Benito Cereno

by Herman Melville

Benito Cereno is a story by Herman Melville that features some of the author’s most action packed storytelling presented in this new edition of the great classic.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, School, Historical Fiction, 19th Century, Literature

86 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1855

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. Typee, his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with the peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw. Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family.
Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector.
From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

melville! in a melville house edition!
crazy, right?

this is a nice taut little thrill-ride of a book. okay, it's got a lot of description of boat-architecture, so it isn't a complete thriller - melville does tend to go overboard (GET IT??) with the descriptions sometimes, but regardless, it is more emotionally engaging than, say, that book about the whale. and i haven't read a book more full of seamen since reading Torn.

to a modern reader, the situation is pretty apparent from the get-go, but the build to the reveal is so graceful and tightly written, that it doesn't matter if you see where it is going from the beginning; the story is still excellent. one might even call it "a real book."

love the character of captain delano. it is surprising to me to see such subtlety from melville. i suppose i shouldn't be - there is a lot of shading in bartleby, but this one is even more so. for a tiny little novella, there is a lot happening here behind the words. after i toss down this review, i am going to go do a little research about how this was received when it was written, because i can only assume there was some backlash about what this book has to say about the slave trade and how unsavory even the well-intentioned, naive "good" characters are portrayed.

also - squeee - there is a nice tie-in to cloud atlas, which is cool because that book is still fresh in my mind, and it was good to have it still in my brain-piece as i was reading the melville.

really glad i decided to snatch this up the other day. it was everything i had hoped it would be.

behold: an uncharacteristic digression!

why didn't i like moby dick? people i like like moby dick. is it because i had to read it in a mandatory american-lit survey course my freshman year at NYU? when i was distracted with "i live in new york" fever?? should i give it another shot? because i have liked both this book and bartleby, but i haaaated that whale. does it deserve a more thoughtful and older-karen revisit?

opinions are encouraged.

come to my blog!

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novella—in which Amasa Delano, an American captain, visits a mysterious Spanish slave-ship captained by Benito Cereno--is my favorite of Melville’s short works. It is not only as profound as Bartleby and Budd but also more pleasing. A first-rate adventure, it features an innocent in peril, the flash of steel, the flow of blood, surprises, astonishment, a hairbreadth escape, and a last minute rescue. Yet somehow it has never been a favorite with the average reader.

Perhaps this is because both its treatment of slavery and its attitude toward its characters is problematic, and the reader who seeks to explore these ambiguities may find the novella’s points of view so nuanced and so inextricably intertwined that a definitive sense of a coherent authorial voice may elude him, leaving him uncertain about the book's themes and therefore unsatisfied.

In spite of this, I advise you to give it try, for it has many pleasures to offer, including the puzzle of a detective story (the discovery, through the innocent eyes of the visiting American, of the mystery which underlies the behavior of those aboard), the thrill of the gothic (grotesque and cryptic “servants”; old manuscripts to pore over; evocative descriptions of the ancient galleon the San Dominick, a magnificent edifice of floating decay), as well as a disturbing allegory of the abyss of self-deception and nascent evil which simmers within the cauldron of American slavery.

Besides, it’s short: do yourself a favor, and read Benito Cereno two or three times. With every reading the narrative voices further clarify themselves, and the problems recede even as the ambiguities accumulate. And in spite of—perhaps because of—these nuances, the gothic chills, the mysterious puzzles, and the daring deeds all continue to delight.

[Fernando · Rating 4 out of 5]

“-¿Qué es lo que ha proyectado tal sombra sobre su espíritu?
-El negro.”

Gran parte de la producción novelística de Herman Melville se desarrolla a bordo de barcos, producto de su propia experiencia arriba de ellos: “Moby Dick”, “Taipí”, “Omoo”, “Mardi”, “Redburn”, “Chaqueta blanca”, “Billy Budd, marinero” y éste, “Benito Cereno”, son algunos ejemplos.
Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson y Jack London aprendieron mucho del viejo Herman y a él le deben muchas de sus más afamadas historias.
Esta, es una gran nouvelle de Melville donde "nada es lo que parece". El capitán Amasa Delano encuentra al español Benito Cereno y su tripulación en un barco, el Santo Domingo, en muy malas condiciones con la tripulación mermada y rodeado de esclavos negros.
Según ellos, han atravesado temporales, enfermedades, muertes, zozobras y todo parece indicar que han sufrido todas las calamidades posibles.
Benito Cereno se encarga de contarle todo al capitán Delano sostenido por la ayuda de un negrito, Babo, quien constantemente lo sostiene, dada la precaria salud de su capitán, pero hay algo que no cierra en toda esta historia…
Melville con su sapiencia y habitual maestría, nos sumerge en un relato de suspenso constante, rodeado de un halo de misterio que hace desconfiar al lector, y si éste es lo suficientemente suspicaz, verá que a principios del libro el autor deja un par de claros mensajes anticipatorios de lo que puede estar sucediendo en realidad, como hace Edgar Allan Poe en su cuento “La caída de la casa de Usher”, cuando hace alusión a esa grieta en la pared. Eso es un indicio de algo. De algo que puede terminar mal.
Bueno, en este caso es similar el efecto: “Una vez a bordo del barco, el visitante fue rodeado de pronto por una multitud vociferante de blancos y negros. El número de éstos en cubierta superaba a los primeros, extraña circunstancia si se tiene en cuenta que se trataba de esclavos.”
La tensión en el barco va en aumento y todo el entorno se transforma en una auténtica olla a presión.
En poco más de ciento veinte páginas se desencadenarán los sucesos finales de una excelente nouvelle de Melville que realmente vale la pena leer.

[Tessa Nadir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herman Melville este socotit unul dintre cei mai mari romancieri americani fiind cel mai bine cunoscut pentru capodopera sa "Moby Dick". Creatiile sale cele mai importante sunt: "White jacket", "Redburn", "Bartleby", "Moby Dick or the Whale", "John Marr and other sailors".
"Benito Cereno" a aparut in 1855 si il are in prim plan pe capitanul Amasa Delano. In anul 1799 acesta se afla la conducerea unui mare vas comercial echipat si pentru vanatoarea de foci. La un moment dat corabia ancoreaza in portul "Santa Maria" a unei insule pustii si nelocuite pentru a se aproviziona cu apa potabila. In timpul stationarii capitanului i se raporteaza ca o alta corabie se apropie de port. Creazand ca aceasta se afla in primejdie capitanul Delano porneste pe o baleniera incarcat cu cateva cosuri de peste pentru a sari in ajutorul lor. Apropiindu-se de ei observa ca era vorba de un vas spaniol care transporta sclavi negri.
Dupa ce urca la bord descopera ca totul este foarte ciudat si ca foarte multe lucruri par in neregula. Cel mai necajit este capitanul vasului, Benito Cereno, care este intr-o stare deplorabila fiind sustinut de un servitor negru. Printre franturi acesta ii povesteste ca abia s-au salvat de la naufragiu si ca au resursele pe terminate. Marinimosul Delano se ofera sa le dea tot ce au nevoie insa omologul sau pare si mai nefericit si incurcat.
Cu timpul, Delano are presimtiri din ce in ce mai sumbre ajungand la ideea ca viata sa si a echipajului sau ar fi in pericol. Ce va descoperi insa la final va fi o adevarata tragedie.
Textul este scurt, destul de usor de parcurs, cu multe referiri la mare, tipuri de vase si viata de marinar. Punctul forte il reprezinta insa caracterul si constructia elaborata a celor 2 capitani. Delano este prototipul omului cumsecade, mereu dornic sa ajute, sa faca ce trebuie, sa lupte de partea binelui si foarte important, este lipsit de nechibzuinta specifica eroilor. Este genul de om pe care ai vrea sa-l intalnesti pe un vas unde pericolele sunt la tot pasul.
In incheiere am selectat cateva citate care mi s-au parut interesante:
"Poate ca spaniolul socotea ca un capitan de vas trebuie sa se comporte intocmai ca un zeu, potrivit devizei: 'Fii rezervat, in orice imprejurare!'"
"Nu cunosc spectacol mai deprimant decat acela oferit de un comandant care nu-i comandant decat cu numele."
"Dupa o fapta buna, isi spunea el, constiinta nu-ti ramane nerecunoscatoare..."

