message

Smooth reading, very pretty, with graceful irony personifying superstition and fears in the unknown. The Apple Tree Table is a cool little ghost story where rationalistic skeptics were right, and it turns out that there is a mundane explanation. And oddly enough for Melville, at the end there is even a message of pro-Christianity.

This is a story about redemption, when money is used as a thematic resonance. He combines the wits of the Dodo books with a rather strong ethical message about materialism. This is a high society satire, and then it becomes something much deeper and richer. This book is read in one breath.