The Books: “Billy Budd” (Herman Melville)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Billy Budd by Herman Melville

I’ve written before on here about my journey with Herman Melville: being forced to read him in high school – we read Billy Budd (which – oh my God – we hated it sooo much … we found it nearly unreadable) and Moby Dick was on our summer reading list – and I remember me and all my friends, on the last week of summer, sitting on our towels at the beach, tearing through that stupid book, not giving a shit about ONE word of it … too much! Too much!! We just didn’t care. Cut to almost 20 years later. It’s 2001, and I decided to methodically go back to every book I was made to read in high school – and read them again, as an adult. Many of them (like The Scarlet Letter – excerpt here) I hadn’t read since high school English class! There were a couple of books from high school that I loved the first time I read them – Tale of Two Cities (excerpt here), The Great Gatsby (excerpt here), Catcher In the Rye – so those I didn’t force myself to re-read, since I had already done so, willingly, over the years. It was the ones I flat out did not “get” in high school that I wanted to read again. I dreaded some of it – like: must I read Tess of the Stupid D’Urberviles again?? But man, what a cool thing it was to go back and discover Tess as the fraught observant tragic well-crafted page-turner that it is! (Excerpt here) That so far has happened with all of those old high school books. But there was something about Billy Budd, above all other books, that really struck a nerve with me in high school. I used to RAGE about the book. I mean, honestly – the book is, what, 90 pages long? It felt ENDLESS to me. I wrote about Billy Budd in my diary, that’s how mad he made me! I know he shows up in one Diary Friday or another. Like: Sheila, stop ranting about books you hate in your diary! Get a life! I think what bothered me the most about the book was its allegorical style, which struck me as too obvious – and also I had a big problem with giving one tiny bit of a shit about the character of Billy Budd. He was too good. Too perfect. He wasn’t a hero to me, or even an interesting character. Jay Gatsby was far more interesting because he was, oh, what’s the word? Uhmmmmm …. HUMAN, that’s the word. Now Melville was obviously not interested in writing realism, and certainly not in Billy Budd – and you can lecture me all you want about what I was “missing” in the book – Lord knows my teacher at the time did too! – but still, the fact remains: I hated the book, and I dislike flat-out allegories anyway, I find them tiresome. So no, I wasn’t really “missing” anything at all. I just didn’t like it. Billy Budd was too good to be interesting.

Funnily enough, in my Book Reading Project I just described – it was Billy Budd that I put off reading, even after I read Moby Dick and realized that not only was it one of the greatest books I had ever read, but now it was a personal favorite of mine – almost instantly … but Billy Budd hovered like a grim spectre on the horizon. 90 pages! How can such a small book loom so large?

I finally forced myself to read it last year. And no, I didn’t hate it with the passion of a thousand suns anymore, but I found that yes, the same things annoyed me about it that annoyed me in high school. The allegory is too obvious. The masts of the boat forming a cross. Billy Budd’s fairness, like a cherub in a Renaissance painting. The malevolence of the master-at-arms – which, Melville makes clear in the excerpt below, is innate – something Claggart was born with. He’s like Cathy in East of Eden – born bad. So again, that to me is just not all that interesting – or, no. It IS interesting: Cathy in East of Eden is a terrifying character, and she endlessly fascinates. I guess Billy Budd is all a bit too much on the nose for my taste. Moby Dick, by contrast, is a huge sweeping mess of a novel – ahead of its time back then, and I would say ahead of its time even now. There has not been another book like Moby Dick. And in that book – the allegory is so vast and interwoven – that it doesn’t feel as obvious as it does in Billy Budd. The whale – as allegory – becomes one of those devices that helps the reader not only understand Ahab and the whaling industry and the entire world of the book, not to mention all of the deeper themes – but it helps the reader to better understand herself, and how she operates in this world, how she is or is not like the whale … THAT is allegory at its very best. But I’ll get to Moby Dick when I get to it.

Now, to be fair: I no longer hate Billy Budd. I actually enjoyed reading it again, and there is much to recommend it – especially the writing. Melville certainly has a way, don’t he. So so good. My main response to it, though, was the unexpected: “Wow. This has to be one of the most homoerotic books I’ve ever read.” There were times I wasn’t sure if I was reading Billy Budd or flipping through an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. I can’t even count the references to the Greeks. And Melville dwells, lovingly, upon the half-naked men all around the ship – describing their bodies and torsos and muscles in intimate detail – in a way he NEVER would do when describing the female form. It is surmised that Melville probably had many homosexual experiences in his years on ships – and he was known as a vicious misogynist when he was on land. His world was strictly male. So no, none of this surprises me – I was just amazed at how obvious it all was in the well-oiled half-naked prose of Billy Budd.