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still dancing around the big white whale, putting off a re-read of Moby Dick by approaching it at a tangent, tackling other, shorter books by Melville. Benito Cereno does a great job in showcasing the talent of the master, combining a sea-tale with a moving account of human souls pushed to the limits of endurance and beyond.

Using a similar technique to Bartleby, The Scrivener , the main character is revealed indirectly, through the eyes of a benevolent witness. In this case the narrator is a certain Captain Amasa Delano, taking refuge with his ship (around 1799) near an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile. One morning he witnesses the arrival of a derelict ship, the San Dominick , with a mixed crew of Negro slaves and Spanish sailors, under the command of a sickly captain: Don Benito Cereno. The opening lines are not only an example of the beautiful prose of Melville, they contribute to a sense of tragedy unfolding:

Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled grey vapours among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

The ruined ship is compared to a monastery emerging from the mists atop a mountain. What secrets does it hide? Like Bartleby, its captain Benito Cereno is a puzzle that refuses to be solved: is he weak? arrogant? deranged in his mind? too sensible for the harsh realities of life? locked inside himself by the 'burden of command'?

Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed as the involuntary victim of mental disorder. But, in fact, his reserve might, in some degree, have proceeded from design. If so, then in Don Benito was evinced the unhealthy climax of that icy though conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all commanders of large ships, which, except in signal emergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway with every trace of sociality; transforming the man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until there is call for thunder, has nothing to say.

Captain Delano in his role of witness is not the sharpest tool in the shed. The reader realizes early on that the crew of San Dominick is acting weird, with the Negro slaves taking many liberties in front of the captain, and with Cereno leaning constantly, both physically and mentally, on the shoulders of his servant Babo. Amasa Delano also shares character traits with the narrator from Bartleby, being primarily a good intentioned conformist, ready to think the best of his fellow men to the point where he becomes gullible and clueless. He is full of good intentions, of the right impulses towards kindness and mercy, but his reading of the situation is wildly off the mark a fact that is ultimately saving his life by painting him inoffensive in the eyes of the mutineers, even as his subconscious mind is picking up signals that the whole set-up is unnatural.

But drowning criticism in compassion, after a fresh repetition of his sympathies, Captain Delano having heard out his story, not only engaged, as in the first place, to see Don Benito and his people supplied in their immediate bodily needs, but, also, now further promised to assist him in procuring a large permanent supply of water, as well as some sails and rigging

The book is written a few years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, and by tackling the question of slavery, it was criticized by both sides, for being racist and also for being abolitionist. I believe the genius of Melville, and the reason the novella still feels relevant today, is this very ambiguity in the presentation. Melville present the facts and only subtly introduces the subverting elements into the narrative, leaving the reader to react to the situation instead of hammering his point home by preaching. On the one hand, Captain Delano feels sympathy for the plight of the colored people, but on the other, he also exhibits some disgraceful ingrained racism, looking at them as at beloved pets with limited intellect:

Most Negroes are natural valets and hair-dressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castanets, and flourishing them apparently with almost equal satisfaction.

and in another place :

In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took to Negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.

The mystery is finally solved in an explosion of physical violence and military action worthy of one of Jack Aubrey's adventures, but the novella ends with an official account of the plight of the San Benedick and a thorough reassessment of the relationship between Benito Cereno and the improvised crew. Captain Delano finished the novella not much changed from the position he found himself at the start: the quintessential American, full of self-righteousness and more than a little obtuse in his view of the world ( During this interval, a sort of saddened satisfaction stole over Captain Delano, at thinking of the kindly offices he had that day discharged for a stranger. Ah, thought he, after good actions one's conscience is never ungrateful, however much so the benefited party may be. Benito Cereno, on the other hand, has looked straight into the 'heart of darkness' and he comes out a changed man. I will close my remarks with the final exchange between the two captains:

- But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves."
-"Because they have no memory," he dejectedly replied; "because they are not human."

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second reading of this novella (1855). Once again, I was struck by the great literary strength of this piece: the almost cinematic style, in which small elements are brought into focus one after the other, thus increasing the suspense and especially the oppressive atmosphere. Of course, Melville knows that the reader soon realizes that there is something more going on than a ship in distress. The clever thing is how he manages to dose the threat. Incidentally, this book reminded me a lot of Edgar Allen Poe with his famous novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales (1838).

The fact that the suggested cruelties on board the ship are ultimately attributed to the black slaves (steadfastly called negroes) automatically raises questions about the racist content of this book. Protagonist Captain Avana Delano, through whose eyes we follow the evenst, may be a good-hearted man, but he regularly makes disparaging remarks about the ‘negroes’ (described as ‘stupids’ and with an ‘inferior mind’). The question is of course whether Melville’s opinion is being expressed here. I don’t think so, on the contrary, because Melville lets Delano clings to his wrong judgement and ignores the signs of a slave revolt, precisely because he does not see them as full-fledged humans. Incidentally, Delano is just as disparaging about the Spanish. I therefore follow the thesis (launched by critics) that Melville in this novella illustrates how prejudices can lead to completely wrong assessments. Commendable, although I find the final section with documents about the legal process absolutely superfluous.

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Ραμάν αλλήθωρε, τρελέ, που λύνεις μάγια,
κατάφερε το σταυρωτό του νότου αστέρι
σωρός να πέσει να σκορπίσει στα σπιράγια,
και πες του κάτω από ένα δέντρο να με φέρει.
Ο Τοτ, του λείπει το ένα χέρι μα όλο γνέθει,
τούτο το απίθανο σινάφι να βρακώσει.
Εσθήρ, ποια βιβλική σκορπάς περνώντας μέθη;
Ρούθ, δε μιλάς; Γιατί τρεκλίζουμε οι διακόσιοι;
Κουφός ο Σάλαχ το κατάστρωμα σαρώνει.
Μ' ένα ξυστρι καθάρισέ με απ' τη μοράβια.
Μα είναι κάτι πιο βαθύ που με λερώνει.
Γιέ μου πού πας; Μάνα, θα πάω στα καράβια.
Κι έτσι μαζί με τους εφτά κατηφοράμε.
Με τη βροχή, με τον καιρό που μας ορίζει.
Τα μάτια σου ζούνε μια θάλασσα, θυμάμαι...
Ο πιο στερνός μ'έναν αυλό με νανουρίζει».

