Janna Wang Wang itibaren Amphitheatre VIC 3468, Avustralya
one of the best books on sex and everything that goes along with it I've read. Definately recommend, especially to anyone who wonders of the meaning of sex.
Billy Budd, Herman Melville, 1st published 1924 There may be variations of Billy Budd available. This story was found and published after Melville’s death. He hadn’t finished it. In one instance, the name Bellipont was used, instead of the name of the ship that is used in the text I have, Indomitable. Excellent story. Even unfinished--I can’t imagine what more Melville would have done with it--most telling. I can’t for the life of me figure why Billy Budd is a Christ figure--he is repeatedly compared to someone who has no knowledge of Christ, to a Tahitian hearing for the first time of Christ. The chaplain attends to him at the last, but leaves, he does not insist. Perhaps this story is a way for those who cannot understand the ways of God to help them deal w/the barbarian who has never heard the Word. And I think it a hoot, a sad sad hoot, that because this story has some implications about Christianity that it is an “in-your-face” story. HA! Hardly. What I find disturbing in the story is the manner in which faithless leadership is led to a conclusion about duty, and that that duty is accepted. Forms, measured forms, and damn all the rest. Too, science is implicated, the manner in which Billy died…no movement as he is hoisted up. Ha! If anything, perhaps he would have gone in the direction the ending was headed, as an indictment of war, the loss of innocence, the adherence to form for form's sake. Who can tell by just this text? I believe there may also be differences in the 1st sentence, based on the reviews I’ve read here at Goodreads. Mine: In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed mariners, man-of-war’s men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. ONE through FIVE The story opens w/a general description of a kind of sailor, one that because of his good humor and moral nature, the Handsome Sailor is well-received by all. Billy Budd, or Baby Budd, is the story, a sailor on the merchant vessel, the Rights-of-Man, commanded by Captain Graveling. Billy is noticed by Lieutenant Ratcliffe, of a man-of-war, HMS Indomitable, and is enforced to enlist there on that ship, saying as he departs, “good-bye to you too, old Rights-of-Man.” Back to a more general description of the times, the Great Mutiny, an outbreak in the fleet at the Nore. The same mutineers helped Nelson win a battle. On to another general description, this one to do w/gunpowder, a bypath, as Melville calls this one. Gunpowder, it seems, would come to play in any future mutinies. SIX Back to the story: Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax Vere, a bachelor of forty or thereabouts. For gallantry as a flag-lieutenant under Rodney in his victory over De Grasse, Vere was made a post-captain. He is grave, undemonstrative, and at times dreamy--if disrupted, irascible though controlled. Known as ‘Starry Vere’ from an poem by Andrew Marvel, “Appleton House” and the lines. This ‘tis to have been from the first In a domestic heaven nursed, Under the discipline severe Of Fairfax and the starry Vere. His cousin Lord Denton applied the name to Vere. SEVEN Vere loves books that deal w/actual men and events. He has settled convictions and will stand opposed to those whose theories are inimical to the privileged classes. Among his officers he does not rank as a fighting man or seaman, having a ‘queer streak of the pedantic running through him.’ EIGHT Among the commissioned officers, none in particular. Among the petty officers, John Claggart, the master-at-arms, a kind of ship’s policeman, to preserve order aboard ship.. A man of 53, spare & tall, protuberant heavy chin, more pale to the sailor’s bronze, aspect & manner suggestive of an education, nothing known of his former life…rumors say he had to enlist due to a swindle. Here again, on to the general, press gangs, if a ship’s roster was down, drafts culled direct from the jails. To the specific again, that no man holding Claggart’s rank--master-at-arms--could ever hope to be popular with the crew. However, being assigned to ship duty, he started at the bottom and did not long remain there. (This general to the specific to the general, back to the specific is what Steinbeck worked up in his The Grapes of Wrath, and no doubt, it has been done by others, as well.) NINE Billy Budd on the foretop, enjoys life, w/the others, looking down on those on the deck. He witnessed a sailor’s punishment, and strove not to fall into that lot. His anxiety was a source of amusement among his shipmates. Claggert’s men hassle Billy. He seeks counsel from an older sailor, old Dansker, an Agamemnon man under Nelson, and carries a scar on his face from that time, hence his nickname, ‘Board-her-in-the-smoke’. He takes to Billy. Billy respects him as a salt hero. Dansker substitutes ‘Baby’ for ‘Billy’. Thus: Baby Budd. Dansker tells Billy, Jimmy Legs is down on you, meaning Claggert. Billy is surprised, telling Dansker that Claggert calls him “the sweet and pleasant young fellow.” Dansker repeats what he said to his young Achilles. TEN Billy spills his soup. Claggert, going by, about to step over it--no big deal--but sees who spilled it, makes it an issue. ‘handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it too!’ and passes on. Billy doesn’t see Claggert sneer, hears his mates laugh, and takes Claggert’s words as a compliment. Donald asks Billy who said Claggert was down on him. Claggert bumps into a drummer-boy, and scolds the drummer. ELEVEN What was with the master-at-arms? Some incident, romantic, prior to Billy coming aboard? Nothing of the sort. Mysteries of Udolpho. To the general again, to a specific case, to Plato: ‘natural depravity: a depravity according to nature..’ savoring of Calvinism, though specific, not all of mankind. The individual, dominated by intellectuality…folds itself in the mantle of respectability, w/o vice or small sins, is full of pride that excludes from anything mercenary, avaricious, though no flatterer never speaks ill of mankind. In his heart, riots in complete exemption from the law, little to do w/reason that to affect the irrational. Insane. True madmen. Lunacy not continuous but occasional. Claggert. (too, perhaps cathy in steinbeck's east of eden) TWELVE Claggert’s words earlier, handsome & etc= 1st moved him against Billy, his personal beauty. Envy. Who has claimed it? Saul/David. But Claggert looks at Billy’s nature, as well, “looking out from his welkin eyes as from windows.” Claggert could see, but he could not be that. THIRTEEN Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereupon to play its part. Back to the spilled soup scene. Claggert mistook it for a trick by Billy. “Squeak” one of Claggert’s corporals, a grizzled little man, ferreting about the dark corners, can put 2 & 2 together, perverts innocent follies of Billy, puts words in Billy’s mouth. The MAA never suspected the veracity. New experiments… FOURTEEN An incident that gravels Billy. Billy sleeping on deck, warm night. Someone whispers, slip into the lee fore chains…will meet you there. Billy’s nature follows. No moon. Billy knew it was one of the after-guard. Could you help, in a pinch? Mean? he asks. The other holds up two objects, twinkling in the nightlight. Damme, the name? Billy objects, will toss you over the rail. The mysterious one leaves. Red Pepper, the Forecastleman awaken, sees Billy, Ah Beauty, is it you. Billy had stuttered. Such sneaks he’d like to marry to the gunner’s daughter! says Red when B says it was one from the after guard. FIFTEEN Incident puzzled Billy. 2 After-guardsmen. Two guineas? Next day, Billy sees the AG-man, though uncertain it’s him, engaged w/some smokers, nods to the look, that’s it, though Billy not aware of it….hmmm. A day, 2 later, passing, a word in passing, embarrasses Billy, says nothing. Puzzled, Billy tells Dansker, who knows…Jimmy Legs is down on you. A cat’s paw!=the aft guardsman. And then is silent. Long experience. SIXTEEN Still, Billy does not ascribe it all to Claggert. An explanation from the specific to the general as applied to Billy follows. SEVENTEEN Claggert watches Billy…meditative, melancholy…like the man of sorrows…soft yearning, love but for fate and ban. Billy for his part thought the MAA acted queer at times. HA HA HA! Innocence is his binder. 2 minor officers, the armorer & captain of the hold, began to look at Billy peculiarly. Billy goes on unaware, not connecting that they are mess mates of Claggert. Good will of others made him the less to concern himself about the mutes. Continues to meet, pass by the aft-guardsman who says a word or two in passing. The AG-man has dropped whatever the original errand had been. Claggert’s monomania eats deeper. EIGHTEEN Indomitable employed on important task, distant, removed from the fleet. The enemy in sight, a frigate, that flees, escapes. CMAA & captain now meet. CMAA tells cap’n of possible mutiny, men who came there other than enlistment. He saw things during the chase, says he, long suspected. Claggert is a fear-mongering a-hole (like etc & etc). Cap’n believes the allusion to the Nore Mutiny an immodest presumption, an attempt to alarm him. He had witnessed a perjurious witness in the past. Name him. William Budd, a foretop man. Ah, yes, the fine specimen of the genus homo, the young Adam before the Fall. The cap’n had considered Billy for promotion to captaincy of the mizzen top. There is a yard-arm end for a false witness. Claggert lies. Jacob/Joseph/blood-dyed coat. Cap’n figures to test the accuser. The two have been observed, however. Budd’s watch? No. Wilkes, calls the Cap’n, tell Albert to come, the cap’n’s hammock-boy, go find Budd. CMAA, standby, follow them when the come in. NINETEEN Chapter 19.…doobie doobie dooooo…stephen king fans would understand…Budd closeted w/the cap’n & Claggert. Cap’n says accuse Budd to his face, Claggert does, Billy can’t speak, cap’n lays a hand on his shoulder, Billy decks Claggert once and for all, dead. Cap’n sends Billy to a room, calls Albert to get the Surgeon. He comes, yes, dead. A drumhead court now. Sends Surgeon to tell lieutenants & tell Mr. Mordant, captain of the marines, etc. TWENTY Surgeon wants/thinks they should wait to rejoin the fleet, let the admiral handle it. The others think so, too. The Surgeon thinks the cap’n has been affected, though he doesn’t share that concern. TWENTY-ONE Who in the rainbow can show the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?