

Fairly intriguing, giving a neat picture of life on the merchant ships, but the story follows a stream of events—which was a stumbling block for me, as I found myself in want of a more dramatic plot based story.

we are curious creatures, as every one knows; and there are passages in the lives of all men, so out of keeping with the common tenor of their ways, and so seemingly contradictory of themselves, that only He who made us can expound them.

Talk not of the bitterness of middle-age and after life; a boy can feel all that, and much more, when upon his young soul the mildew has fallen; and the fruit, which with others is only blasted after ripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom and bud. And never again can such blights be made good; they strike in too deep, and leave such a scar that the air of Paradise might not erase it. And it is a hard and cruel thing thus in early youth to taste beforehand the pangs which should be reserved for the stout time of manhood, when the gristle has become bone, and we stand up and fight out our lives, as a thing tried before and foreseen; for then we are veterans used to sieges and battles, and not green recruits, recoiling at the first shock of the encounter.

give me this glorious ocean life, this salt-sea life, this briny, foamy life, when the sea neighs and snorts, and you breathe the very breath that the great whales respire! Let me roll around the globe, let me rock upon the sea; let me race and pant out my life, with an eternal breeze astern, and an endless sea before!

Dood Hope, Dood Hope, dare is no dood hope for dem, old boy; dey are drowned and d....d, as you and I will be, one of dese dark nights.

If to every one, life be made up of farewells and greetings, then, of all men, sailors shake the most hands, and wave the most hats. They are here and then they are there; ever shifting themselves, they shift among the shifting: and like rootless sea-weed, are tossed to and fro.

The novel he wrote just before Moby Dick, Melville does a good deal of describing the characters of sailors and the general milieu of Liverpool circa 1840. But if you're looking for a plot, there's none: he gets on a ship, sails to Liverpool, meets some guy who sucks at sailing, and sails back to New York. I only liked it for the historical detail and colorful dialog.

Early Melville novel about a teenager on an American merchant vessel bound for Liverpool is fairly autobiographical -- and curious in that a huge chunk of the book is not actually about life at sea, but about what the hero finds on land in Liverpool, a town filled with dire poverty. Probably my least favorite of the half-dozen Melville novels I've read. In spite of the expected beautiful writing, and a good deal of literary play (the hero is often an unreliable narrator), it's just less consistently involving than his other work.

Better than Melville's more famous "Moby Dick", Redburn takes place on a merchant vessel and Melville had served on one in his youth. His experience made this a more enjoyable read as he inserts observations a real sailor would know. He had never served on a whaling ship and the many pages of filler he inserted in Moby Dick made it obvious that he knew nothing of whaling ships.

A boy seeking monetary compensation since the demise of his bankrupt father joining a merchant ship in New York City for his first trip to Liverpool and to be honest anywhere else on the ocean . Things start inauspiciously as the ponderous St. Lawrence rolls side to side, the sea lifts up his ship above and down however his stomach remains skyward in the watery valley of death. Sailors laugh at seasickness such weakness aren't acceptable not on a floating sailing vessel. So ailing Wellingborough (a silly name indeed) Redburn trying to hide this detriment unsuccessfully. Mr. Jackson the leader of the uncouth seamen on board ship don't conceal unfavorable feelings towards him and others the same, poor landlubber. Crawling up the towering mast by the riggings seems quite impossibly high, scrapping the clouds he makes a mistake looking down, petrified, the winds blow hard rocking the structure around, far below the waves strike the ship however the royal sails must be loosen. Buttons his new moniker because of the coat he wears descends much faster and getting a somewhat compliment by Max an experience sailor. Captain Riga a kindly soul ashore is otherwise on the sea none talk to the aloof man but the mates as will Mr. Redburn soon discover to his chagrin barely escaping a whipping. Life in the nineteenth century can be barbaric, customs much more strict, deviations not tolerated for any but a few. To make matters worst the filthy conditions below deck could turn a strong constitution to jelly even people who seen it all would shortly drop tears down their cheeks. Reaching Liverpool the biggest port in the world at that time...and the dirtiest, shocked Redburn from New York too, his eyes can't , wont believe things are so bad in any place on Earth, literary starving people. Still nobody cares , the dying in the streets, neighbors , policemen , fellow humans not important. The only compensation meeting Englishman Harry Bolton in the city, seemingly a gentleman just a few years older than Wellingborough with a secret problem, maybe gambling? A quick unproductive trip to London where our anxious visitor needs to see the sights but disappointed the strange Harry keeps him in the dark...four wall he views. Herman Melville was one of America 's finest writer though this is not his best, any novel or short story from the author is well worth reading I can truthfully say since reading them all and enjoying. Almost forgot friends, the trip back home is even more excruciating.

Loved this book. Fictional account of an impoverished boy (whose circumstances diminished upon the bankruptcy and death of his father) who joins the crew of a merchant ship for a trip from Manhattan to Liverpool. The novel takes place over a period of about four months.

The plot develops in linear fashion and is pretty straightforward: trip to Liverpool; experiences in England; trip home. Melville's description of the sea ports and experiences at sea are amazing and the reader gets a great visual of a lost era when sailing ships dominated commerce. His humor shines through and his syntax is simpler than in other works such as Moby Dick. Some of Melville's characterizations of his protagonist stretch plausibility (can anyone be THAT naive?) and a few picaresque events/characters seem like side stories versus driving the plot forward but these are minor quibbles.

While not a focus of the book, Melville injects numerous asides that lament the human condition and that resonate through today. Here is but one example that touches on the deplorable conditions for European immigrants on merchant ships in the mid-1800s:

****

Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on American shores; let us waive it, with only the thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her miseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China. But we waive all this; and will only consider, how best the emigrants can come hither, since come they do, and come they must and will.