Metal Ions in Biological Systems: Volume 41: Metal Ions and Their Complexes in Medication (Metal Ions in Biological Systems)

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Featuring contributions from 29 internationally recognized experts, this book offers a timely, authoritative look at ionic complexes in medicine. Metal ions are currently used in medications for treating many ailments including diabetes, general inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, psychiatric disorders, and ulcers. These medications employ compounds of vanadium, copper and zinc, gold, lithium, and bismuth, respectively. This text explores these medical uses, as well as the use of metal ions in environmental sciences. It also looks at chelation therapy and impacts on human health from deficiencies of magnesium, calcium, zinc, and iron.

Metal Ions in Biological Systems: Volume 41: Metal Ions and Their Complexes in Medication (Metal Ions in Biological Systems)

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Metal Ions in Biological Systems: Volume 41: Metal Ions and Their Complexes in Medication (Metal Ions in Biological Systems)
Astrid Sigel
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUAKWQ

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Deploy marketing dollars more efficiently In today's take-no-prisoners direct marketing battleground, the only way to win is to recognize and exploit all of DMÆs interconnecting components. Using cutting-edge research and examples drawn from today's business pages, The New Direct Marketing, Third Edition, by the award-winning David Shepard Associates, shows you how to sell to increasingly wary and jaded consumers. This exhaustively updated edition introduces you to recent technological changes, from data mining, data warehouses, and CHAID modelling, to profitable use of the Internet. You'll develop customized, customer- focused marketing programs and strategies as you learn how to: *Offset through-the-roof marketing costs with predictive andsegmentation modeling *Profit from a constant stream of demographic, psychographic, and lifestyle data from ongoing customer dialogues *Target promos and bonus offers based on previous purchases,buying patterns, and stated preferences *Much, much more

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The New Direct Marketing, Third Edition, shows you how to combine database technology with innovative direct marketing methods to first identify, and then profit from your customers' all-important needs, desires, likes, and dislikes.

Customer Reviews:

Buy this Book!.......2006-02-03

If you are looking to find a good book with examples, theorems and formulas about marketing data base promotion techniques, then buy this book it worth the money. I'd pay even more to have this book.

The authors show in detail how to segment your database using multiple formulas and techniques to reach each segment of your customers.

I encouradge anyone, students, professors or directors involved in the marketing business to buy this book.

Worth every dollar.......2003-04-17

As a consultant in the field of Database Marketing, the third edition of this book has rapidly found its place on my office shelf - a complex subject made easy through informative and well planned studies and examples.

I could not possibly remember all of this every time a client asks, but in one volume I have pretty much everything I need to know at my fingertips.

Whether you are a student, setting out on a career in direct marketing or a seasoned campaigner this book is an absolute must to get you up an running. It does not cover everything, and I suspect that some of the information on technologies and trends in the IT industry will soon be outdated, but you can always get that elsewhere!

The definitive book on direct marketing.......2002-05-04

Great for beginners and experts, this text gives excellent step by step instructions on every pertinent direct marketing concept. This is the only good "how-to" book that you will find on such a wide variety of topics.

Relevant Topics include: Setting up a marketing database & using statistics to predict response &segment customers!

A Reference Book with STep-By-Step How-To.......2000-12-09

This will be my reference book in this subject matter. It covers a lot of detail I'm convinced the authors have been collecting these nuggets since the first day they started working then poured it all out into this book. This is good and bad. It makes for a not-so-easy read. Some chapters almost just ramble this way and that. Wouldn't you rather a book err on too much detail than too little, though? I was very pleased though, that the book has many step-by-step how-tos. For example, what to include in a Functional Requirements doc, what to include in a system implmentation design doc. Fifteen steps of putting a Marketing Contact Program in place. This book is not an easy read. The chapters are written by different authors so you get a variety of styles, depth, rambling-ness. If you ever have the opportunity to hear THE David Shepard speak, don't miss it. I heard him give a 3-hour session at NCDM in Orlando this month. He is funny, engaging, delivers clearly and articulately and I learned a lot!

