The Value of Herman Melville

In The Value of Herman Melville Geoffrey Sanborn presents Melville to us neither as a somber purveyor of dark truths nor as an ironist who has outthought us in advance but as a quasi-maternal provider a writer who wants more than anything else to supply us with the means of enriching our experiences. In twelve brief chapters Sanborn examines the distinctive qualities of Melvilles style - its dynamism its improvisatoriness its intimacy with remembered or imagined events - and shows how those qualities once they have become a part of our equipment for living enable us to sink deeper roots into the world. Ranging across his career but focusing in particular on Moby-Dick Bartleby the Scrivener Benito Cereno and Billy Budd Sanborn shows us a Melville who is animating rather than overawing who encourages us to bring more of ourselves to the present and to care more about the life that we share with others.