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Billy Budd, with Christine Norvell · Christians Reading Classics

0:03
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1:57
SPEAKER_03: In certain instances they would flank, or, like a bodyguard, quite surrounds some superior figure of their own class, moving along with them, like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation.
2:14
SPEAKER_03: That signal object was the handsome sailor of the less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies.
2:24
SPEAKER_03: With no perceptible trace of the vinglorious about him, rather, with the offthand, offhand unaffectedness of natural reality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates.
2:40
SPEAKER_03: A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dinghy street wall of Princess Dock, an obstruction long since removed, a common sailor, so intensely black that he must needs have been a native African of the unadulterated blood of a ham.
3:05
SPEAKER_03: A symmetric figure much above the average height.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: The two ends of a gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the displayed ebony of his chest.
3:18
SPEAKER_03: In his ears were big hoops of gold, and a Scotch highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely head.
3:28
SPEAKER_03: So opened Hermel Melville his novella, Billy Bud Sailor, which he wrote in 1888.
3:36
SPEAKER_03: Melville, of course, is best known for his novel Mobby Dick, published in 1851.
3:44
SPEAKER_03: But we forget sometimes as we focus on the whale, that he wrote a lot of other things.
3:51
SPEAKER_03: Billy Bud, in particular, was Melville's first foray into fiction after three decades of writing poetry.
3:59
SPEAKER_03: Except he did not finish or publish it in his lifetime.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: Instead, his widow, Elizabeth Shaw Melville, at last edited and published the book in 1924.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Christians Reading Classics, a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy.
4:17
SPEAKER_03: I am Nadia Williams, managing editor at Mere Orthodoxy.
4:22
SPEAKER_03: And today it is a delight to talk about Billy Bud, Melville, and so much more with Christine Norwell.
4:30
SPEAKER_03: Christine is a classical Christian educator who teaches and writes about classical literature and its formational value.
4:39
SPEAKER_03: You can read her essays in places like Front Porch for the Public, Public Discourse, and the Imaginative Conservative.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: Conservative.
4:48
SPEAKER_03: Just one imaginative conservative, not many.
4:51
SPEAKER_03: Finally, her new book, The Sycamore Fig Tree, Biblical Botany and Scriptural Truth, Seeking God in Life's Transitions, is now out from Stone Tower Press.
5:02
SPEAKER_03: And towards the end of the conversation today, we'll get to it as well.
5:06
SPEAKER_03: So, Christine, welcome.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm grateful to be with you.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: So the first question I always ask is, what is a classic?
5:17
SPEAKER_03: I know you've thought about this a lot more than the vast majority of my guests.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I think they all give wonderful answers.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: But uh that's something that years ago, um, because I've been teaching in a classical school for decades, I would introduce to my juniors and seniors teaching high school.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: We would, in fact, start the beginning of the year with the introduction to Leland Riken's Realms of Gold.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: And in his introductory essay, he speaks of like four or five very specific um categories or aspects of definition, what makes a classic a classic.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: And so I would have, I would hand that out to my students.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: We'd read through it.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: He follows that with fallacies people believe about defining classics or what makes a book a good book or a great book.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: And I know those are all aspects that you've likely discussed at length before.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: So um it's always fun talking about that with students because when they're like, oh, we go to a classical school and we read classic books, and that just means they're old.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: And to take that in hand and say, no, let's think about this word and and let's see what we do we agree, do we disagree, how do we define things like that?
6:43
SPEAKER_02: But I would say over the space of time, that for me, very simply, hopefully it's not too much of a cliche, a classic book or play or poem is classic because it's like a fine wine, not a cheap one.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: Oh, a wine that has ripened and deepened and taken its time to become a very specific flavor that oh over the years, when you return to a book, which of course is part of a classic, that fact that we can come back to it and learn more, whether we're talking about the Bible or you're talking about um something we read from the 1800s or even 21st century, and when we speak of classics in that manner.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: So maybe it's water turning into wine, as Christ did at the wedding at Cana, or maybe it's simply the fact that it's something that gets to sit and age well.
7:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we talk about some things that they did not age well.
7:47
SPEAKER_03: There are certain things we read, whether news articles, essays, or books where you think like this makes no sense today, or this is not interesting today.
7:56
SPEAKER_03: And then you might be surprised to learn like this book was a bestseller 30 years ago.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: That's not a classic.
8:02
SPEAKER_03: And the whole point that's something, uh so on the one hand, students are certainly being a little too like taking the easy way out when they say a classic is just old.