An Absolute book for any Marketer's Arsenal.......2000-06-28

This book has it all! With insight into both traditional & direct marketing, Sheppard & Associates drill into all aspects of database marketing: Marketing,Client/Server Technology, Statistics, Research, and so on! I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in learning about direct marketing & database marketing. But make sure you have some time on your hands. It's not an easy read. In fact, you may want to first view the table of contents & decide what areas you would benefit from reading first. Then, read it again. People will think you have returned back to school by the book's size & weight! This book is on my shelf as one of the best "reference" tools to date. I catch myself referring back to it once a month.

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Practical and insightful
A great book for anyone who wants to do regression
Good advanced topics book
Published Review by Margaret May
Outstanding graduate text

Regression Modeling Strategies
Frank E. Jr. Harrell
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387952322

Book Description

There are many books that are excellent sources of knowledge about individual stastical tools (survival models, general linear models, etc.), but the art of data analysis is about choosing and using multiple tools. In the words of Chatfield "...students typically know the technical details of regressin for example, but not necessarily when and how to apply it. This argues the need for a better balance in the literature and in statistical teaching between techniques and problem solving strategies." Whether analyzing risk factors, adjusting for biases in observational studies, or developing predictive models, there are common problems that few regression texts address. For example, there are missing data in the majority of datasets one is likely to encounter (other than those used in textbooks!) but most regression texts do not include methods for dealing with such data effectively, and texts on missing data do not cover regression modeling.

Customer Reviews:

Practical and insightful.......2006-01-31

This is a very special statistics book and is unlike any other that I have encountered. Instead of being focused on a specific statistical technique (or family of techniques), Harrell presents a wholistic view of regression modeling for describing real datasets. He starts with the basics of regression assumptions and techniques (splines, shrinkage, etc...), moves on to data management (imputation and reduction), and then addresses the specifics of linear regression, binary logistic regression, ordinal logistic regression, parametric survival regression and Cox regression. Each regression method is approached first with a clear explanation of what the technique is doing and what the critical assumptions are. Then, Harrell demonstrates how to do the analysis in S-Plus/R using a real dataset.

Though I lack the advanced mathematical background necessary to fully explore many statistical textbooks, I did not find this to be a problem for this one. The presentation is that of a teacher: clear with developed reasoning. The production of nomograms was a particularly useful exercise and the S-plus code was also very useful.

I find his opinions on model building strategies to be well though out and persuasive...though I suspect that many may find them controversial. Overall, this is one of the best statistics books that I have purchased.

A great book for anyone who wants to do regression.......2005-05-31

This is a great book. Although it is not as easy to understand as some other books on regression, I feel that anyone who doesn't understand the ideas put forth here is not really fully competent to do regression analysis. The book is not at fault - statistics is not a simple subject, and regression is not a simple subject, either.

The audience for this book is NOT theoretical statisticians, it is applied statisticians with some background in regression. As a social scientist/statistician, my only complaint is that nearly all the examples are medical - but that's a minor point.

Good advanced topics book.......2004-10-02

This book covers a lot of advanced regression techniques and is intended for an audience that has been through an introductory regression analysis class. This book sets itself apart by emphasizing modeling strategies rather than teaching just theory or applied regression in the textbook fashion in which all the examples work out perfectly and one doesn't have to worry about dirty data. Instead it talks exstensively about topics that occur in the real world, such as handling missing data, a big problem when dealing with real data but rarely mentioned in most regression texts. He also talks about many of the traps students get themselves from what they learn in an intro regression class is not always exactly the best way of going about doing things and explains better alternatives.

Through out the book, use of S-plus and R is liberal which is very nice. Numerous extensive case studies thoroughly analyze data sets using many of the techniques he describes and gives full S-plus/R code for them to recreate on your own.