Μεγαλείο γραφής, δομής, πλοκής, ύφους, χρήση γλωσσικών στοιχείων και μαγεία σκοτεινή σαν τα απύθμενα βάθη των ωκεανών του κόσμου,
σαν τους τρόμους όλους της υπαρξιακής οντότητας,
σαν τις απαράβατες ανθρώπινες επιλογές ανάμεσα
σε καλό και κακό με αμφισημία και διφορούμενο
νόημα μιας και το καλό για κάποιον είναι το κακό κάποιου άλλου.
Η μεγάλη οργή του ανθρώπου που αναζητά κατανόηση και απαντοχή. Η άπνοια της ψυχής. Η δίψα της καρδιάς. Η πείνα του μυαλού. Η στεριά στα βάθη των υπερπόντιων θαλασσών της αντίληψης, το ενδιαφέρον για την ανθρώπινη φύση και η διαδικασία, οι πληροφορίες, οι συνέπειες, τα τραγικά αποτελέσματα,
η μακαριότητα της ελπίδας.

Αν και ο συγγραφέας είναι πρόθυμος να επιδείξει την ανθρωπιστική επιστήμη μέσα απο τον ψυχισμό όλων, θεωρώ πως σε καμία περίπτωση δεν είχε διάθεση και σκοπό να γράψει μια νουβέλα για τη δουλεία. Είμαι σίγουρη πως αυτό δεν ήταν ποτέ ο σκοπός αυτού του ανθρωπολόγου μικρού μήκους.

Επιφανειακά και με αριστοτεχνική ευφυΐα αφήνει να καλύπτεται το ιδεώδες του σαν πλοκή και περιπέτεια κάτω από το δίχτυ των ιστοριών για τη δουλεία και την ανταρσία των σκλαβωμένων στην ανοιχτή θάλασσα, κρατώντας αμείωτο το ενδιαφέρον του αναγνώστη σε κάθε πρόταση, παράγραφο, σελίδα, σχετικά με τα τεκταινόμενα πάνω σε ένα σάπιο, κατεστραμμένο, δουλεμπορικό σκαρί που μεταφέρει μαύρους σκλάβους και λευκούς Ισπανούς εμπόρους σάρκας.

Βασισμένος σε κάποια αληθινή ιστορία τέτοιου είδους ο Μέλβιλ ανατυπώνει με την πένα του την παράταση ζωής που δίνει κάποιο άλλο πλοίο, με έναν εξαιρετικά καλόψυχο και τρυφερά δοτικό και καλοκάγαθο καπετάνιο, στο μισοπεθαμένο δουλεμπορικό πλοίο, γεμάτο λείψανα ζωντανών ανδρών που ζητούν εκδίκηση απο τους αφέντες τους με πολύ μίσος, κάτι το οποίο δεν αντιλαμβάνονται οι άνδρες του στοιχειωμένου με καταστροφή πλοίου στο οποίο ηγείται εικονικά!.. ο καπετάνιος Μπενίτο Σερένο.
Θα μπορούσε να διδάσκεται με μεγάλη επιτυχία και μεγαλειώδη απήχηση στα έδρανα των πανεπιστημίων που αφιερώνονται στο βωμό της παγκόσμιας λογοτεχνίας.




Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Melville's best, indeed. It is a somewhat passive story whose "pot-aux-roses" is fairly quickly predictable. Still, it never ceases to reveal itself to the detriment of the real story and the circumstances of the mutiny, about which we will not ultimately know much. But, once again, we remain in awe of Melville's ability to invent and tell such different human stories in a maritime and exotic context. Incidentally, I am surprised that some readers reject this book under the pretext of the systematic use of the word negro. Indeed, we must place it in the context of its time and its history, still largely imbued with colonialism, slavery, and racism. Who are the writers of this era who escaped this terrible apartheid? Mark Twain, maybe? Should we burn others for simply using a word considered - rightly - here and now as infamous?

[Nickolas B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Μέλβιλ βασιζόμενος πάνω σε μια αληθινή ιστορία την οποία ανακάλυψε τυχαία διαβάζοντας το έργο/ημερολόγιο ενός πλοιάρχου ονόματι Αμεσάι Ντηλέηνο και κάνοντας μικρές αλλά εύρυθμες αλλαγές στην πλοκή μας έδωσε το αριστουργηματικό διήγημα "Μπενίτο Σερένο".

Ένας καλοκάγαθος καπετάνιος ενός εμπορικού πλοίου εντοπίζει, κοντά στο λιμάνι που έχει προσαράξει, ένα πολύ περίεργο σκαρί. Ένα πλοίο με περίεργο χρώμα και περίεργη κίνηση. Θέλοντας να ικανοποιήσει την περιέργεια του αλλά και να παράσχει τυχόν βοήθεια, αποφασίζει να πλευρίσει με μια βάρκα το πλοίο, να επιβιβαστεί και να γνωρίσει τον καπετάνιο του. Από την στιγμή λοιπόν την επιβίβασης του αλλά και της γνωριμίας του με τον Ισπανό καπετάνιο Μπενίτο Σερένο, θα υποψιαστεί πως κάτι περίεργο συμβαίνει πάνω στο "Σαν Ντομινίκ".
Ο Μέλβιλ για ακόμη μια φορά δίνει μαθήματα λογοτεχνίας. Σφιχτοδεμένη φόρμα αλλά και σχεδόν τέλεια από όλες τις απόψεις. Ο λόγος του απλός, λιτός αλλά και τόσο περιεκτικός. Οι χαρακτήρες σύνθετοι μέσα στην απλότητα τους ενώ το κουβάρι της υπόθεσης ξετυλίγεται αργά αλλά και με μια ηδύτητα για τον αναγνώστη. Το μυστήριο μοιάζει με κουρτίνα αυλαίας που στέκεται μπρος στο "Σαν Ντομινικ" και το πλήρωμά του, και σταδιακά ανεβαίνει αποκαλύπτοντας το λογοτεχνικό μεγαλείο του συγγραφέα μέχρι το τελικό χειροκρότημα!

Κατά καιρούς έχουν αποδοθεί διάφορες ερμηνείες στην ιστορία του Μπενίτο Σερένο. Μια αλληγορία, μια διαμαρτυρία, μια παραβολή... Ίσως. Στα δικά μου μάτια πάντως δεν είναι τίποτε άλλο από ένα μικρό κομψοτέχνημα της τέχνης του λόγου.
5/5

ΥΓ: Μην διαβάσετε το οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου... Αφεθείτε στην μαγική γραφή του Μέλβιλ. Δεν χρειάζεται τίποτε άλλο για να "ακουμπήσετε" αυτό το σπουδαίο διήγημα.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ambiguous tale in which so much is not what it seems, and one that leaves the reader with some ambiguity as to what the author is intending to say. It is an uncomfortable read, in that one wishes to be on the side of Benito Cereno and his crew, who are being held in peril of their lives, and not the mutineers, who appear to have murdered indiscriminately, yet one cannot quite forget that the mutineers are slaves being transported for sale, who are thus justified in their hatred and cruelty.

The rescuing Captain Delano, an American, seems hopelessly naive and unable to follow the obvious clues as to the peril of the situation. Published in 1855, when the question of slavery and abolition is paramount in the States, it is fairly easy to see Delano's refusal to see the facts as a condemnation of those who refuse to face the moral issues of slavery and whitewash over the realities of the institution and the damage it does, indeed the peril it poses, to all involved. Delano is a kind man, but it would seem more than kindness is needed.

That Melville is grappling with perhaps the largest issue of his time is obvious. The end of the story, and the fate of the ship's "cargo" highlights how little chance these people have of escape and how desperate their situation truly is--but Cerano's fate tells us something as well, that the moral turpitude leaves no one unscathed.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

The audiobook version of this novella was offered free with my Audible membership (i.e., I didn’t have to use any credits to listen to it) and it was really for that reason that I decided to give it a try. I didn’t know anything about the story beforehand.

