I Prefer Not To: Are we Bartlebys?

Unlike the Bartleby in the short story, I have recently decided to do things I prefer not to do. Thus, I'm back to a routine of writing a thousand words every day. That mode has always been productive. The first time I undertook the challenge, I wrote some short stories of which I remain fond.

Read the short story in question: Bartleby the Scrivener. Unless you prefer not to. You might want to listen to it instead:

Most do very little that is worth the while. Is it because, most of the time, we prefer not to? 

In writing a thousand words a day, is it the routine that becomes a chore over time and, one fine day after another, I find I prefer not to?

Reading the classics is another thing one avoids. And, thus, though a teacher tried hard, early in my life, to interest me in Herman Melville, I preferred not to. 

However, I recently came across a useful tip that will probably help me try some of Melville's longer works some day: Moby Dick, Billy Bud and Typee. There are films of these works and watching them might inspire some to proceed to the book:

or

The book is about a whale and it is a whale of a book. When that is the case it is not often that you have a whale of a time because you have to spend a whale-like amount of time on it. However, as a consequence of trying to write a thousand words a day, I've had to decide to read something good every day too. For it is impossible to churn out so many words a day without knowing much about anything. 

But how does one get around to reading when one prefers not to? I soon found some help online in an article on how to read the classics and it suggested reading twenty pages per day. And that is how I now have a whale of a time every day, galloping through Tolstoy's War and Peace for some thirty minutes at a time. 

However, fiction is not enough to provide fodder for a daily writing habit and I soon had to factor in another half an hour for reading research. All in all, one good habit leads to another.

And so I’ve managed to read up a tiny bit about Moby Dick and why it is considered so great. One thing becomes clear: like all the greats, Herman Melville was extremely well read. For example, in Moby Dick, he mentions the Indian matsya avatar.

‘Moby Dick’ says Elephanta has the oldest whale portrait. Where on earth did Melville get that idea?

To return to another specimen or avatar, Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener is about a man who prefers not to. Whatever you ask of him, he prefers not to do it.

I was reminded of another story in this context. It was about a little boy who said no to everything. That was a very moral tale and I think the boy had the bad luck to meet a witch who cursed him for his 'no' to her. The poor lad then said 'no' to everything, even when he wanted to say 'yes'.

In the case of Bartleby, also, he comes to a rather sad end.

Melville’s story first introduces us to the narrator, a lawyer with an office and some employees. Then he describes these – two copyists and an office boy. Along comes an increase in work and enter our 'hero'. 

The work of a copyist must be a thing of the past, given that we now have photocopiers and such.

Bartleby does a lot of copying but absolutely nothing else. At first it seems like that’s alright but in time the narrator begins to be annoyed by the refusals and, indeed, at some point, Bartleby even prefers not to do any copying too.

Finally, to get rid of him, for he now even lives on the premises, the narrator has to shift office. All is well for a while until the new owners begin landing up at the narrator’s new office for Bartleby will not vacate their premises.

Ultimately the pest is jailed or something like that.

Melville takes on the challenge of writing about something in which no action is imminent. And which is low in the promise of emotion.

Yet you will read through the story as gripped by it as if it were a tense detective novel!

I don’t know where I read this but apparently, before the fall of man in Christian theology, man enjoyed idleness – a condition that is also revered in the Ashtavakra Gita. So Bartleby is suffering the indigestion of the apple.