8:13
SPEAKER_03: On the other hand, they are not wrong.
8:15
SPEAKER_03: Like a classic has aged well, which means it has aged.
8:20
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
8:21
SPEAKER_03: Um, and it's and it's interesting because we haven't really considered like, is there a cutoff?
8:27
SPEAKER_03: Like how old does it have to be?
8:29
SPEAKER_03: Like, does it have to be at least a hundred years?
8:32
SPEAKER_03: Or like, um, is 70 years okay?
8:35
SPEAKER_03: And we've had conversations on this podcast about books that are like just 70 years old.
8:40
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, well, this seems like I think it deserves the rank of a classic.
8:44
SPEAKER_03: And as we're talking, um, as we're recording this, Wendell Berry just passed away last week.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I would say his works are classics.
8:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, of course, some of them are 70 years old at this point, but anyway, so um, but um, but also there are classics that are millennia old, and ultimately um all of them have something to offer us today where we read them and we can say, I am, I, the creature of 21st century America, um have like benefited, have grown, have become better, maybe in a even minuscule way from reading this book.
9:28
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: I agree with that.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: I uh um I have had some lively debates uh with different professors and scholars and thinkers in the past, uh, one of which is should we even call C.S.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Lewis, should we call Tolkien in their work classics or not?
9:47
SPEAKER_02: Aren't they too new?
9:49
SPEAKER_02: It's 20th century, is it, you know, and and when you talk through the merits and you have to define your terms, what are you really what do you really mean when you say, is it a classic, is it not?
10:01
SPEAKER_02: And and why and will it last?
10:04
SPEAKER_02: And um it's it's fun to engage in those debates because so many people are like, of course, Lewis is a classic writer.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: All everything he produced, but not everyone agrees.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's one of those um debates, disagreements, arguments we will continue, I'm sure, for decades.
10:24
SPEAKER_03: And to some extent, maybe it doesn't even matter so much.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, because ultimately all of us have favorite books and authors, and all of us have probably at some point or another come across something that everyone else says is a classic, and we think, like, what is this?
10:38
SPEAKER_03: Like, why?
10:39
SPEAKER_03: Um and that's okay.
10:41
SPEAKER_03: But the point is, are you surrounding, are you filling your mind with the good, the true, and the beautiful?
10:46
SPEAKER_03: Well, so talk to me a little bit about your life.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: So, like you are a classical educator, which means you live your life among classic books and teaching them to others.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: So, how would you say this is different, especially this educational method now that everybody says they're doing classical education?
11:05
SPEAKER_03: Like what everything's going on.
11:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: It it's definitely more in the mainstream and more people are are familiar with it.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of my fun examples, even this summer traveling to and from conferences, you know, on occasion you strike up uh conversations with people in airports and they want to know what you're doing and where you're going and why.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: And I more and more now I find, even just within the last year or two, more people are familiar with it.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and they know what classical education is, or they have an idea, and then you get to talk about it further.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: And so in this respect, I'm I'm happy the more people are familiar, but I still believe that even uh again, the practice of defining terms and what is it that we mean, what are we doing?
11:56
SPEAKER_02: And so it is true that, like a classic book, uh, classical education at its core is a return to a tradition from previous centuries.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: It is not a new concept, it just feels new to many people if they've never heard of it.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: And so there is a tradition and there is a foundation.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: And given that we're in the 21st century, our version and what it looks like in practice is different.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: It has to be because we are of our time.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: So it it will look and sound and feel different in that respect.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: But um, more than anything, it is about like in Christian education and Catholic education.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, it is the spiritual intent behind what we do.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: And it's really how we see, no matter what subject, no matter what age student that we interact with and are teaching, who's in our classroom, within our school buildings, or our homeschool co-ops, or our charter system, that we are above all, and just number one, our priority is that we are looking at a student as a soul with uh eternal purpose and that how we behave, how we interact with text.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, when I've taught biology in the past, even in those ways that we talk and communicate, we are ever mindful as instructors and as administrators, as parents, that this is a human soul in front of me, and that my interactions have a purpose.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: And I want to lead to that and not just throw out the worksheets and say, do these questions and we're just doing busy work.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: It's no, it's very much with great intention.
13:47
SPEAKER_03: And that is really beautiful and certainly different from how uh a lot of times modern education and accreditation systems go where every student is a number.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, no, you're you're a soul.