Unfortunately, I really didn't like the data sets he chose to analyze. Many of them were medical related, another used Titanic survivors data, another was about the 2000 election, while very well done, I found the datasets themselves rather uninteresting. This of course leads to a problem, me being an engineer, I'd rather have datasets I can relate to, while of course a social scientist would like sets they could relate to, so I realize the author has a hard time making everyone happy. It would be nice to have prehaps had additional case studies available on the book website, perhaps worked by other individuals from a variety of disiplines.

Published Review by Margaret May.......2004-05-26

Though it can be treated as an advanced book in statistics, empirical researchers can find tremendous value in this book just by following the steps and visualize your data. It's very useful for fitting and validation in prognostic models, and it emphasize on use of bootstrap. Just flipping this book, you will feel silly to pre-specify a multivariate regression model (using Proc reg, logistic, phreg) without checking the interactions and nonlinear terms or use simple model fitting approach such as stepwise selection, becasue data in the real world are no means "linear" and free of interaction. All the functions are written in S-Plus (or R) and I cannot resist the temptation of those beautiful and highly informational graphs. As a result, I am converted to be a S-Plus user now after being a SAS user for years, following the steps of Dr. Harrell (a SAS user from 1969-1991).

This review is published on International Journal of Epidemiology 2002;31:699-700
(I am a quoter, not the author).
Most statistical textbooks present techniques and give simple examples of their use. This book is different. It assumes you already have the basic tools of linear and logistic regression, parametric and semi-parametric survival analysis in your well-stocked statistical tool box which you acquired in graduate school. The question this book addresses is how do you use those regression tools properly. The book succeeds in being both philosophical and intensely practical in nature. It is about the art of data analysis and modelling strategies. It takes you through the whole process starting with imputation of missing data, leading you through dealing with non-linear relationships, estimating transformations, variable selection, model building and finally validation of the model using powerful bootstrap techniques.

Harrell has a unifying approach to regression modelling strategies in that he emphasises how the methods he presents may be used across many different types of regression model in a variety of subject areas, although his examples are biomedical. One of the main points of the book is that there is a dishonesty that is widespread in that we treat inference from P-values, confidence intervals and statistics as if the data were not used to build the model. We need to recognise that it is usually not possible to pre-specify a multivariable regression model, for example, whether a survival model should be a Weibull or a lognormal model, what transformations of variables are appropriate, inclusion of non-linear terms and interaction terms and so on. However, statistics are often computed as if the data were not used to make decisions about the form of the model and how predictors are represented in the model. This means that models over fit the data on which they are estimated and poorly predict responses of future observations. Great emphasis is placed on addressing this fundamental problem of the modelling process. In particular, the author strongly recommends using bootstrap methods in many steps of the modelling strategy, including variable selection, derivation of distribution-free confidence intervals and estimation of optimism in model fit. For example, there has been much criticism of stepwise variable selection, but Harrell uses this procedure with bootstrapping and shows that variation in bootstrapped samples of the same dataset will lead to selection of different sets of variables and that a better strategy is to use the set of variables which occurs most frequently in the bootstrapped samples. This will give a more reliable and useful set of prognostic factors in the model which will predict responses from new data with greater precision and accuracy.

There are detailed case studies of real examples which are analysed using S-Plus with the code being explicitly given. The web site of the book gives access to the datasets and an S-Plus library with 200 functions for model fitting and testing, estimation, validation, prediction, graphics and typesetting. The book is particularly strong on graphical presentation of the regression models and claims that a picture will often persuade a non-statistician of the necessity for a particular transformation of a predictor rather than to opt for a simple linear term which does not fit the data so well. In particular, cubic splines and non-parametric smoothers are recommended early on as a way of relaxing linear assumptions and are used throughout the case studies.

This is an excellent book for its target audience, postgraduates who know the technical details of regression models, but not necessarily when and how to use them. It is also a worthwhile addition to the reference shelf of data analysts and statistical methodologists who will appreciate the many recipes given for successful modelling strategies and tips on validation when the data have been used to inform the modelling process.