…So w/sanity and insanity….There is nothing namable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay. Time demanded prudence & vigor. The cap’n is questioned (later, we presume) defended by cousin Jack Denton, because he maintained secrecy in the matter. Quick action stops any kind of Nore Mutiny from happening….so a kind of summary court of his officers, himself the final say. 1st Lt., captain of marines, and the sailing master=court. The matter is repeated, Billy says true, all save what Claggert said. Mutiny then? Billy recalls the aft guardsman. But not wanting to inform, he says no, no mutiny. Asked why would Claggert lie? The cap’n says immaterial, all need now is the deed. The soldier questions that, as it seems like judgment. Vere says, ‘it is a mystery of iniquity.’ Not much happens for a bit…then, cap’n---clash of military duty w/moral scruple, vitalized by compassion….obligations…a case practical, under martial law practically to be dealt with. They all think Budd innocent, though the deed. Likened to war. Vowed responsibility, we adhere to it. Budd’s intent is nothing. The Lt. asks cannot we convict, yet mitigate the penalty? The crew, the Nore Mutiny, = we are afraid. The cap’n goes to the porthole to look out again. (Chekhov, “At Sea”) Reference to 1842, US brig-of-war Somers…execution at sea, midshipman and 2 petty officers/mutineers. Billy convicted, sentenced to be hung. In the morn. TWENTY-TWO Captain Vere tells Billy. Here the narrator…dunno the official word for this kind…an eye-narrator, omniscient it seems, tells this part as if lacking sight. The 2nd Lt. sees the captain leave, his face, the condemned suffered less than he who had effected the condemnation. TWENTY-THREE A series of brief incidents. The crew is wondering what’s going on. During the second dog-watch, all hands called. Moderate sea at the time. Moon newly risen. Marine guard under arms. Cap’n. Wardroom officers. Mutiny was not used, though the facts were told. Murmur. Waxes. Whistle of the boatswains, piping down the watch. Later, the CMAA buried at sea. TWENTY-FOUR The decks of a seventy-four, as it has been called throughout, the Indomitable. Billy under irons. The chaplain looks once, leaves, again later, talks. Billy is wholly w/o irrational fear of death. Likened to a martyr of Christianity in Rome. The chaplain talks large, salvation, etc. Billy listens, not in awe, but in politeness. Likened to a Tahitian, say, hearing of Christ for the first time. The chaplain does not insist. But he stooped over, kissed Billy on the cheek, nor did he fear for his future. Why then is he here? Because indirectly he sub serves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force. TWENTY-FIVE Eight bells struck aft, followed by one forward. Four o’clock in the morning. Silver whistles call those to witness punishment. Usually the foreyard would be used. Now the main yard. His final words, God Bless Captain Vere!…and then…vocal current electric, with one voice from alow and aloft….the crew echoes Billy’s words. Billy ascended…is hung that way…as ‘the East was shot through w/a soft glory as the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision.’ The last signal, a reconverted dumb one, before they raised him. TWENTY-SIX Days later, the purser said at mess to the surgeon…an absence of movement as he was being hung. How to account for the absence of movement in Billy. No lexicon in science. HA HA HA HA! But tell me, was death by the halter, or a species of euthanasia? Imaginative and metaphysical, in short, Greek. The Surgeon excuses himself… TWENTY-SEVEN The silence at the moment of execution….likened to the sound of pouring showers in tropical mountains, the first muffled murmur. The crew. “Pipe down the starboard watch, Boatswain, and see that they go.” Now to witness burial. When the plank slid, a 2nd murmur, along w/the cry of a seabird. But the drum to quarters sounds. ‘With mankind, forms, measured forms, are everything; and that it the import couched in the story of Orpheus with his lyre spellbinding the wild denizens of the woods.’--Vere The band played as the men are at quarters, an hour earlier, played a sacred air, after the chaplain went thru the customary morning service. TWENTY-EIGHT The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction cannot so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. (truth=ragged edges, conclusion, less finished, so says Melville) French navy the St. Louis line-of-battle ship was named the Atheiste. (Devestation/Hell) The Indomitable fell in against the Atheiste. Captain Vere wounded….before death, heard to mutter, Billy Budd, Billy Budd TWENTY-NINE Some weeks after the execution. News from the Mediterranean, an account of the affair. 10th of the last month, etc…HA! This says that Claggert is stabbed through the heart by Billy Budd. Budd as an alien admitted to the service. Claggert, the patriot…HA HA HA…refutes the peevish saying of Dr Johnson, ‘that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’ That record is all that hitherto stood to attest to Budd and Claggert. THIRTY Everything is for a term remarkable in navies. The spar from the foretop man, kept trace of by the bluejackets….to them a chip of it was a piece of the Cross. The final word, a poem from one of his own, “Billy in the Darbies” …fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast sleep….I am sleepy and the oozy weeds about me twist.