14:01
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: And so much of this involves books, perhaps because books, great literature, shapes our imagination, which brings us to Herman Melville.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: He's an unusual classic in some ways, because we don't live our lives around the sea, you know.
14:22
SPEAKER_03: Like when um when we read Melville, we are being ushered into a very different world where people knew ships and sailing and um perhaps didn't feel as awkward as we do when we read about different parts of the whale.
14:39
SPEAKER_03: Um but here we are yet again in the presence of a sailor, and it's and it's a much more approachable story than one might think at first glance.
14:51
SPEAKER_03: So tell us about Billy Bud.
14:53
SPEAKER_03: What is going on?
14:54
SPEAKER_03: Who is this protagonist, and why should we love him?
14:58
SPEAKER_03: Because he he is in many ways very lovable.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: He is, he is, and I I would preface it um with a little bit about Melville that will um play into this story and how uh the novella came about over time since he wrote it at the end of his life.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: And that is that Melville grew up as the third of eight kids in New York City.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: His father uh was well off, they were a socialite family, uh very well known, lived on Pearl Street, and they were in the import business.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: And so um one of his uh later novels, Redburn, he talks about that he and his brothers and sisters would sit by the fireside with their father in the evenings.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: And because with his import business, he was on voyages and was on ships, he was a great storyteller.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: And the children grew up with that aspect.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: And through a series of unfortunate events, his his father went bankrupt and died a couple of years later, about 1832.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: And young Herman had to join what was left of the second business, uh fur trade business, and um was able to go to school for a few years, but then decided to to sign up and do a summer voyage to and from Liverpool and got his first taste of the sea.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, he taught for a few years between ages 18 and 20 and wrote for the Albany, New York newspaper for a time, but then um began to enlist and um join up on whaling vessels and uh various escapades to the French Polynesia, to Tahiti, to Hawaii.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: So um what's great about that is it's fantastic fodder uh for the stories that he tells.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: So his first runaway novel in 1846, Taipee, was an absolute bestseller, and it's a first-person narrative without a lot of plot, but he describes himself and the ship and all that he sees, the island they land on, the cannibals they should be frightened of, his adventures, uh going up and down mountains and valleys on this island and his eventual escape.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's fascinating, it's rich language, so easy to see.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: It's like the best travelogue ever.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: And his next novel followed to another island and another island story, and um covers a little bit of jumping ship and maybe a mutiny or two.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: And so these are part of his early 20s.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so once he decides to return to New York in the Boston area and gets married, he decides he has to has to write for a living, and he sure gives it a good attempt for a time.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: And there's many ups and downs.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: He had great success in the 1840s and 50s, but later years not as much, and he is seeking employment and other other things outside of writing just to make ends meet, and does fall on hard times.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: So there's lots of ups and downs.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: But near the end of his life, he had been secretly working on this novella, uh, and uh many, even though it was published post posthumously, uh many people consider it one of his his fine works because it may not best Moby Dick.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: They're very different pieces and works of very different intents.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh but it's almost like this this novel of uh the essence of who Melville was.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: So much of his short story, pieces of poetry, um, his eloquence.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: I feel like this is one of those novellas that, yes, depending on the edition you read, it's 50 pages, 70 pages with footnotes, maybe very short, but you have to take your time.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: The sentences are so, so rich.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of illusions.
19:16
SPEAKER_02: You have to know the Bible, you have to know Greeks and Romans and all kinds of people he refers to um very rich and nuanced in that.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: And so as he starts a story and tells us of this young man who at a time of a little bit of uh uh still a naval territorial activity between the British and the French out on the waters, um, he is impressed from a merchant ship to a military one.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: And we get to meet him mainly through the officers who are just walking through.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: We get a take you, it's military duty, this is um article of war, we can take whoever we want.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: And they chose him, and so we get to see his physical description, his behavior, how he speaks to others um through the eyes of these officers, right?