Outstanding graduate text.......2003-04-28

This text does a five star job of what the title advertises. The book could be used for a one year graduate course in applied linear models. The writing is excellent, and topics very up to date. This is for graduate students with a good foundation in mathematical statistics and applied statistics. Very good integration with modern statistical packages.

Hybrid process modeling and optimization strategies integrating neural networks/support vector regression and genetic algorithms: study of benzene isopropylation ... article from: Chemical Engineering Journal]

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Hybrid process modeling and optimization strategies integrating neural networks/support vector regression and genetic algorithms: study of benzene isopropylation ... article from: Chemical Engineering Journal]
S. Nandi , Y. Badhe , J. Lonari , U. Sridevi , and B. Rao
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RQZ35E

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Chemical Engineering Journal, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper presents a comparative study of two artificial intelligence based hybrid process modeling and optimization strategies, namely ANN-GA and SVR-GA, for modeling and optimization of benzene isopropylation on Hbeta catalytic process. In the ANN-GA approach [Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 41 (2002) 2159], an artificial neural network model is constructed for correlating process data comprising values of operating and output variables. Next, model inputs describing process operating variables are optimized using genetic algorithms (GAs) with a view to maximize the process performance. The GA possesses certain unique advantages over the commonly used gradient-based deterministic optimization algorithms. In the second hybrid methodology, a novel machine learning formalism, namely support vector regression (SVR), has been utilized for developing process models and the input space of these models is optimized again using GAs. The SVR-GA is a new strategy for chemical process modeling and optimization. The major advantage of the two hybrid strategies is that modeling and optimization can be conducted exclusively from the historic process data wherein the detailed knowledge of process phenomenology (reaction mechanism, rate constants, etc.) is not required. Using ANN-GA and SVR-GA strategies, a number of sets of optimized operating conditions leading to maximized yield and selectivity of the benzene isopropylation reaction product, namely cumene, were obtained. The optimized solutions when verified experimentally resulted in a significant improvement in the cumene yield and selectivity.

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Regression Modeling Strategies
Frank E Harrell
Manufacturer: SPRINGER @ NY INC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N63O6S

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Regression Modeling Strategies
Frank E. Harrell
Manufacturer: Springer Verlag 1/8/2001
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MBXPLI

Book Description

Two memorable and stirring works in one volume. "Bartleby," (also called "Bartleby the Scrivener") is a haunting moral allegory set in the business world of 19th-century New York. "Benito Cereno," a harrowing tale of slavery and revolt aboard a Spanish ship, is regarded by many as Melville's finest short story.

Customer Reviews:

quick and entertaining read.......2007-05-16

Bartleby is a quick entertaining read about the breakdown between employee/employer relationships.

Follow your leader. I would prefer not to.......2005-08-17

Benito Cereno is a brilliant story of deception. It makes the reader relentlessly guessing what is really going on and what happened to the inmates of the shipwreck 'San Dominick'.
Unfortunately, it is a racist tale. Herman Melville accepts without discussion the 19th century belief in the superiority of the white man.
The black inmates are characterized as 'the docile arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind ... undisputable inferiors.'
They are crushed by the good whites personified in Captain Delano, 'a person of a singularly undistrustful good nature ... a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception'.
More, the story exposes his author as a true calvinist, a fatalist: 'All is owing to Providence!', also the macabre message on the prow of the shipwreck 'follow your leader' (to be killed).

On the contrary, 'Bartleby' is a profoundly modern tale.
The strange behaviour of its main character 'Bartleby' can be described as 'perfectly harmless passivity' : 'I would prefer not to.'
The reason for this behaviour lays in the fact that Bartleby was suddenly removed out of the 'Dead Letter' office in Washington after a reorganization.
'Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? ... Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring ... a banknote ... he whom it would relieve nor eats nor hungers anymore ... on errands of life, these letters speed to death.'
Bartleby had hope. He had a job, albeit a 'catastrophic' one. But he himself became the victim of a catastrophe. He lost his job, his hope. He became a stoic.
Bartleby is the personification of humanity's lost hopes: 'Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!'

