There's some trend in cooking called "slow food" which is the name of an organization promoting getting away from fast food by using traditional cooking methods and ingredients. I think of it when I read things by [a:Herman Melville|1624|Herman Melville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1495029910p2/1624.jpg] and others like him. Reading him slows you down. The prose is dense enough that it's almost like reading philosophy. This is good.
 Bartleby, often called Bartleby the Scrivener, and Benito Cereno were both published in 1856 in a short story collection after having first been in magazines.  Bartleby is the more famous of the two, and I can see why. It's more in sync with the existential angst of any era and in this one reads like a 19th-century version of Office Space, which made me smile at times. Benito Cereno doesn't get the attention I think it should. It has a plot twist that I figured out long before, I think, readers of the day would have. I don't mean to pat myself on the back, though. It's just that I—and you—have been exposed to 150 more years of plot twists than people in Melville's day were. Think of all the movies with them: The Usual Suspects, The Crying Game, The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Get Out, and Psycho are just a few examples. Despite that, it's worth reading more now than as a many other times because it deals with slavery. Also, it could be rewritten for a Star Trek episode that would be so good I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet.

 "Why do you refuse?" (Narrator)
 "I would prefer not to." (Bartleby)
 With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me. I began to reason with him.