These three essays orbit Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener" from successive distances. The first attacks the narrator, the second attacks the attack, the third removes the hope of a clean vantage point. Each piece eats the previous one. Together they ask whether any act of understanding can avoid being an act of consumption. Part I: The … Continue reading The Bartleby Triptych: On Vampires, Critics, and Hunger