Dead Letter
Finally! Bartleby speaks his mind. In 1853, Herman Melville published the short story “ Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” an icon for generations of resisters, and in the story all Bartleby repeats is one statement. According to Christian Nagler’ s “ Afterword,” “ It may be the most reproduced meme in American letters: I would prefer not to.” Jocelyn Saidenberg has given Bartleby full voice in Roof Books’ Dead Letter. “ Let’ s not keep Bartleby inert, not maintain him as an empty sign. Let’ s not remain industriously bewildered, not translate his preference into an unassimilable ambivalence between acceptance and refusal, not take moderate interest in him, not take it just as far as enigma,” says Nagler. Here we have the actual Bartleby laid out before us, his desires, his frustrations, and finally his revolt. Rarely has one person’ s point of view been so long awaited.
Jocelyn Saidenberg’ s books include Mortal City, Cusp, Negativity and Shipwreck. Born in New York City, she has lived and worked in San Francisco since 1994.