I think my observation upset a poor reader – who snipped at me: “What I find interesting about this is that you love your historical figures who stand up for what they believe and yet when you have a fictional character who does the same you think he is a goody two-shoes. After all what Billy does is stand up for himself and you dislike him for that. Strange!”

A couple things about this bitchy comment: I disagree with the characterization of Billy Budd as one who “stands up for himself”. No, he doesn’t. He is a victim, a lamb for the slaughter. He is martyred – with no heroics – he barely understands what is happening to him, and yet he submits – like a good martyr should. So no, he doesn’t “stand up for himself”. He is trying to catch up with the events of his life, trying to understand the forces around him – forces that are much more cunning than poor innocent Billy Budd.

Secondly: to read me and look for inconsistencies and try to catch me in them, or try to score points off of me – is one of the many ways that people MIS-read me. This is a personal website. If I were a political blogger, pontificating on my opinions, and making a nuisance of myself being all self-important and “ooh I’m gonna take down the MSM” then sure – try to call me out on inconsistencies – but again: this is NOT that kind of site. I don’t know how many times I have to say it – and if you’re the type of reader who literally cannot tell where you are, and you mistake my site for a political site – then I have to call you out on it. You must adjust HOW you read when you come to my site, or you will have a very rough time here. By trying to catch me in an inconsistency, that reader succeeded only in mis-reading me completely. It happens a lot and it bores me to tears. If I’m unclear, then I will certainly clarify myself – but a kneejerk defensive response to something I’ve written is usually just that: “kneejerk” – and usually there’s something else going on, some underlying defensive attitude that, naturally, colors how I am read – and how I am mis-understood. If you go to any of the big book blogs, or movie blogs – this kind of crap does NOT go on. There are actually discussions possible about said book or said movie – because the majority of the readers actually know where they are – they are on a book blog! A movie blog! Disagreement is accepted, and discussion is welcomed. None of this kneejerk political posturing nonsense – where you can’t even have a normal conversation! I guess that’s mainly what I demand: when you’re here, at the very least, please know where you are. Thanks! Thankfully, the majority of my readers are no longer confused about where they are – most of you all who show up now have no issue with knowing where you are when you read me (but that’s only because I made a concerted effort to chase away the people who seemed to consistently mistake me for Little Green Footballs).

Lastly: I think all of this is beside the point – and it is my opinion that the commenter in question was actually upset that I called Billy Budd, a book he loves, a Big. Fat. Gay Gay Gay book. Like “It’s fun to stay at the YMCA” gay. Funny thing is: I actually don’t mean that as an insult. Maybe HE thinks it’s an insult – but that’s HIS problem, not mine. To me, it’s actually a compliment – and also makes the book WAY more interesting to me than it otherwise would have been.

So my assessment from high school still stands: a bit boring, too on-the-nose, and Billy Budd is not an interesting fictional character. I am WAY more interested in Claggart – because he’s bad, and something is twisted in him, something is not right. That’s always more interesting to me than straight-out goodness.

But Melville as a writer? I am trying to figure out how to describe it. Again, Moby Dick stands alone – and I’m almost nervous to write about that one tomorrow … but even here in Billy Budd – we get a type of writing that I would like to call … Okay, thinking as I type … I guess I would call his writing accurate. Psychologically accurate. There are times when his writing is like an excavation … or an autopsy. There is something truly emotional in Melville, deeply emotional – and yet there is also a journalistic side to his self-expression – which he uses to great great effect in Moby Dick – but you can see it here in the excerpt too, when he discusses a man’s character. He is describing – yes – but also excavating, digging deep. And it all just feels dead ON accurate to me. I find Melville almost compulsively readable. I love him. And let’s not even talk about his letters! And his correspondence with Nathaniel Hawthorne, his kindred spirit – amazing!!

So yeah. I’m glad I finally re-read Billy Budd and put that ghost to rest!

Excerpt below. Watch how Melville almost acts like a journalist here – I love that about him. I love that kind of writing. Also, not to side with evil, but whatever: I’m a bit with Claggart here. Billy Budd is so damn good that I find him a bit disturbing too. Not saying I’m PROUD that that is my reaction, just telling the truth!

Melville understands human nature. He really does. He is not an idealist, strangely enough – even with all the allegorical themes here. He understands things – and he is sounding some great human truths here. Yet also, with that oddly detached journalistic tone – to me, it’s classic Melville, and I’d recognize his writing style in a dark alley. To mix a metaphor. For all you Melville fans – here’s a post about him – quotes, poems, fragments – some great stuff.

EXCERPT FROM Billy Budd by Herman Melville

What was the matter with the master-at-arms? And, be the matter what it might, how could it have direct relation to Billy Budd, with whom, prior to the affair of the spilled soup, he had never come into any special contact official or otherwise? What indeed could the trouble have to do with one so little inclined to give offense as the merchant ship’s peacemaker, even him who in Claggart’s own phrase was “the sweet and pleasant young fellow”? Yes, why should Jimmy Legs, to borrow the Dansker’s expression, be down on the Handsome Sailor? But, at heart and not for nothing, as the late chance encounter may indicate to the discerning, down on him, secretly down on him, he assuredly was.