The novel was written in the 1850s but is set in 1799. Off the coast of Chile, an American seal hunting ship encounters a battered Spanish vessel. Going on board, the American captain, Amasa Delano, meets his Spanish counterpart, the eponymous Benito Cereno. Don Benito relates a tale of woe including storms, becalmings, an outbreak of fever, and eventually scurvy. Captain Delano is sympathetic but is somehow uneasy about the situation aboard the Spanish ship.

Melville keeps a decent level of tension going, primarily because of the naivete of Captain Delano, who fails to understand what is going on. He is able and energetic, but rather too generous and honest, even an innocent. Was Melville offering Delano as representative of the young USA?

As might be guessed from the cover, the novel addresses racial issues. It’s possible to interpret this element of the text in several ways, but personally I felt this was very much a 19th century book, reflecting the mores of the time in which was written. For that reason, I can’t say as I enjoyed it that much.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Benito Cereno” fu dato alle stampe nel 1855 da Herman Melville [1819-1891], cinque anni dopo aver scritto il suo capolavoro “Moby Dick”: ambientato nell’anno 1799, vi si narra l’incontro fortuito, lungo le coste del Cile, tra due navi, una americana comandata dal capitano Amasa Delano e l’altra spagnola, la “San Dominique” con a capo il giovane nobile Benito Cereno entrambe in cerca di acqua potabile; il capitano Delano salito a bordo della nave spagnola che mostra chiare condizioni di massima trascuratezza e disfacimento, incontra il suo pari grado per mettersi a disposizione e predisporre gli aiuti di natura alimentare e strutturale per rimettere in sesto persone e scafo, ma si imbatte in una situazione di difficile interpretazione che gli crea nell’animo indecisione, timore, insicurezza senza apparente fondatezza, soprattutto per il comportamento incoerente, a volte al limite dell’ingratitudine, del comandante spagnolo.

La forza del racconto è tutta basata sulla bravura dell’autore di aver creato un ambiente narrativo in cui progressivamente viene a manifestarsi un inatteso e apparentemente incomprensibile clima di sospetti, perplessità e diffidenze nell’animo del capitano Delano, che la controparte, il nobile Benito Cereno non riesce mai del tutto a fugare per i suoi comportamenti eccentrici, a volte incomprensibili ed equivoci. In un crescendo di suspense che sembra non aver mai fine si giunge alla sconvolgente spiegazione finale.

Opera di Melville che ebbe poco seguito da parte di critica e pubblico al punto che per la sua successiva e ultima fatica letteraria bisogna aspettare la pubblicazione postuma di Billy Bud, “Benito Cereno” mi ha soggiogato con le sue pagine piene di un progressivo stato di tensione e attesa ansiosa che sembra non sciogliersi mai.

[David Carrasco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hay días en que uno entra en una habitación y sabe, antes de que nadie diga nada, que ha llegado en mal momento. Las respuestas tardan medio segundo de más, las miradas se cruzan donde no deberían y, aun así, uno sonríe, asiente y decide comportarse como si todo fuera perfectamente normal.

En ese pequeño pacto con la normalidad empieza Benito Cereno. Amasa Delano, capitán estadounidense, percibe desde el principio que algo extraño sucede, pero aceptar lo que tiene delante exigiría imaginar un mundo que no cabe en su cabeza.

Frente a las costas de Chile, divisa un barco español que navega de manera errática. Su aspecto es lamentable: velas destrozadas, marineros exhaustos, una tripulación reducida a los restos de lo que alguna vez debió de ser y, al mando, Benito Cereno, tan pálido y quebradizo que parece llevar varios meses ensayando su propio funeral.

Delano sube al barco dispuesto a ayudar. Es un hombre práctico, animoso, cordial y convencido de que cualquier problema puede resolverse con agua, provisiones y un poco de iniciativa norteamericana. Pronto empieza a notar cosas extrañas. Gestos que no encajan. Silencios demasiado largos. Explicaciones confusas. Las percibe todas sin acertar a relacionarlas.

Y ahí empieza Melville a jugar con nosotros.

El relato está construido casi por completo alrededor de la mirada de Delano. No estamos ante un narrador en primera persona, pero la tercera persona permanece tan cerca de él que sus percepciones y prejuicios contaminan casi todo lo que recibe el lector. Vemos lo que él ve, sospechamos cuando él sospecha y aceptamos —al menos durante unos segundos— las explicaciones que inventa para restar importancia a lo que ocurre. El problema es que posee un talento formidable para encontrar una interpretación tranquilizadora incluso cuando la realidad está dando golpes contra las paredes.

No es exactamente tonto. Sería mucho más fácil si lo fuera. Delano observa detalles, detecta anomalías y llega a formular hipótesis bastante alarmantes. Pero cada vez que se aproxima a algo importante, sus prejuicios lo devuelven al camino conocido. Su optimismo, su confianza en el orden natural de las cosas y, sobre todo, su concepción de las relaciones raciales convierten las evidencias en decorado. Ve mucho. Comprende menos.

Melville hace que esa ceguera resulte por momentos casi cómica. Delano sospecha, se corrige, vuelve a sospechar y termina felicitándose por su sensatez. Cada anomalía acaba reducida a alguna rareza explicable, incluso pintoresca. La tensión se disuelve una y otra vez gracias a la extraordinaria capacidad del ser humano para preferir una explicación absurda antes que revisar aquello que considera inamovible. Pero la ironía nunca convierte el relato en una broma.

El barco, el Santo Domingo, parece desde el principio un espacio separado del mundo. Está cubierto de sombras, figuras de madera, sogas, lonas y marineros que aparecen y desaparecen como fantasmas. Melville utiliza muchos elementos propios del relato gótico, aunque aquí el castillo encantado flota sobre el Pacífico y el fantasma tiene una materialidad demasiado humana.

También el capitán Benito Cereno parece formar parte de ese paisaje enfermo. Es un hombre consumido, nervioso, incapaz de apartarse de Babo, el criado que lo atiende con una devoción minuciosa. Babo lo sostiene, lo viste, lo afeita, lo acompaña y parece anticiparse a cada una de sus necesidades. Delano contempla esa relación con una mezcla de admiración y condescendencia. Encuentra en ella la confirmación perfecta de lo que ya pensaba antes de subir al barco.

La fragilidad de Cereno desborda el decorado del barco. Su cuerpo parece cargar con una historia que Delano, siempre dispuesto a encontrar una explicación práctica, reduce a enfermedad, agotamiento o mal carácter. La confianza con que Delano explica lo que ocurre a su alrededor empieza entonces a resultar más inquietante que aquello que está contemplando.

Melville administra la información con una calma que empieza a ponernos nerviosos. No busca asustarnos mediante golpes repentinos. Prefiere repetir pequeñas anomalías hasta que el aire se vuelve irrespirable: una frase cortada, una mirada difícil de interpretar, un movimiento que parece casual y deja de parecerlo un instante después.

Todo está delante de nosotros. Los detalles permanecen visibles, pero su sentido nunca termina de fijarse. Melville confía en que sea nuestra propia necesidad de ordenar la escena la que haga el resto. La experiencia se parece a regresar a una habitación que creíamos conocer y descubrir que los muebles llevaban todo el tiempo formando otra figura.

