New chance for two magnificent stories that stood the test of time

Two of the most beautiful stories in world literature have recently been reissued. The dead (1914) by James Joyce and The clerk Bartleby (1853) by Herman Melville have effortlessly stood the test of time. They are still wonderful to read.

'His soul slowly ebbed away as he heard it gently snowing through the universe and gently snowing in the last hour over living and dead.'

There are those closing lines that stay with you forever. The ones you've read once and never forget. For me, those are the last sentences of The dead (above in Rein Bloem's old translation) by James Joyce. Originally the last story from his collection Dubliners, but in a beautiful edition published separately by Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep. A gem, on sale in bookshops for a few euros.

Joyce is not the most accessible writer in world literature. On the contrary. Finnegans Wake counts as unreadable and reading his masterpiece Ulysses is a tough job, to say the least. But fortunately that does not apply to the stories from Dubliners. And certainly not for The dead, which is often seen as an accessible gateway to Joyce's oeuvre. Here, the writer experiments for the first time with the monologue intérieurwith which he would later become famous. But as far as I'm concerned, such a remark can also be binned immediately. Because above all The dead a magnificent story. An impressive reading experience.

Fat brown goose

It is almost Christmas. Miss Kate and Miss Julia are giving their annual ball. One by one the guests appear, there is dancing, eating (greasy brown goose, marinated rib eye, pudding), there is apprehension about Freddy Malins who is bound to appear drunk again, and Gabriel gives a short table speech as usual.

Masterfully, the focus of the story shifts more and more to this Gabriel. We get to know him better, I would almost write: we become one with him. He fears his table speech will be too pompous, is concerned for his wife Gretta's health and jealous when she listens with too much attention to the tenor Bartelle D'Arcy.

Then it is time to go home. In the carriage to their hotel, Gabriel is overcome by a strange combination of joy, lust and anger. In the room, he seeks closeness with his wife. Then, while it has started snowing again outside ('Yes, the newspapers were right: the whole of Ireland was snowed under') the shadow that has been a constant presence in the background of the story appears: Michael Fury, Gretta's former lover.

While his wife has fallen asleep and Gabriel reflects on Michael Fury, he feels the presence of all the people who have already died or will die.

Whaler

Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep also provided a new edition of The clerk Bartleby by Herman Melville. Most readers will associate that author mainly with Moby Dick. Clerk Bartleby is eveneens a great story, on sale for less than eight euros. Incredibly, it was written in 1853, more than 150 years ago. It reads as if it rolled out of the printer yesterday.

More on that story in a moment. First, the unhappy life of that striking Melville deserves a few lines of attention. Translator Rosalien van Witsen talks about it in her afterword. Melville worked at a bank and at his brother's trading company, sailed on a merchant ship and then embarked on a whaler. After a lot of wandering, he returns to New York, where he turns his experiences into two highly successful adventure novels.

Shakespeare

Melville, however, is not satisfied with his traditional writing approach. He shifts course, delving into Shakespeare, the Bible and Dickens and putting his heart and soul into Moby Dick. It has to be his masterpiece, his pièce de résistance, but much to his despair, the book flops mercilessly. After that, life really has no meaning for Melville. He travels, works in customs, writes a few more stories and novels and dies in oblivion.

Moby Dick is now known as a masterpiece. One might think that Melville was ahead of his time, but it is fair to say that the epic battle between Captain Ahab and the white sperm whale is hardly digestible even for modern readers. The baroque style, chaotic structure and endless expositions on, for instance, the uses of whale cranes demand the utmost of patience. I will admit it honestly: I have started Moby Dick three times and never managed to read it all the way through.

One more side note: just before his death, Melville was working on Billy Bud. The novella remained unfinished, but inspired Benjamin Britten to compose his opera of the same name.

'Rather not'

In her epilogue, Van Witsen suggests a link between the negative reception of Moby Dick and The Clerk Bartley. That link is made more often. Literary scholars also saw the now-classic story as a protest against modern society, a textbook example of depression and/or a plea for free will. Personally, I am not into interpretation. I do my shopping at the supermarket. However, there are plenty of readers who find it important to interpret a story, and they are obviously welcome to do so. Their starting point is (as far as I am concerned) no better or worse. Also the beauty of literature: the freedom of the reader.

Narrator of The clerk Bartleby is a clerk with an office on Wall Street. It is busy and he needs a new clerk. Then Bartleby appears in the story: 'pale and neat, pathetic and decent and totally lost'. For the first few days, nothing is wrong. Bartleby neatly does what he is told. Until he is ordered to copy a document and kindly but firmly replies: 'rather not' (in English, 'I'd prefer not to').

Subsequently, Bartleby increasingly refused assignments, without giving any reason, but always using the same wording: 'rather not'.

Fire that man, you might think, but Bartleby's boss turns out to be a better man than he himself had suspected. For despite all his frustration and anger, he remains reasonable and in doing so discovers his own humanity. Despite the fact that things in the office are getting further and further out of hand.

Irresistible

The reason for Bartleby's refusals remains guesswork, which also makes the story so irresistible. The clerk himself remains an utter mystery. Nothing is known about his background. Only at the very end, when fate has already set in, does Melville lift a tip of the veil. This could easily be an anticlimax, were it not for the fact that it is such a magnificent passage.

Indeed, a rumour reaches the narrator that Bartleby worked at the Dead Letter Office, a department with undeliverable letters that are burned. "When I think of this rumour, I cannot adequately describe the feelings that take hold of me. Undeliverable letters, dead letters! Doesn't it sound like dead people... Intended as a sign of life, these letters die a quick death.

Ach Bartleby! Ach humanity!"