Now to invent something touching the more private career of Claggart, something involving Billy Budd, of which something the latter should be wholly ignorant, some romantic incident implying that Claggart’s knowledge of the young bluejacket began at some period anterior to catching sight of him on board the seventy-four – all this, not so difficult to do, might avail in a way more or less interesting to account for whatever of enigma may appear to lurk in the case. But in fact there was nothing of the sort. And yet the cause, necessarily to be assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much charged with that prime element of Radcliffian romance, the mysterious, as any that the ingenuity of the author of the Mysteries of Adolpho could devise. For what can more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound, such as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other mortal however harmless he may be, if not called forth by this very harmlessness itself?

Now there can exist no irritating juxtaposition of dissimilar personalities comparable to that which is possible aboard a great warship fully manned and at sea. There every day among all ranks, almost every man comes into more or less of contact with almost every other man. Wholly there to avoid even the sight of an aggravating object one must needs give it Jonah’s toss or jump overboard himself. Imagine how all this might eventually operate on some peculari human creature the direct reverse of a saint.

But for the adequate comprehending of Claggart by a normal nature these hints are insufficient. To pass from a normal nature to him one must cross “the deadly space between.” And this is best done by indirection.

Long ago an honest scholar my senior said to me in reference to one who like himself is now no more, a man so unimpeachably respectable that against him nothing was ever openly said though among the few something was whispered, “Yes, X—– is a nut not to be cracked by the tap of a lady’s fan. You are aware that I am the adherent of no organized religion, much less of any philosophy built into a system. Well, for all that, I think that to try and get into X—–, enter his labyrinth and get out again, without a clue derived from some source other than what is known as knowledge of the world – that were hardly possible, at least for me.”

“Why,” said I, “X—–, however singular a study to some, is yet human, and knowledge of the world assuredly implies the knowledge of human nature, and in most of its varieties.”

“Yes, but a superficial knowledge of it, serving ordinary purposes. But for anything deeper, I am not certain whether to know the world and to know human nature be not two distinct branches of knowledge, which, while they may coexist in the same heart, yet either may exist with little or nothing of the other. Nay, in an average man of the world, his constant rubbing with it blunts that fine spiritual insight indispensable to the understanding of the essential in certain exceptional characters, whether evil ones or good. In a matter of some importance I have seen a girl wind an old lawyer about her little finger. Nor was it the dotage of senile love. Nothing of the sort. But he knew law better than he knew the girl’s heart. Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light into obscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets. And who were they? Mostly recluses.”

At the time my inexperience was such that I did not quite see the drift of all this. It may be that I see it now. And, indeed, if that lexicon which is based on Holy Writ were any longer popular, one might with less difficulty define and denominate certain phenomenal men. As it is, one must turn to some authority not liable to the charge of being tinctured with the Biblical element.

In a list of definitions included in the authentic translation of Plato, a list attributed to him, occurs this: “Natural Depravity: a depravity according to nature.” A definition which, though savoring of Calvinism, by no means involves Calvin’s dogmas as to total mankind. Evidently its intent makes it applicable but to individuals. Not many are the examples of this depravity, which the gallows and jail supply. At any rate, for notable instances, since these have no vulgar alloy of the brute in them but invariably are dominated by intellectuality, one must go elsewhere. Civilization, especially if of the austerer sort, is auspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of respectability. It has its certain negative virtues serving as silent auxiliaries. It never allows wine to get within its guard. It is not going too far to say that it is without vices or small sins. There is a phenomenal pride in it that excludes them from anything mercenary or avaricious. In short the depravity here meant partakes nothing of the sordid or sensual. It is serious, but free from acerbity. Though no flatterer of mankind it never speaks ill of it.

But the thing which in eminent instances signalizes so exceptional a nature is this: though the man’s even temper and discreet bearing would seem to intimate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the less in his heart he would seem to riot in complete exemption from that law, having apparently little to do with reason further than to employ it as an ambidexter implement for effecting the irrational. That is to say: Toward the accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness of malignity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgment sagacious and sound.

These men are true madmen, and of the most dangerous sort, for their lunacy is not continuous but occasional, evoked by some special object; it is probably secretive, which is as much to say it is self-contained, so that when, moreover, most active, it is to the average mind not distinguishable from sanity, and for the reason above suggested, that, whatever its aims may be – and the aim is never declared – the method and the outward proceeding are always perfectly rational.

Now something such as one was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil nature, not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living but born with him and innate, in short “a depravity according to nature”.