Conviene advertirlo: Benito Cereno exige atención. Melville juega a despistarnos con elegancia y mantiene al lector dentro de las dudas circulares de Delano, atrapado en el vaivén entre la sospecha y la explicación tranquilizadora. Si entras esperando una historia de aventuras marítimas, te equivocas de puerto. Esto es una disección moral disfrazada de relato histórico. El tramo final adopta una sequedad casi documental. Los hechos se ordenan, aunque algunas miradas y algunos silencios siguen sin dejarse archivar.

Melville partió de un episodio real narrado por el propio Amasa Delano y utilizó aquella historia para desmontar la supuesta inocencia de quien se considera bondadoso porque nunca ha tenido que cuestionar el lugar que ocupa. Delano ayuda, se preocupa y corre riesgos, pero contempla a las personas que lo rodean mediante categorías tan rígidas que casi le ahorran el trabajo de escucharlas. Melville no necesita juzgarlo: lo deja pensar. Y ahí quedan a la vista, al mismo tiempo, su cordialidad y su ceguera.

Babo queda durante buena parte del relato reducido a lo que Delano cree ver en él. Y cuanto más seguro está Delano de haberlo comprendido, más claramente quedan expuestos los límites de su mirada.

La esclavitud forma la maquinaria del relato: decide a quién se escucha, quién merece ser creído y qué interpreta Delano como natural. Sus prejuicios deforman su juicio sobre los demás y llegan incluso a inutilizar su instinto. Esa es una de las crueldades más finas del cuento.

Cuando terminé Benito Cereno, el Santo Domingo ya se había perdido de vista, pero no la sospecha de haber mirado durante demasiadas páginas con los ojos de Delano. ¿Cuántas cosas dejamos de ver porque ya hemos decidido qué lugar corresponde a cada uno?

DC

[Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1805, the real-life American sea captain Amasa Delano, his vessel anchored adjacent to the desert island of Santa Maria off the coast of Chile (where he had stopped to replenish his water supply, as ships in that era often did) was surprised by the appearance of a newcomer, a ship showing no colors. On boarding it, he found that it carried a mixed population of a few whites and many blacks (slaves of a now-deceased passenger), and was informed by Captain Benito Cereno that, while sailing from one part of Spanish America to another, the vessel had been ravaged by epidemic disease and storms, followed by windless calms in which it couldn't move on its course, and during which its water was depleted. Delano immediately arranged to provide supplies and assistance; but during his interactions with Cereno found the latter unaccountably eccentric and moody, and was perplexed by a number of odd anomalies connected with the ship and its routines. He related this incident, and its denouement, in his nonfiction book A Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres; Comprising Three Voyages Round the World Together with a Voyage of Survey and Discovery in the Pacific Ocean and Oriental Islands (1817).

Herman Melvillle (1819-1891) used that portion of the latter book as his model for a fictionalized treatment in this novella, published serially in 1855. Here, he keeps the basic premise, mysterious build-up and final reveal of Delano's account, while changing or adding some details, names, and characters. (For instance, he pushes the incident back in time to 1799, and moves the island from being off central Chile to down near Cape Horn.) He also shapes (or reshapes) the narrative for his own literary purposes, and gives it the morally pessimistic, somber and ambiguous tone that characterizes a significant amount of his fiction. While his narration is third-person, Captain Delano is the viewpoint character; we as readers don't know any more than he does (except for one detail that's imparted in a single sentence). He's not an "unreliable narrator," as some pundits characterize him; but he is an ignorant one in key respects. That preserves a cloak of mystery which is absolutely essential to the effect the author wants to create; which means, first, that this is a very difficult tale to review without spoilers, and also that it's very important to avoid them.

Ultimately, we learn that there was no plague aboard the ship at all, nor any disastrous storm, etc. In reality, the white passengers and crew were mostly slaughtered by rebelling slaves, led by Babo who masquerades as Cereno's devoted servant, who have taken control of the ship. Many of the victims were murdered in their beds; others were thrown bound into the sea, or killed aboard ship while unarmed and helpless. Those who were spared, like Cereno who is the only person left aboard who can navigate the vessel, were so mainly because the blacks can't sail it themselves (and they're demanding to be taken to Africa), and secondarily to serve as hostages for the good behavior of their fellow whites. When Captain Delano's ship was spotted, to mask the situation from him, Babo forced Cereno to enact the charade of still being in command of the ship, with the intention of subsequently ambushing and murdering Delano and his crew and seizing their vessel as well.

A great deal of modern criticism of 19th-century works that depict slavery insists that the only lens in which to read them is either as attacks on, or defenses of, slavery, with works by whites usually seen as the latter; and that the only proper moral framework for evaluating them is "any anti-slavery action = Good; any criticism of an anti-slavery action (or any attempt at nuance on the subject) = Bad." This type of hyper-ideological "criticism," or substitute for criticism, serves us poorly here, in the first instance because, while Melville's general stance was probably anti-slavery (he was Northern-born, and would be a staunch Unionist in the Civil War), the specific morality of slavery itself isn't his main thematic concern here. Rather, he's raising questions about our moral behavior in a world where slavery exists. Are people treated immorally thereby absolved of any duty to treat others morally? What obligations do people who aren't oppressed have towards those who are? And how does Christian morality play into this? (Melville wasn't himself a Christian, but he was raised as one, and Christianity is definitely part of the background here.) He doesn't preach his answers; rather, he wants the readers to come up with their own. But the answers they're led to might be more nuanced than either 1850s slavery apologists or 2020s "wokeness" apologists would find comfortable.

Note: I read this in the collection Great Short Works of Herman Melville (Harper and Row, 1969), edited by Warner Berthoff, whose qualifications aren't stated but who was evidently a significant Melville scholar in his generation. The introduction he provides for this tale, which is less than a page long, is spoiler-free and as helpful as a short intro can be. (I did not read his much longer Introduction to the collection as a whole.)

[Daniel Shindler · Rating 4 out of 5]

“ Benito Cereno” was written in 1855 and its themes concerning society and justice resonate today.The novella has the structure of a suspenseful mystery within an allegorical treatise on slavery,abolition and justice that are relevant nearly one hundred seventy years later.

The plot takes place in 1799 when a New Englander, Amasa Delano, captain of a merchant ship, sights a stranded Spanish vessel off the coast of Chile.The vessel “ was enshrouded in fog and…appeared like a white washed monastery after a thunderstorm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees…peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while…other dark moving figures were dimly described, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters.”

This foreboding image instills the narrative with an aura of ambiguity and possible menace as Captain Delano boards the Spanish ship on a mission of mercy. He meets the Spanish captain, Benito Cereno, and discovers that the distressed vessel is a slave ship that has run afoul of bad weather and sickness.Yet much of Cerano’s recounting of their misfortunes does not ring true. The dynamics aboard the ship portend that appearances might be deceptive.

The ensuring narrative reveals the nineteenth century attitudes surrounding race, slavery, violence and justice.The narrative is conveyed through the articulated observations of the American captain Delano. In my reading, Delano’s reactions embodied a smug liberal attitude towards race relations that is rooted in a sense of entitlement and privilege. While Delano descries slavery, he perceives black people as a docile group incapable of assuming roles as political actors.At the story’s denouement, the Spanish captain Cereno declares that the “ Negro” has cast a brutal shadow over him. The American Delano is not able to properly process this observation and its future implications.

Recent events have given this novella a renewed sense of immediacy, moving it into realms beyond historical allegory. The narrative points to the tensions in the American political structure that still linger today. The fictional plot is based on an actual incident gleaned from the journals of a very real sea captain, Amasa Delano. Captain Delano is an ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This historical irony serves to underscore the many layers to absorb in this densely packed work.