20:13
SPEAKER_02: As Melville introduces the story.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: So introduce us a little bit more to like this cast of character characters.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: So we have these sailors, and of course, we have the the hero who is named after whom the novel is named.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: So um Billy Bud himself is described as um the handsome sailor with a capital H and a capital S.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: The more time he's on board, um, because he's no longer one of the merchant marines, he's now a sailor on a military vessel.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, they also call him Baby Bud was a capital B and a capital B.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: So he he gets his nicknames pretty quickly, but it's because his physical nature, he is young, for one, but there's something about his aspect.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: He looks like he's of noble blood.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: And then we find out Melville reveals to us, yes, in fact, he had been left on a doorstep.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: And um, though he was raised uh in just a common home and in a common way, he has this aspect about him, uh, the way he carries himself, his actual looks, he's compared to Apollo and others, as Melville describes him.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: But he has a winning way about him when he's meeting the other sailors of every every level and rank.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: And so as the story goes on, we get to see his interactions with others, and um it it becomes clear that most people like him.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: He's very charming naturally, he's very simple, he he doesn't seem to have a single suspicion or paranoia.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: About anyone or anything said to him.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: But he is confused by the master at arms, um, Claggart.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: And Claggart had also been an impressed man a few, maybe a few different times before this, the this particular ship, the Bilipotent, made it where it's at.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: And there's something about Billy Bud that he just doesn't like.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: We see that through Melville's eyes as a narrator, but Billy does not.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, it confuses Billy to a point that he's like, why do I keep getting in trouble?
22:36
SPEAKER_02: Someone's moving my bag.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: And then an inspection, this is happening, and I'm getting in trouble for these small things.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: What's going on?
22:44
SPEAKER_02: So he went to the old Dane on board.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: They just call him affectionately Dansker.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: And um, he's he's he's practically a retired sailor.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: He just has a few roles.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: But the dansker is talking with him and he knows exactly what's going on.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: And all he said was, hey, Jimmy legs is down on you.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: Billy is trying to figure out what does that mean?
23:09
SPEAKER_02: So Jimmy is short for James, and it's just a nickname for Claggart.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: But Billy doesn't even process this accurately.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't understand that the mastered arms um is trying to get him into trouble.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: He eventually employs one of his henchmen known as Squeak to get Billy into more trouble.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: And they lay out a situation where truly uh Claggert is wanting to get rid of Billy or at least get him into trouble.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: And that propels the story forward to the very uh end.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: It's practically the last third.
23:45
SPEAKER_03: It's almost like a Greek tragedy, the idea that like somebody is uh who is completely faultless is in a circumstance that cannot end well for him.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: It is, and you know what's unique is though this is such a short work and it's uh spare as far as word count, that Melville is careful to tell us that Billy is not perfect, he's just practically perfect.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: He has when he was first on board, he did get in a fight or two after he was teased.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: He was a good fighter, we find out.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: He also has um a speech impediment.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: If he's upset uh with great emotion, um he just is not able to get his words out and he'll stutter and stammer or not be able to say a thing at all.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: And Melville, we know, takes that time at the beginning to lay that out, and we're like, oh, that must be on purpose.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: And of course, it it comes into play very quickly in the final scene in conflict with the master at arms.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: So this is one of those books what um what my son would refer to as boy books.
25:01
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, there are books, there are classic books that uh have entirely or mostly male characters, and those more naturally appeal perhaps to boys.
25:14
SPEAKER_03: And then, of course, my daughter wants female protagonists, and my son definitely has questions about reading those books.
25:23
SPEAKER_03: So, what advice would you give to um parents, for instance, navigating this kind of situation?
25:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know what's interesting is that as a mother of three boys, there are boy books, I will admit that.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: But I am also fascinated at the times that young men love Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: Once they're introduced into it and just hand in hand you begin to walk through it.
25:54
SPEAKER_02: And once they meet characters, they too uh fall in love or in anger or irritation at particular personalities.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, even with Billy Bud, uh, as you walk through it in a with a class, a mixed class, uh, what's great is I think it's the humanness in the characters that students as they begin to mature, identify with and they're able to see that identification.
26:23
SPEAKER_02: Younger readers and uh younger children, they may not have the words to say or explain things in that manner, but it is the humanness within us and the human nature itself that I think is the appeal.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Because by the end of Billy Bud, I can say that girls and boys alike, you know who they cheer for, you know who in this particular tragedy they are most upset about, um, what they want to debate and argue at the very end of the book.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: What's right, what's wrong, what's duty, what's compassion, what's martial law, what's yeah, what's an article of war doing in the middle of a story?
27:07
SPEAKER_03: And why is everyone told by one of the things that is so prominent here is the quest for justice.
27:16
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
27:16
SPEAKER_03: And that's one of those, one of those things like we want the world to be fair, but of course, it's not.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: Right.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: So, um, as Christians, reading a novel like this that is about this fairness and the question of where does justice come from?
27:35
SPEAKER_03: How do we engage with this here?
