I’ve just re-read my notes on Billy Budd and they’re so good I can see why I liked the book so much: the quotes I lifted from it, the language Melville uses, and the way he himself seems to fall in love with his character, Billy Budd.
It’s a short little book and it was difficult for me to read because it is so dense and poetic, but also archaic. I read four pages or so a day, and on at least two occasions I understood so little of what I read that the next day I had to re-read those pages, and usually that did actually help.
Part of why I liked it is that I love innocence very much, and Melville seems to love it even more. Billy Budd is, of course, very much about innocence. In fact Melville doesn’t seem to shut up about it.