[Karen·]

Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

And come they do, those deeper shadows.

A deeply unsettling tale, made so in the telling. He who describes the scene cannot make sense of what he sees, so how can we? Disconcerting, troubling, disquieting; a story that leaves you as sick at the stomach as an apprentice mariner who has not yet got his sea legs.

[Davide · Rating 4 out of 5]

[spoiler alert]











[2014]
Straordinaria costruzione della tensione e dell’ambiguità, continua, prolungata oscillazione tra conforto e terrore; forte punto di vista colonialista e razzista: naturalmente è lo sguardo sul mondo del capitano Amasa Delano (del Massachussets, anche se dal nome non si direbbe) ma anche quello dell’innominato e appena percettibile narratore, che a quanto pare è amico e confidente del capitano.

Quindi il cattivo è proprio il negro schiavo che guida la rivolta violenta e pretende di essere riportato in Senegal, mentre la vittima buona è il nobile spagnolo schiavista. La narrazione assegna a Delano una bontà considerata quasi eccessiva, un'incapacità di vedere il male nell’uomo se non costretto dall’evidenza, un paternalismo verso la razza inferiore, che è portata per natura a servire.

Leggo l’edizione Feltrinelli, nella traduzione di Roberto Mussapi che nell’introduzione considera antecedente di Benito Cereno l’Ancient mariner di Coleridge, che a sua volta nasce dal diario di bordo di un corsaro, George Shelvocke. Poi avanza una condivisibile lettura simbolica, tutta in chiave di incubo, emersione delle forze profonde, irruzione del mistero e irrompere dell’inconscio. Benissimo, ma incredibilmente arriva ad affermare: «mi pare evidente che Melville non parli dei negri storici, in carne e ossa». Cosa sono? Puri simboli? La letteratura parla forse di una cosa sola alla volta?
E non c'era ad esempio quella frase di Benjamin sul documento di civiltà che è al tempo stesso anche un documento di barbarie?

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 1 out of 5]

PRIMA LETTURA: Un'incontro in mare, tante ottime premesse mal sviluppate, una narrazione estenuante, un ammutinamento che ci sta come i cavoli a merenda. Peccato. La figura di Cereno poteva consentire a Melville, se meglio sviluppata, di scrivere un romanzo molto accattivante e pieno di possibili sviluppi.

SECONDA LETTURA: È il racconto di un salvataggio e dei suoi sviluppi inattesi, ma è anche un monito a far sì che lo sguardo dell'uomo vada oltre le apparenze e impari a cogliere ciò che, a prima vista, gli era sfuggito. Altri messaggi non ne colgo. Breve opera a sfondo marinaresco, che poco dice, poco lascia e, di certo, non lascerebbe immaginare che l'autore sia lo stesso do un capolavoro come Moby Dick.

[Yiannis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αριστούργημα.

[Andrew Edstrom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unreadable. Probably good if you have the patience for it, which I do not. After reading a page three or four times without understanding anything, smoke starts coming out of my ears. I turn green, double in size, don a pair of tight ripped purple shorts and reduce texts of "classic literature" to public-domain wood pulp. Okay, I have to stop writing this review now, I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

[Olga Konstantopoulou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μια θαυμάσια θαλασσινή ιστορία από τον μετρ του είδους. Πυκνογραμμένη νουβέλα που αφηγείται την εξέγερση των σκλάβων σε ένα ισπανικό πλοίο. Το κλίμα καθ'ολη τη διάρκεια είναι μυστηριώδες όμως ο αναγνώστης καταλαβαίνει ότι υποβόσκει κάτι ύπουλο. Δεν είχε το μεγαλείο του Μομπι Ντικ αλλά ευχαριστήθηκα την γραφή του.

[Axl Oswaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“...este sol radiante lo ha olvidado todo, como el mar, y el cielo azul; éstos han dado vuelta a las antiguas páginas.”

Esta pequeña novela de Melville es esa clase de novelas en las que pasa de todo y a la vez no pasa nada.

Me explico, la historia arranca con el atisbo de un barco, el cual llama la atención del capitán Amasa Delano quien decide ir a echar un vistazo y enterarse de lo que ocurre en la cubierta. Cuál es su sorpresa que al llegar se encuentra con el capitán español Benito Cereno, su criado Babo y algo más: algo misterioso, algo que le hace ruido, algo que ve y no ve, y que se nos irá revelando poco a poco hasta llegar a las últimas páginas.

Con una narrativa cargada de detalles, una atmósfera que genera intriga, duda, misterio y que asfixia al capitán Delano, incluyendo de paso al lector, Melville crea una gran novella donde el mar, como en casi toda su obra, es el escenario base.

Muy recomendable esta lectura, y puede servir incluso para iniciarse con el autor.

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first reading of this Melville short work, and feel I must read it again — now knowing the whole story. On the first reading we view the situation only through the eyes of the American whaling captain: we see his fears and judgments.

There are layers of meaning to peel away here, and all the more so since this novella is apparently based on a real incident.

The mechanisms of oppression and control are meticulously explored in a way that feels dangerous — like trying to disarm a bomb.

[Evripidis Gousiaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Με κάθε σελίδα που περνούσε ένιωθα το κλίμα να είναι όλο και πιο περίεργο και επικίνδυνο. Μια νουβέλα όπου απόλαυσα με το παραπάνω (όπως κάθε έργο του Melville) και όπου σε πολλά σημεία ένιωσα ένα περίεργο αίσθημα απειλής.

Πολλοί το χαρακτήρισαν στην αρχή ρατσιστικό και στην συνέχεια άλλοι το αποκάλεσαν αντιρατσιστικό. Προσωπικά θα το αποκαλέσω ανθρώπινο. Κυρίως λαμβάνοντας υπόψιν ότι ο Melville βασίστηκε σε πραγματικές μαρτυρίες.

[Mariafrancesca di natura viperesca sta con gli ultimi della terra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Capitana, mia capitana

È tempo di scrivere dopo quasi un mese di decantazione.
Un racconto, breve o lungo che sia, non ti permette voli pindarici, non ti fa cogliere frasi “sensazionali”, una a pag. 9, l’altra a pag. 236 e tante altre fino a quella fulminante di pag 591 che, così estrapolate, sembrano non avere legami tra loro ma piuttosto con quello che ti ispira il tuo “quore”.
Un racconto, invece, è recintato e ne puoi vedere e toccare tutti i paletti che imprigionano. Un racconto è denso e giocato su una e sola idea. La sua grandezza si gioca sulla capacità di saltare quei dati paletti e diventare universale. Non sempre succede, attenti, ma se accade - là dove ci sarà un recinto con le date caratteristiche, non importa la collocazione nel tempo e nello spazio -, ecco che questo particolare racconto può spiegarci il perché pur essendo cambiato il come.

Benito Cereno svela un Melville nuovo, fuori dai "cliché" di scrittore delle potenti e distruttive pulsioni della mente.
È un Melville calato nella storia del suo paese (scrive il racconto nel 1855 e pochi anni dopo scoppierà la Guerra di Secessione; e lo ambienta nel 1799 a ridosso della guerra d’indipendenza americana che consacra le colonie come Stati indipendenti e i coloni in uomini liberi e soprattutto scatenati fautori del libero commercio, anche umano).