27:38
SPEAKER_00: The Center for Christianity and Public Life invites you to their annual summit for the good of the public.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: The summit gathers Christians and public service-minded leaders who want to think deeply and work practically for the health of our public life.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Coming together from many places and perspectives, these leaders are united by the conviction that Christianity offers essential contributions for the good of our neighbors, our institutions, and our shared future.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: This year's summit will be held on October 5th through 7th in Washington, D.C., featuring speakers such as Judge Patrick Schultz, Mayor Danny Avila, Nazan and Ash, Russell Moore, Jane Kaminsky, Jennifer Hurt, Vince Picote, and many others.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Learn more and register at ccpublife.org slash summit.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: And you can find that link in the show notes.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh that that's the complicated part because it is not an easy answer.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the things that I appreciate appreciate about Melville most is that we understand the complicated nature.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: In Veer's final speech at the court martial, the drum head court with his officers.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: We understand he's bound by duty and the articles of war.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: And his men as leaders fight against it.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: We do not, this is not this, this is not that.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: He was not justified in striking the master at arms.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: However, we know there was no intent.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: Please, Captain, you cannot, you cannot.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: But it's a time of war and a major mutiny, a famous one, had just happened.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: Everyone's trying to avoid talking about it because they don't want to even have the contagious hint of it on board or or just slip past anyone's mouth, as if that paranoia would strike something in their own ship.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: But um, the other officers are like, you cannot, you cannot, you cannot.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: But they uh they have no say, the captain overrides it, and everything happens so quickly.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: One of the officers really had argued for it.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: Let's give it time, let's just lock him away.
30:01
SPEAKER_02: And when we get back into port and we'll go to the admiralty, we'll take all due process in three or four, five or six months, it'll be fine.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: He'll just be a prisoner for a while.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: But Captain Veer's like, no, something worse may happen.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: The men need to see us act justly and quickly, and he's just so positive that the law is superior and we are duty bound.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: But in the afterward, on his deathbed, after he had been wounded at a battle at sea soon after this.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: Um the only words on his lips are Billy Bud, Billy Bud.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: And we know, we know, oh, my students just so always react to that.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: I do too when I read it.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: His conscience was so stricken.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: He knew it was a wrong thing after the fact, but it's too late.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: And so everyone gets so upset about those things, and all the sailors knew, knew, they knew it was at the heart of Claggart, they knew it was at the heart of Billy.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: Neither man is perfect.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, there's even a hint of good that Melville shows us in Claggart, but Claggart sort of overrides it and chooses the ways of evil, and this whole good and evil thing and justice are all this mixed, meshed, and embroiled together, and it's heart-wrenching.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: It is so heart-wrenching at the end, we cannot believe it.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: And that's why the students are like, How can you kill such an innocent person?
31:36
SPEAKER_02: Is he not Christ-like at the end, even at his death?
31:40
SPEAKER_02: Everyone notices what's different.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Why is Melville doing this if he wasn't this epitome of goodness?
31:47
SPEAKER_02: And why does the good man have to die?
31:51
SPEAKER_02: Which, of course, brings up all these biblical parallels as well.
31:57
SPEAKER_03: And it makes me wonder what Melville himself was thinking.
32:00
SPEAKER_03: Like, do we know how, like, because he didn't publish this in his lifetime.
32:06
SPEAKER_03: Do we know if he was planning to revise, tinker with it further?
32:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't think so.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: There are published um collections, thousands upon thousands of pages of his letters.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, I have not made my way through all of those.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: I read some, but yeah, he may have mentioned it to a friend or two, but for the most part, it seemed to be um very top secret, a very private work that he took his time with.
32:35
SPEAKER_03: That's that is interesting.
32:38
SPEAKER_03: And it it is beautiful, and again, that's a sense of tragedy um and injustice.
32:44
SPEAKER_03: It's one of those books that's uh upsetting, but upsetting for all the right reasons for us as readers and especially as Christian readers.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: I had read somewhere that um when we we talk about tragedy, whether we talk about Greek, Shakespearean, modern Death of a Salesman, Billy Bud, that um one of the overarching frames uh is to pull back as if it were on a stage and to look at it as a spectacle, a spectacle of art and the impression it left upon us.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: What just like in Aristotle's Poetics, um, when he talks about the effect upon the audience, upon the human heart, and what it is that we identify with, um, it goes to the human relationship and what we see when we're watching this stage or seeing the end of Billy Bud and imagining it in our minds' eyes.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this is so wrong.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: How could this happen?
33:54
SPEAKER_02: And yet, we know every kind of injustice has happened across mankind's history on this planet.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: This is nothing new, but it that the gut-wrenching nature of it, uh, that the outcry within us is this is not right.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: How could it happen?