Bartleby , the Underground Man, The Overcoat.......2005-05-01

This review is of one of the long stories, or novellas that constitute this volume, 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' , and not of ' Benito Cereno'. 'Bartleby'is one of the great pieces of American and of Existensial Literature. It's hero, ' Who prefers not to' in some way compares with those other lonely nineteenth century city-dweller isolatos, Dostoevsky's Underground Man, and Gogol's Akakay Akakayevitch. He too has a cousin in much of Kafka's literature perhaps most especially in 'The Metamorphosis'.
The good- natured lawyer narrator, the employer of Bartleby who tells the story would seem to come from a world of ordinary pleasures, family and understanding. Thus his amazement at the worldless Bartleby who cannot say 'yes' to anything even kindness or human consideration.
Bartleby says ' no' and in saying ' no' he somewhow hangs on to, and affirms his own distinct identity and individuality. He is in one sense the anti- hero whose integrity is simply in refusing to follow and obey convention and the ordinary temptations of mankind.
At the same time he is obviously a no-body and a nothing, one who by saying 'no' also denies his own common humanity.
One of the paradoxes of this great story is the somewhat majestic , humorous and ironic tone of the narrator who so calmly presents a tale of isolation bordering on horror.
Close to one- hundred years later a writer far more popular in his time than Melville managed to be in his , J.D. Salinger would present in Holden Caulfield another example of the American naysayer to Society's demands, and hypocrisies. Old Holden however as opposed to Bartleby will be ' quite articulate'. When he prefers not to he will tell us all about it. Enigmatic Bartleby on the other hand charms us by his silence, and his one- track refusal to compromise. He seems to say to us , that even if we think we understand him, we cannot.
And this too is part of this work's special mystery and power.

What a waste.......2004-06-15

Congratulations Herman Melville - you have a good vocabulary and know how to describe a setting.

Benito Cereno was a waste of my life. Yes, the story is interesting and political and provocative but it could have easily been condensed by 50 pages. The build up is completely unnecessary. if you are desparate to read this book, read only the first 15 and last 15 pages

Benito Cereno.......2004-02-27

Herman Melville's Benito Cereno is a story about a Spanish slave ship taken captive, and the unfortunate American whaling ship that discovers them. The American Captain, Amasa Delano, and his crew cross paths with the Spanish slave ship, the San Dominick in a bay off the coast of the island of Santa Maria. Captain Delano is immediately astonished at the disrepair of the San Dominick, and especially at the poor health and mental condition of her captain, Benito Cereno. Captain Delano's emotional reactions to what he witnesses while aboard the San Dominick; curiosity, anxiety, and suspicion are excellently described by Melville. Throughout his stay on the San Dominick, Delano is constantly worried that Cereno is planning to attack him, and the liberty the slaves seem to enjoy concerns him as well. The story of Benito Cereno will keep you guessing until the final pages when the mystery of the San Dominick's crew and cargo is unveiled. Despite difficult language, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a great adventure story.

Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Other Tales (Modern Critical Interpretations)

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Office Without a View
Classic

Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Other Tales (Modern Critical Interpretations)

Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1555460097

Book Description

In Billy Budd, The Bell-Tower, and Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville explores in miniature the themes of isolation and defeat found in his great novels. Among his best works, they respectively deal with the irony of tragedy, arrogance, and failing communication.

The title, Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Benito Careno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Other Tales, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Benito Careno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Other Tales through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Herman Melville, a chronology of the author's life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University.

Customer Reviews:

Office Without a View.......2004-01-09

Melville's darkly curious novella about a mysterious new hire
who refuses to leave his place of employment--even when dismissed--is subtly compelling; the conflict is revealed
gradually in small, psychological increments. This story, which could just as well have been set in Victorian London, is related by an elderly narrator--a lawyer with two regular scriveners (legal copyists) and an office boy. But the addition of the inscrutable, pallid Bartleby creates a sensation in the small office. He quietly but simply refuses to do anything but copy documents, eventually disintegrating to not even that. Yet he will not leave; he "prefers not" to do anything but waste time and waste away. How can his decent, compassionate employer remove the unwanted fellow, without resorting to crass police intervention?

