Matt Ranlett’s Reviews > Billy Budd, Sailor > Status Update

I'm 1/3rd of the way through this short story and I've got to say, "What the heck was wrong with Melville?" The language is extremely dense and chewy. The contemporary references are out of control (I'm having to look something up every 10 minutes). The entire thing seems to be crafted out of a clump of non-sequiturs. Melville is famous for his mastery of metaphor, but he is NOT the master of the short story.