34:12
SPEAKER_02: We cannot fix it, and yet you have to almost experience this spectacle as a whole when you're done and you talk about it and you can disseminate and think about it for days, of course.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: But there's something about collectively in a classroom or the audience in an auditorium, if you happen to be watching a version, that you're experiencing this tragedy together, and there's something in that, that recognition within our hearts.
34:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is a deeply, deeply moving.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: That's what it is.
34:51
SPEAKER_03: Like tragedy moves us in a way that um comedy doesn't necessarily.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I wonder too, like Melville, when he is is choosing such uh almost a pure spotless lamb kind of figure in in Billy, like why why him?
35:14
SPEAKER_02: Because Melville began at age, I was he 2021 when he went to sea for four years and just goes back and forth across across the oceans.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: And he's like the same age as Billy, or he was.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And like, what is he pulling from?
35:33
SPEAKER_02: What is he thinking through?
35:35
SPEAKER_02: What is he wrestling with, or what does he want us to see?
35:38
SPEAKER_02: And those are are questions we can ask and think through, but we really don't have an answer.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: We don't have an answer for where it comes from, but we need to see these mirror pieces within his own life that are coming through the story here and there.
35:54
SPEAKER_03: So his widow is the one who published it, and apparently she administered his literary estate.
36:01
SPEAKER_03: Do we know how the book was received when it was first published?
36:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, it came out so much later, even.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: Uh so he passes away, I think it's 1891.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: And um in 1892, I recall reading that all of a sudden his his short fiction, his poetry, a chapter from Moby Dick, are beginning to be included in American anthologies of literature.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And so his his widow is negotiating um these types of sales.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: And post-death, here here we are, the popularity he he had been in obscurity for a decade or more, and now he's popular again in death, and I think it's nine in the 1920s, 1924, is that correct?
36:58
SPEAKER_02: If you read that same date, um when Billy Budd is released, and it's received well.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Um I can't say that I recall reading it more about its reception, just that he had already, over that period of about 25 years and the inclusion in all these anthologies and now textbooks in the United States in particular, um, had already become sort of a mainstay.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: Like you have to include a Melville something or several pieces um in any American literature textbook.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: And by the time Billy Bud come comes out, he is already that that solid figure in American literature.
37:44
SPEAKER_03: Although I always wonder how an author would have felt um about being popular among um well captive audiences, like these are not necessarily the readers that he was thinking he was reaching during his lifetime.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: That is very likely.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, uh, any final tips that you would uh like to offer first-time readers?
38:09
SPEAKER_03: If somebody's listening, they've never read Billy Bud and now they're thinking, okay, I want a book that will totally break me, but is so beautiful.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: If you choose to pick up Billy Bud, um, having never read Melville, I would say read it slowly.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: Like really take time to savor the sentences because maybe not every sentence, but many have a nuance, an illusion, a symbol.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: There's a beauty in his description.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think by this time, especially with the influence of Hawthorne in the 1850s and 60s upon his writing career and in their many, their decade of conversations and such.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: This romantic style, the eloquence, the verbiage, the descriptions.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's still long, like the mid-1800s, you know, long sentences and such, but I think there's such a refinement in Melville at this point, um, that every word is so intentionally chosen.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Every small organization within each of these very brief chapters is so intentional.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, sometimes it's a little funny because there's one chapter early on where Captain Veer uh basically gives us a tangent and a history, military history of the British Navy.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: But Melville starts that short chapter with okay, forgive me for a moment.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: This is a tangent.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: Everyone be aware.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: And then we come back to the story and the place at hand, but it also gives us a context for the type of man and the captain and leader, of course, that um Edward Fairfax here is.
40:18
SPEAKER_03: Um a slower read than what we think of.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: It would be but it is beautiful.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: It is, and you would even mention the connection that um his latter years, the last 30 or so years of his life, is when he really dives into writing poetry.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: And even his early poems are really fun.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: He writes about sharks and starfish and ocean creatures.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Of course he does.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: And they're fun, they're fun and they're beautifully rhymed, and um, they're fun to read.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: But these poems of his last few decades, um, they are getting published.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: And he does have other serial fiction that's coming out in magazines, even if there's not some, you know, best-selling novel uh after Moby Dick.
41:05
SPEAKER_02: But it's after these years of poetry, again, Billy Bud is emerging, and it's from that mind, this just this whole lifetime of crafting that this novella comes comes to the surface in his mind and in his creation.
41:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: Such a beautiful book.
41:25
SPEAKER_02: It is.
41:27
SPEAKER_03: Well, um, I'd love to hear a little bit from you about your uh recent book, so The Sycamore Fig Tree, which is also the result of kind of marinating with ideas and books for a really long time.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: And it's a reminder that books that have been, well, you know, like just that we've been living with for a long time read differently than a quick idea.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, this particular book, uh probably took about five mere five years to marinate and and come to life, or at least get to the proposal stage.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: But many summers ago, I read the book of Amos in scripture um several times and was just really curious about it.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to know a couple of things.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: Number one, uh, the pivotal verse in the book of Amos is chapter seven, verse 14, where it mentions that Amos was um a sheep herder or a goat herder, and he also took care of sycamore trees, and depending on your translation, they'll say sycamore fig, which is more accurate, or it'll say sycamore tree.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: But what did that mean?
42:46
SPEAKER_02: And and that particular tree and Amos's um true occupation are sort of what occupied my mind in just a time of open research.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: And so what I discovered is that the sycamore fig tree is not one we talk about a lot, except people know it when you hear the story of Zacchaeus.
43:09
SPEAKER_02: So they know um, not all translations, but many mention the sycamore fig tree that he climbed when he was waiting for Jesus to pass by.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: But the sycamore fig tree is in the Old Testament, it's in it's in 2 Kings, it's in the Psalms.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, David made sure he appointed someone to be in charge of those trees.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: Solomon mentions it.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: Um we hear Jesus himself talking about the sycamore fig tree when he said, If you would have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say, do this sycamore fig tree be cast into the sea.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: If your faith is even that much, just that much of true faith and trust, it could do that.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: So even Jesus is mentioning.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: This tree.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, why is no one talking about this tree?
44:04
SPEAKER_02: What why is it there?
44:06
SPEAKER_02: So as I jumped into research and some botany and archaeology and fossil records, I was just fascinated by it.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's true that I started college as a biology major, though I didn't end up as one, but I'm just I'm a noticer in the natural world, just in God's creation, I'm fascinated by these things.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: And um, once I learned about the history of the tree, how it shows up in um the fruit of the sycamore fig tree, shows up in the pyramids, in the tombs of the pharaohs.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: When you look at um the the detailed drawings of the pharaohs' gardens, there's four sycamore fig trees planted around the pools for shade.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: And yes, there was a goddess of that particular tree, but um that's just one aspect in where the tree came from, it's not native to Israel, how it got there and how that connected to Amos were just things that I was trying to connect the dots for, just on occasion when I had time.
45:16
SPEAKER_02: And um once I began to study about who Amos was and why all the translators really had this unique way of talking about him.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: Like some people said he was a fig picker, he tended sheep, he tended goats, no, he was the owner of the sycamore fig trees.
45:36
SPEAKER_02: No, actually, he was taking care of the temple animals so that he could sell them to the priests for sacrifice.
45:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's all these versions.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: But when you go back in time to the ancient Hebrew, to Akkadian and others, and you read about who Amos was, most scholars, not everyone will ever agree on things from thousands and thousands of years ago, I think, but most of them understand a little bit more of where this tree came from through the language that's referred to in the book of Amos so long ago.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: And I had basically a great little pamphlet on this tree in Amos ready to go, you know, 40 pages.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not a book, and I was like, okay, Lord, why did we do this?
46:26
SPEAKER_02: This is so, so interesting to me.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it'd be fascinating to quite everyone.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not a theologian, I don't have a seminary degree, and I wouldn't even know how to publish this.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: But as I just spent time with the Lord and asked him more of what do you want this to become?
46:48
SPEAKER_02: It was more, it was when the story of my life and our life, and moving from one state to the other.
46:56
SPEAKER_02: And somehow the story of that tree um was mirrored in many ways to um what my husband and I were going through in life at the time.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of it was just with a major move in midlife.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, what are the difficulties?
47:12
SPEAKER_02: What are the strains?
47:14
SPEAKER_02: People use botanical metaphors and garden metaphors all the time.
47:18
SPEAKER_02: They say, Oh, you got transplanted.
47:20
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, wait a second.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: If if you read this, I read this in um Joy Clarkson's book of a few years ago.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: She talks about, you know, hey, remember, if a plant is pulled out and put in a new pot and it's given time to root, and then it's pulled up and put into a new pot, and you just do it over and over and over, it actually weakens the plant and control it.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, wait, that that metaphor doesn't work.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: We're not transplants in a new place.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: What are we then?