Melville's unchaptered tale is characterized by with long paragraphs and a rich tapestry of vocabulary. Less a mystery than one at first expects, the simple plot unfolds eventually to comment on the role of humanity. How easy it would be to assuage our collective conscience by institutionalizing the misfits. This may be the first literary example of Passive Resistance. With no clear cut villain in this seemingly actionless tale, readers are left in moral disquiet, yet this short work provides a glimpse into Melville's dark genius.

Classic.......2003-08-04

Herman Melville's "Bartleby" is undoubtedly one of the finest short stories known in the canon of Western literature. It is the story of a stubborn, yet ultimately passive scrivner (copyist) that despite his individuality has alienated himself from society. Melville contemplates whether a true individual can really function or even survive in society.

Book Description

Aside from Moby-Dick, Herman Melville's best fiction is considered to be Billy Budd along with "Benito Cereno" and "Bartlby the Scrivener" from The Piazza Tales. These works are considered in this latest version of Bloom's Notes. Along with a collection of some of the best criticism available on his work, this text includes a brief biography of the author, structural and thematic analysis, an index of themes and ideas, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts are the ideal aid for all students of literature, presenting concise, easy-to-understand biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on a specific literary work. Also provided are multiple sources for book reports and term papers with a wealth of information on literary works, authors, and major characters.

Bartleby The Scrivener, Benito Cereno, Billy Budd

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Bartleby The Scrivener, Benito Cereno, Billy Budd

Manufacturer: Quality Paperback Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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BARTLEBY BENITO CERENO.

Manufacturer: Giuti Gruppo, Florence
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 8809020839

Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno (Cliffs Notes)

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Bartleby
I would prefer not to
The immortal ' I prefer not to '
A profound and wise examination
A great book about hope as well as despair

Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno (Cliffs Notes)
Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Manufacturer: Cliffs Notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822002205

Book Description

These two longer short stories deal with men in commerce on Wall Street and men at sea, both involved in struggles for power and the creation of a livable ethic.

Customer Reviews:

Bartleby.......2007-01-18

In my opinion, Bartleby gets a bit boring sometimes, but maybe that's because I was sleepy when I read it. In general, the storyline is somewhat unique. Turkey and Nippers are copyists or scriveners while Ginger Nut, a boy of twelve, does odd jobs. The narrator notes these eccentricities, but excuses them. The narrator, torn between pity and exasperation, also discovers that Bartleby apparently has no home or friends, and lives in the office. Bartleby, however, only repeats his mantra, and the narrator eventually fires him. Bartleby, however, continues to haunt the premises, causing the lawyer considerable embarrassment.
I would give Bartleby three out of five stars, because I really didn't think it was that amazing, because I got lost in it.

I would prefer not to.......2005-08-17

The strange behaviour of the main character 'Bartleby' in this short story can be described as 'perfectly harmless passivity': 'I would prefer not to.'
The reason for this behaviour lays in the fact that Bartleby was suddenly removed out of the 'Dead Letter' office in Washington after a reorganization.
'Dead letters! does that not sound like dead men? ... Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring ... a banknote ... he whom it would relieve nor eats nor hungers anymore ... on errands of life, these letters speed to death.'

Bartleby had hope. He had a job, albeit a rather 'catastrophic' one. But, he himself became the victim of a catastrophe: he lost his job, his hope. He became a stoic.

Bartleby is the personification of humanity's lost hopes: 'Ah , Bartleby! Ah, humanity!'

This is a profoundly modern and magisterial tale.