Non mi sembra, soprattutto, si possa affermare che il racconto sia distante dal tema razziale e che esplori solo la malvagità umana, stavolta incarnata dal buono e insospettabile zio Tom, l’unico nero desiderabile.
Si può leggere in quella situazione al limite, ambiente claustrofobico nonostante l'infinità dell'oceano, un rifiuto dello schiavismo e soprattutto di quello ipocritamente caritatevole verso i buoni negri. Dietro quel buonismo, mi pare dica Melville, c’è l’ipocrisia degli sfruttatori di “negri” nelle piantagioni di cotone che gli fruttano ricchezza a buon mercato (ci ricorda qualcosa?) e che si possono permettere anche la tolleranza e il “padronaggio” caritatevole verso i quasi umani, senza accorgersi che il mondo sta franando attorno a loro. Sono coloro che pronunceranno, di fronte alla catastrofe personale, un “per giunta…”, delusi che tanto buon cuore non è stato ricambiato con la moneta della gratitudine eterna. Altrimenti il racconto non sarebbe quello che è: una commedia degli equivoci, se non celasse invece una tragedia di cui veniamo a conoscenza nella seconda parte e che avevamo intuito.
Come se Melville avesse voluto incarnare in Delano proprio il supponente uomo nuovo americano, tutto tronfio della sua superiorità razziale e civile, tanto in alto da potersi permettere buoni sentimenti verso l’amico nero, fedele come un cane e giudizi tranchant su Benito Cereno.

Lo spunto del racconto a Melville venne da un fatto di cronaca: un giorno della fine di febbraio del 1805, nel Pacifico meridionale, Amasa Delano, comandante della Perseverance, un’imbarcazione per la caccia alla foca al largo di Boston, salì a bordo di una nave spagnola in avaria che trasportava circa settanta neri africani: uomini, donne e bambini. Delano trascorse circa nove ore sul vascello. Parlò con i marinai, che erano pochi di numero, distribuì acqua agli uomini e alle donne dalla pelle scura e si incaricò di organizzare le riparazioni. E per tutto quel tempo non gli riuscì di capire che erano i neri dell’Africa occidentale, che pensava fossero schiavi, a comandare la nave e non gli spagnoli cui si era presentato da capitano.
La cronaca non dà né pensieri né parole ai protagonisti del fatto o fattaccio (a volte opinioni ad casaccium) mentre Melville si preoccupa di fare del capitano Delano l’interprete della realtà del veliero cileno che, però, è sotto i proiettori delle sue due granitiche convinzioni: la superiorità dell’uomo nuovo statunitense, cow-boy delle terre e dei mari da una parte, e la bontà, o meglio, il bacchettonismo dei negri dall’altra.
Mentre, e lo intuiamo quasi subito, siamo di fronte a tanti Nat Turner e Malcom X. Altro che zio Tom, altro che buoni animali da fatica! Su quella nave ci stavano un bel gruppetto di pantere nere capitaneggiati dal mingherlino ma intelligentissimo Babo, come riconosce lo stesso Delano. Il quale Delano, partendo da quei pregiudizi di cui sopra, non raccapezzandosi dell’aria assai poco ‘piramidale’ che regna su quella nave (non essendo, probabilmente, uomo che la vita aveva provato e reso sospettoso), finisce con l’ammirare la dedizione sollecita del nero Bobo e disprezzare il carattere molliccio del gentiluomo spagnolo, razza decadente.

Logicamente prende un doppio granchio. Le cose pigliano, purtroppo, la giusta e scontata via della classica lotta tra padroni e schiavi grazie a un guizzo, di temerarietà di Benito Cereno. Diciamo che c’è il solito lieto fine: la carneficina dei cattivi negracci. Anche se il capitano della nave ammutinata non si riprenderà più dal doppio trauma: l’aver perso il migliore amico durante la rivolta e l’essere stato, ohibò, sotto scacco di un gruppo di diavoli neri.

Raccontata così Melville potrebbe sembrare l’atleta australiano sul podio con i due neri a pugno chiuso in quella celebre foto delle olimpiadi del ’68. Non alza il pugno ma stringerà una solida amicizia con i due rivoltosi. Pensatela come volete: io me la racconto così.

https://www.insidemusic.it/17-ottobre...

[〽️onicae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arrivano i buoni - arrivano - arrivano (E. Bennato)

Non smette di sorprendermi Herman Melville. Davvero bello questo breve racconto marino, penultimo, se ho ben ricostruito, della sua produzione in prosa.

Mi è tornato in mente il ritornello di Arrivano i buoni (Edoardo Bennato) quando ho voltato l'ultima pagina. Il link è qui per chi non lo avesse presente o volesse riascoltarlo: https://youtu.be/Wq-yYgiVESA?si=FVClL...

Ma chi sono i buoni? E, soprattutto, chi sono i cattivi?
A me pare che la domanda sottesa, in questo racconto delle tante ambiguità, sia questa.

Melville sembra voler esplorare il tema del doppio. Emergono dal racconto due opposte facce della stessa medaglia: due le navi, due i Capitani (Amasa Delano e Benito Cereno), due gli equipaggi (americano e spagnolo) ma, soprattutto, due i punti di vista narrativi che entrano in contrapposizione.

Melville non si fa sconti nemmeno in uno dei suoi ultimi racconti e affronta di petto temi spinosi per l'epoca e a ben riflettere, sebbene in modo diverso, ancora oggi: la schiavitù, la giustizia degli uomini e tra gli uomini. E lo fa giocando abilmente sui meccanismi di potere. Non vorrei dire di più sulla trama del racconto che a mio avviso va scoperta durante la lettura.

Posso però dire che è una calma apparente e inquietante quella che si percepisce, fin dalle prime battute del racconto, attraverso lo sguardo - totalmente fuori fuoco - del Capitano Amasa Delano.

Tutto intorno era calmo e silenzioso; tutto era grigio. Il mare, per quanto scorresse in lunghe ondate rigonfie, sembrava immobile, e alla superficie era lucido come piombo ondulato quando si raffredda e deposita nello stampo di fusione. Il cielo pareva scuro come uno pastrano.

Ho riportato poche righe dalla prima pagina che rendono la potenza evocativa e poetica di Melville, capace di gestire magistralmente la tensione per tutta la durata del racconto, di trasmettere a piccole gocce una sorta di inquietudine che esonda nelle pagine finali. Attraverso lo sguardo, non particolarmente acuto, del Capitano americano, Melville muove in modo quasi impercettibile le fila della suspence.

E' un racconto che si è prestato a diverse adattamenti cinematografici forse proprio per la forza evocativa delle immagini e dei simboli che raccontano molto di più di quanto percepisca il Capitano americano.

Scrive Cesare Pavese, la cui nota introduttiva e la cui traduzione è indubbiamente un valore aggiunto al racconto, a proposito del palcoscenico marino:

Il mare è assai più che un ambiente: è il volto visibile, infinitamente ricco d'analogie, dell'arcana realtà delle cose. (...) Intorno a Benito Cereno basta osservare come l'oceano nella sua quiete immobile sia lo specchio - uno specchio senza fondo - dei crescenti sospetti di Capitan Delano.

Herman Melville, almeno per quanto mi riguarda, non è di facile di lettura, sia per la prosa sia per i messaggi simbolici disseminati nei suoi scritti, ma è un viaggio imperdibile per chiunque ami esplorare l'animo umano.