47:52
SPEAKER_02: And how does this connect to what this tree does?
47:55
SPEAKER_02: And so when I began reading more about the tree and just sort of seeking answers and understanding um and just asking the Lord about it, just connecting the story of being translated, uh transplanted, but also just being planted in a new place when you go through hard things, when there are difficult situations, when there's just normal the griefs of life that come, how do we how do we move on?
48:27
SPEAKER_02: And the thing that's beautiful about the image of the tree, and I'll leave it with that, is one example I used just talking about it um almost from a botany textbook side, if we talked about the tree as an arborist mite.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, where it came from in Yemen and wherever you can find it, and all of its many relatives in the Ficus family throughout Egypt and Africa and many other countries throughout and across around the Mediterranean.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: If a sandstorm happens to hit a sycamore fig tree and it exposes the wind, the high winds expose the roots, the tree will not die.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: It will not.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: The branches can actually turn and become the roots.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: And if, say, the top of the tree is covered up entirely in just a huge sand dune, most trees would die.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: But how the trees, how the tree adapts is that the roots can become branches and the branches can become roots, and it just goes deeper and it remains this keystone species.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: It can always find water, it's a sign of water and shade and plenty, and it's wood is cultivated and throughout scripture we we can read about that.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: And it's not the only holy book that mentions a sycamore fig tree, but it just has this image, this a way of way of adapting that is just so encouraging to me.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord just walked me through just different difficult parts of our transition into a new place and um a new school and all kinds of things, finding friends in midlife, all of that.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: That this tree um brought encouragement for us.
50:17
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
50:18
SPEAKER_03: So, did you get to see a real sycamore fig tree as part of your research?
50:24
SPEAKER_02: Not outside of the United States.
50:28
SPEAKER_03: Do they grow in the US?
50:30
SPEAKER_03: Can we grow them?
50:31
SPEAKER_02: There are three or four.
50:33
SPEAKER_03: Oh, just like literally just three or four.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: There there are a couple of really much smaller ones in Los Angeles at their um arboretum there in the city.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: And um there are smaller ones being cultivated in various biblical gardens and greenhouses.
50:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, the other one I remember specifically is at the Museum of the Bible.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, is that right?
51:00
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not sure.
51:02
SPEAKER_02: Somewhere out there, there's others that people are trying to cultivate, but at this far north of the equator, it's not a good idea.
51:12
SPEAKER_03: But that's okay.
51:13
SPEAKER_03: The point is, like we have other trees and the Lord takes care of them too.
51:19
SPEAKER_03: He does.
51:20
SPEAKER_03: He does.
51:21
SPEAKER_03: And that's a really beautiful story.
51:23
SPEAKER_03: I had never really thought of that.
51:25
SPEAKER_03: I remember Zacchaeus.
51:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, so I did remember that reference.
51:29
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, that is fascinating.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for letting me share about it too.
51:34
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's those details, and uh sometimes we just don't pay attention.
51:39
SPEAKER_03: And that's a good reminder in general when reading that these little details have a meaning.
51:45
SPEAKER_03: They're not just there as fillers.
51:48
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
51:50
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
51:51
SPEAKER_03: So as we wrap up, Christine, I have one final question for you.
51:57
SPEAKER_03: What classic do you wish you had written?
52:01
SPEAKER_03: And why?
52:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that that was really, really hard to choose.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: Um I wish I could have written Jane Eyre.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people think it's overtaught and overdone and mentioned too much.
52:18
SPEAKER_02: And I'm just like, but I'm fascinated.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: How did Bronze come up with this?
52:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, if I could have the mind to think through that whole situation and the life of this child, Jane, to adulthood and and the many things that she goes through, even moments where I truly believe she's hearing the Lord and the Holy Spirit's talking to her to return.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, how do you write that?
52:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, this is incredible.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: So um it it's a favorite, even though it it is dark.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: And um I I just I'm fascinated with how did you come up with it?
53:03
SPEAKER_02: I would love to think like that.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I would love to think like that.
53:06
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I wouldn't.
53:08
SPEAKER_03: And that is fair.
53:10
SPEAKER_03: And perhaps the answer is just a lot of reading.
53:12
SPEAKER_03: It seems like the Bronte, the whole family just lived with books.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: They did.
53:19
SPEAKER_03: Well, Christine Norwell, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about Billy Bud and the Sycamore Fig Tree.
53:27
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again for having me.