All three are amazing on their own, but when read in sequence they seem to enhance one another. Each explores motivations and purpose and how those two concepts interact with morality and belief. All are absurd in some way: Bartelby does not follow any one's orders, Benito Cereno has gone insane, Babo is curiously obedient, Billy Budd is pure, Claggart is impenetrable. Put them in a room high up above the streets or on a ship in the middle of the ocean. either is a world unto itself, but ones that we can measure our world against.

The four stories in this book are "Bartlesby," "The Encantadas," "Benito Cerrano" and "Billy Budd." All are nautical except for "Bartlesby. "Bartlesby" appears to be about an autistic person, though no such diagnosis existed at the time. This was my favorite of the four. The Encantadas is a somewhat tedious description of the Galapagos Islands (each one of them separately, it seems) with a few anecdotes thrown in. Benito Cerrano is a mystery. And Billy Budd is an anecdote about beauty, duty and misfortune.

All had long, wordy passages that at times obscured more than illuminated the scenes. Interspersed in episodes of fast action, they made time seem to pass slowly in the novel.

I had only heard clips about the book of Moby Dick and never sat down to read it until a few years ago with my family. It was a very interesting book.

Bartleby, Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd. First time reading the latter two. The first two are like perfect masterpieces, the last one is mostly inscrutable but with a thematic feeling like what he’s after is both impossible to find and also crucial. I think the unifying feature of these American renaissance lads, Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe, all of whom I’ve read very recently, is that they’re full of bizarre and subtle yet also overstated personal hang-ups, which makes for some wonderfully weird literature. As far as our American canon of classics goes, it could’ve been much worse.

which biography of HM should I buy?

These classics of American literature are still very readable and enjoyable today although Benito Cereno would come across as somewhat racist by our standards. Still, if you could manage to put it in the right perspective it would still be very exciting. Bartleby is one of my favorite all time stories that transplants well into modern Capitalism for any drudge in an office or a factory. Billy Budd is a good read but not as intriguing as Benito and not as thought-provoking as Bartleby. I recommend reading these stories. They are very rewarding and you will enjoy them.

The critical essays accompanying the original short fiction in this volume tend towards the dryly academic but do help illuminate three of Melville's most important shorter works, which are brilliantly constructed and pose interesting questions to this day.

I read Bartleby, Billy Budd, and Benito Cereno. Can't say I was a huge fan of Billy Budd but the other two were fantastic, especially Benito Cereno. Great story that is excellent for analysis. I would love to teach it

Un relato corto pero muy original , la frase “preferiría no hacerlo “ nunca la olvidaré

Leyendo “Bartleby y compañía” de Enrique Vila-Matas me sumergí en el relato de Herman Melville que no había leído antes aunque lo tenía en casa de las lecturas de mi mujer.

Un curioso personaje el tal Bartleby, solitario, silencioso, abstraído contemplando la pared de ladrillo de la ventana del despacho de abogado en el que trabaja como escribiente. Un personaje aislado que se niega a cualquier requerimiento del abogado que lo emplea, con su frase recurrente de “preferiría no hacerlo”.

Tan curioso como el abogado, que es quien relata la historia en primera persona y a través de cuyos ojos conocemos lo poco que vamos a saber de Bartleby. Primero desconcertado y perplejo por la reacción de su empleado de dejar de hacer su trabajo, de negarse a responderle y luego sintiendo empatía y compasión por su situación. Y hasta mala conciencia.

Bartleby se convirtió en un arquetipo literario de la inacción, de “rebelde” (o más bien inadaptado) a las normas establecidas, por eso Vila-Matas utiliza el “síndrome de Bartleby” en su interesante libro de “notas a pie de página” sobre autores que dejaron de escribir o que no escribieron por diferentes motivos, los escritores del NO.

I had read a few of Melville's short stories during high school, and did not like them very much. I had to read this Norton version for an Intro to American Lit class, and still didn't like them very much. "Benito Cereno" is overrated, "Bartleby" is just plain excruciating.

Meantime the sound of the parted waters came more and more gurglingly and merrily in at the windows; as reproaching him for his dark spleen; as telling him that, sulk as he might, and go mad with it, nature cared not a jot; since, whose fault was it, pray?