He wrote about property quite a lot in these stories, like "I and My Chimney," which gets dramatic about a proposed house remodel. In "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids," the narrator is much more interested in the two places described in the story than in the young women who work in the second of those two places. The women in that story are basically background, to an uncomfortable extent; they certainly don't get to speak. I'm wondering if that was intentional commentary by Melville, or just me reading it in the 21st century. (I'm pretty sure the narrator of "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!" is meant to be clueless, but again, 21st-century perspective.)
Anyway. I've gotten more read. Now to head to the library, return this and another book, then get more books.