The immortal ' I prefer not to ' .......2004-10-31

Bartleby is the story of one of the great ' naysayers' of Literature. But unlike Dostoevsky's ' Underground Man' he does not scream out his 'nay' in curses. His 'nay 'is quiet. " I prefer not to" . A much more romantic American adolescent naysayer Holden Caulfield will captivate readers also by saying to society, the world, the system of conventions that all are subject to, nay and nay again.
The outcast, the loner, the naysayer is of course one great archetypal figure of world and most especially American Literature.
Bartleby belongs among them.
And the fact that neither he nor the narrator nor the author fully articulate the ' root of his nay' adds in a way to the mystery and mystique of the character.
There is it seems to many of us something admirable in those who can turn away from the demands of ordinary society, and listen to the sound of their own drummer.
But what is maddening and absurd in Bartleby is that he does not seem to do this for anything special. He gives no hint that this ' nay ' gives him personal satisfaction. His withdrawal seems impersonal .And it seems a reflection of his own feeling about himself which is ' nay' Or on another interpretation it might be said that his saying ' I prefer not to' is the only way in which he preserves a vestige in his own identity.
Clearly there are many ways of reading this. But this is an exemplary tale, of course enriched by Melville's descriptions of the office world of the time, by his masterful language and humor.
One of the great long - short stories, or if you will, short novels. A masterwork without question.

A profound and wise examination.......2004-07-20

Bartleby is a man who simply prefers not to do anything. He is employed as a scrivener, but prefers not to do his job - indeed, he would rather stand in his office and look out the window than emerge from his quarters. Why he prefers to do nothing is as much a question to his employer as it is to the reader. But however much laziness aggravates the average person, one will quite instantly fall in love with Bartleby's character - or perhaps love him and hate him simultaneously. I found myself imagining reasons for his passiveness and creating events in his life in order to figure out why Bartleby prefers to do nothing. His character would be considered a flat character by the way Melville presents him, and yet I view him as a round character because I feel as though there was a conflict in his past which shaped him considerably. I am left to ponder over the one reason given by the narrator about Bartleby's demeanor, and I find that mystery most intriguing.

I enjoyed this story immensely. I fell in love with the character of Bartleby, and though the tale has a depressed, sad sort of aura about it, I walked away from it with a tranquil, serene sort of feeling. I can't really explain it, but I can say this: I would recommend that you take an hour out of your day and read this story in its entirety, reading it mean so that you get the most out of it. Even if you prefer not to.

A great book about hope as well as despair.......2004-01-22

I had to read this story in high school, and wasn't immediately struck by it except to conclude that it was better than Moby Dick. A few years later, however, I ran across this edition at a book warehouse and decided to buy it mainly for its photographs and very low price. Upon rereading it I decided that I liked it much better than I had initially thought.
The other reviews explain the story: Bartleby is employed by a lawyer in nineteenth-century Manhattan to do the work of a scrivener; that is, to copy legal documents. He begins well but eventually refuses to do any work at all. Bartleby will also not leave his office, even after the building is bought by someone else, and so is thrown in jail for vagrancy, where he dies.
Bartleby says very little except his famous line "I prefer not to" when asked by his employer to do any form of work. Much more interesting is the voice of the narrator, Bartleby's employer, who is genuinely concerned about Bartleby's plight and does everything he can to figure out what is wrong. When Bartleby passes away, the narrator's reaction is very sad to read, but the reader is led to believe that the narrator is a changed person.
I would definitely recommend this novella; it can be read in under an hour and is well worth your time.

Average customer rating:

BARTLEBY BENITO CERENO BILLY BUDD
MELVILLE
Manufacturer: FOLIO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SD36JQ

Average customer rating:

Bartleby the Scrivener / Benito Cereno / Billy Budd
Herman Melville
Manufacturer: Book-of-the-Month Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Bartleby the Scrivener ; Benito Cereno ; Billy Budd, Foretopman

Average customer rating:

Bartleby the Scrivener ; Benito Cereno ; Billy Budd, Foretopman
Herman Melville
Manufacturer: Quality Paperback Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

Bartleby the Scrivener Benito Cereno
Herman Melville
Manufacturer: QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOKCLUB
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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