Don Benito, l'eroe accidioso del tedio e della nobiltà sventurata (cit. Pavese), rientra a pieno titolo tra i personaggi più belli e sfaccettati di cui abbia letto ad oggi.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thought-provoking novella by Herman Melville, master of multi-layered stories and convoluted sentences. In Benito Cereno, an American merchant ship, The Bachelor's Delight, stumbles upon a more battered and worn-down ship, the San Dominick. Captain Delano, leader of the American ship, soon learns about how the San Dominick got into such a horrid condition, and he gets in close contact with the Spanish captain Benito Cereno as well as his slave Babo. Delano realizes though that this situation has much more than meets the eye. This epiphany may come at an unfortunate time for him and his crew.

A complex read about race relations, in particular the relationship between black enslaved individuals' and their masters. Melville throws in a lot of ideas into Benito Cereno: the ignorance of Americans to the plights of those around them, the underestimation of black bodies and minds, the concept of slave rebellion and violence, and more. Melville's often obfuscating prose leaves room for many interpretations of the text as well. Despite the ambiguity of Melville's central message he makes sure to highlight the rampant racism of the narrator, Delano, in frustrating and real ways.

Overall, a piece worth discussing that possesses much depth. I have never favored abstruse or pretentious prose so I cannot say I enjoyed Melville's drawn-out writing style. Still, a good addition to my Social Protest Literature course and a novella I would recommend to fans of Melville or to those interested in historical race relations.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such were the American’s thoughts. They were tranquilizing.

It’s perfect that one of the classic stories of self-deception in American literature should have as its subject the illusion of the Happy Slave, and treat one of the great perplexities of the New World societies founded on African slavery: what are the blacks thinking? Which ones are dangerous, sources of revolt? The ones most intimate with whites, or those most foreign? The broken or the wild? And can one ever break them?

“In the year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader,” is the forum of these questions. He’s a national type, someone so optimistic as to be oblivious of the human condition - in this case, of the consequences of kidnapping and enslavement; so happily shallow as to seem cognitively impaired – or insane. (I like it when the protagonist of a tragedy is the sort of person who is unconscious of literature.) He’s easily duped (by Don Benito speaking lines fed to him by the revolt’s ringleader, Babo) into believing that there's nothing amiss on the decks of the slaver San Dominick, that the generational slaves he sees are perfectly tame, and present no threat, safely unfettered and “freely permitted to range within given bounds at their pleasure,” because it’s only the recently captured Africans, the proud and still-resistant “Guinea-men,” who must be controlled and “thrust below.”

Delano also rejects the “ugly remark” of a Barbados planter, “that when a mulatto has a regular European face, look out for him; he is a devil”; Delano finds this remark ugly because in his self-congratulatory racist reasoning it is “not very creditable to us white-skins, if a little of our blood mixed with the African’s, should, far from improving the latter’s quality, have the sad effect of pouring vitriolic acid into black broth; improving the hue, perhaps, but not the wholesomeness.” He'd like to believe, euphemistically, that Africans are improved by admixture; but he would stammer and frown if asked if by that he meant civilized by a dash of rape.

Thus Delano’s an easy mark, flattered and charmed by Babo's display of “the docility arising from the contentment of an unaspiring mind.” He finds Babo’s tender, solicitous care for his supposed master Don Benito overwhelmingly touching. Aww, you’re such a good boy, aren’t you Babo?! He wants one!

At home, he had often taken rare satisfaction in sitting in his door, watching some free man of color at his work or play. If on a voyage he chanced to have a black sailor, invariably he was on chatty and half-gamesome terms with him. In fact, like most men of a good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.

Hitherto, the circumstances in which he found the San Dominick had repressed the tendency. But in the cuddy, relieved from his former uneasiness, and, for various reasons, more sociably inclined than at any previous period of the day, and seeing the colored servant, napkin on arm, so debonair about his master, in a business so familiar as that of shaving, too, all his old weakness for negroes returned.

I’m sure it’s glibly obvious to point out how fitting it is that at the end of this story, published on the eve of the war over slavery, the bloodiest in US history, Delano, citizen of the infant republic, is completely unaffected by, and finds unboding, the intricate tragedy he’s witnessed:

“You generalize, Don Benito; and mournfully enough. But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves.”

“Because they have no memory,” he dejectedly replied; “because they are not human.”

“But these mild trades that now fan your cheek, do they not come with a human-like healing to you? Warm friends, steadfast friends are the trades.”

“With their steadfastness they but waft me to my tomb, Señor,” was the foreboding response.

“You are saved,” cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; “you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?”

“The negro.”

A locus classicus of willful social amnesia (and of the Romantic delusion of kindly and renewing nature, to boot) that stands with this passage from Tocqueville’s 1831 notebook, which is especially germane as Delano, though also a citizen of a slave-trafficking nation, never quite sees what he has in common with the Spaniard Don Benito:

In the midst of this American society, so well policed, so sententious, so charitable, a cold selfishness and complete insensibility prevails when it is a question of the natives of the country. The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction which one cannot prevent and which it is not desirable to delay. Heaven has not made them to become civilized; it is necessary that they die. Besides I do not at all want to get mixed up in it. I will not do anything against them: I will limit myself to providing everything that will hasten their ruin. In time I will have their lands and will be innocent of their death. Satisfied with his reasoning, the American goes to the church where he hears the minister of the gospel repeat every day that all men are brothers, and the Eternal Being who has made them all in like image, has given them all the duty to help one another.

Tocqueville points here to the American, derived from the earlier Anglo-Dutch, tradition of laying the worst atrocities of the New World at the feet of Spain - the appropriately named "Black Legend" of sixteenth and seventeenth century Protestant propaganda. At one point, when Delano suspects that Don Benito plots against him, as “the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it,” he frets: Who would murder Amasa Delano? His conscience is clean.

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison at age 13, one of the two epigrams used for the book was this: "'You are saved,' cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; 'you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?'" Of course, I had not read this novella yet, but Ellison was going to spend the whole of his novel answering Amassa Delano. This book was written in 1855 when it was becoming inevitable that slavery was going to force the United States to a breaking-point. Written after Moby Dick in 1855 and included in The Piazza Tales, this novella was Melville's final warning about the storm that was to come. A mysterious slave ship comes into a US sealer and trade ship anchored off the coast of Chile and things start to get weird....

I don't want to ruin the story, but it is an interesting read and since I decided to make this the year I finally read Moby-Dick, I needed to get warmed up to Melville again. My last experience with him was Billy Budd and it was with one of the worst teachers I ever had so it has taken me a long time to get back to him. I've read quite a few editorials of this book since 2014 and it seems to be one of those rare antiracist texts from a white writer, though Melville is no ordinary white writer. From a anti-slavery family though not personally-involved in the abolitionist movement, his view on slavery were clearly negative and as war edge closer he became more personally and public with denouncing it. This may have cost him his friendship with the the pro-slavery writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. In any case this story is as much to make it's white readership question it's own assumptions of black folks as it is a simmering-suspense story based on a real event. Oh, the title character's answer in the story is: "'The negro.'"


"Ah this slavery breeds ugly passions in man."

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella takes a bit of patience to get into, but once you do, you are greatly rewarded. There's suspense, there's ambiguity (ambiguity galore!). There's much to think about, I suspect, for quite a long time after you're finished.

The reader probably understands what has happened long before the American captain (we see most of the story through him) does, but there is plenty enough in the revelation that has you paging backwards and stopping yourself from paging forwards. Only once is the reader told something (1 sentence) that the captain himself doesn't know, and by that time the modern reader knows the score.

The captain is blithely innocent when it comes to human nature; and a reader may think, because of the captain's thoughts and how well they are rendered, that Melville also believes these stereotypes. But Melville, I firmly believe, is subverting those ideas. There is a lot here to discuss and think about.