I like it because it talk about love. I think the love is more important than the money and you should know your feeling when you love.

this story is nice it's a romance. I liked this story because it's true. ( )

Catherine is rich gils, she will have a lot of money when father dies.
One day she met a guy who name is Morris. He soon said he wants to marry her, but her father
doubt that Morris just want her money, not love.
This story makes me to think about love. But I don't understand Morris thought. ( )

Catherine Sloper is not pretty or clever.Her father is a doctor so he have a lot of money.One day she meets a handsome young man.He soon says he loves her and wants to marry her.But her father thinks that a man wants a money.Does he love her or does he want money?
I think this story is a little predictable. ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classic" books for the first time, then file reports on whether or not I think they deserve the label

Book #10: Washington Square, by Henry James (1880)

The story in a nutshell:
Agreed by most to definitely be one of his minor works, Washington Square is in reality not much more than a novella, written between major novels in the late Victorian Age as James often did throughout his career. And there's not much of a plot either, to tell you the truth; it's primarily the story of Catherine Sloper, a pleasant but rather dim-witted and plain-looking young woman living in the ritzy old-money New York neighborhood of Washington Square, along with her father who she shares a large house with, Austin Sloper, a typical middle-aged business-focused white guy who sorta laughingly condescends to all the people around him who aren't middle-aged business-focused white guys. In fact, this is the crux of the problem between the two of them, the conflict that fuels almost the entire storyline; it seems that Catherine has met a good-looking charmer named Morris Townsend who wishes to marry her, but her father deems him a simple-minded dreamer who's most likely after her money, and Catherine herself as just too much of a blockhead to be able to make a realization like this on her own, which is why he forbids the two to wed for her own good.

The father and daughter then whisk off to Europe for a year, as upper-class Americans so often did at the time; but instead of Morris heroically coming to the rescue and bringing his true love back, it turns out that her father was right all along, with Morris turning out to be a kinda skeevy loser who actually was kinda after her money, and who sorta slinks off in this weasely way once she gets back into the country and declares that her allowance will be cut off if they wed. Instead of this making her grateful to her father for seeing the light, though, Catherine just ends up pissed at both of them, eventually growing into a matronly middle-aged old maid who becomes the buddy of the younger crowd in the neighborhood, but who never experiences love for herself even once.

The argument for it being a classic:
The argument for Washington Square being a classic is not a strong one, truthfully, and seems to most concern what the small novel is not -- it's not one of James' ponderous epics, not one of his later experimental works, but rather a simple and entertaining little story in the spirit of Jane Austen, told in about the most straight-ahead fashion possible. This is why people become fans of James in the first place, after all; he's considered by many to be the godfather of the modern realistic novel, the kinds of no-nonsense, clearly-written stories that comprise most Pulitzer winners and other academically-revered books. Certainly there are a lot of other novels in James' ouevre that are better-written, better-known, more historically important and a much better argument for being a classic, even this book's fans would say; it's just that Washington Square is one of his most accessible novels, a great way to ease yourself into his larger and denser pieces, and thus should be included in "The Canon" as well.

The argument against:
As mentioned, the argument against Washington Square being a classic is clearly the stronger one, and consists mostly of what we've been talking about; that it is simply too slim and obscure to be considered a classic, certainly a good beginning for people new to James' work but definitely not something to be held up against early-career trans-Atlantic sagas as The Portrait of a Lady and The Bostonians, nor the proto-Modernist experimental stylings of such late-career novels as The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl. It may be a good introduction to James, critics argue, but that comes with a price; it is also a frothily light novel, its plot so wispy as to almost not exist, and not something that will give you a good idea of why James fans are so nuts for his work in the first place.

My verdict:
So I have to confess, this was the very first book of James that I've ever tackled, and I picked it deliberately because I was a little intimidated by his larger and more well-known ones; James has a certain reputation, after all, especially among academic intellectuals who enjoy thick and challenging books, and I've also heard that his larger novels can sometimes get extremely bogged down in their middles. Ah, but like everyone else, I've discovered the problem to starting with a classic author's lighter and less-important work, which is the same thing mentioned in the criticisms above; that you just really can't get a sense from work like that about why people love that author so much to begin with, of why their work got so famous and respected in the first place. Washington Square comes and goes with the reader barely noticing; just when you think the story's about to get ratcheted up and interesting, suddenly it's over, and you realize that the entire point was to provide not much more than a trifling and amusing afternoon of diversion*. It was decent enough for what it was, and I'm definitely looking forward to checking out the 1997 movie adaptation with Jennifer Jason Leigh, but I certainly can't say that I "know" James' work in any kind of significant way because of reading it, nor can I in good conscience declare Washington Square a classic.

Is it a classic? No

*And by the way, some final proof of just how lightweight this novel is -- James himself, when doing a retrospective of his ouevre late in life and putting together the revised 24-volume "New York Edition" of his work, actually left Washington Square out on purpose, reportedly because he couldn't even read through it again as an older man, disgusted as he was with the frivolity of the story. When the author himself is disgusted with one of his own books, it's usually not a great sign that it'll be making the canon list anytime soon. ( )

First of all I must confess to being a Jamesaholic. I reread most of the novels every year, and this short one is a favourite. It's not heartbreaking as
poor Catherine isn't an appealing enough character for us to empathise too much as she gets treated very badly by her father and her suitor, so you can just stand back, so to speak, and enjoy The Master at work. No-one shows you the working of the inner wo/man better than James, and he's on top form here. ( )

I used to think I hated Henry James, based on my reading of The Wings of the Dove, in which I found the plot potentially riveting and yet ruined by James' prose style. Kind of like Women in Love, which I read during the same era. Then I picked up Portrait of a Lady while living in Thailand (which led to me being desperate for books in English other than the newest Dan Brown/John Grisham/you get the idea crap "novel") and rather enjoyed it. A recent read of Altar of the Dead convinced me that I ought to give good old James another try, so I picked up Washington Square, a perennial favorite in the world of SAT essay examples here in NYC. Since my students talk about it all the time, I already knew the storyline and figured it would be nice if I could discuss it with them.

The story of Catherine Sloper's ill-fated romance with Morris Townsend is sad, but in that bittersweet, 'it didn't have to be this way' kind of way. There isn't any one person to blame for the sequence of events, but I did find myself wanting to reach into the book to smack some sense into almost all of them at one point or another. I did get the feeling that James was implying that he found the father to be the most to blame, which I can't entirely agree with. The action of the novel takes place almost entirely in the drawing room of Catherine's home on Washington Square, in a corporeal sense, and internally in a more accurate sense. This book is more of a character study than a novel, and looks at the ways in which one person's attitudes and actions can affect the lives of others, a point which is particularly appropriate when discussing a culture not known for its open communication. The writing itself was a lot less rambling than I remember The Wings of the Dove's writing to have been, and not as archaic as some of the other books from this era. However, I don't always notice older language, so I might not be the best judge of that. I did find this to be a very quick and easy read though, and reasonably interesting. ( )

Utterly claustrophobic. In this tiny world every scene relates to the courtship of the heroine (Catherine) by a transparently mercenary suitor, Townsend.
Some things worth noting: 1) nobody at any point beats Townsend like a wild baboon. Such is justice in this world. 2) Henry James apparently found this narrative so compelling that he can speak of nothing else for a few hundred pages. I call that obsession, and more charitable people would call it... focus? 3) Seriously, I'm not asking for a vulgar diversion like a talking parrot sidekick or a sudden alien invasion. But please, two hundred and eighty pages of endless pondering... should she marry the twit? What happens if she doesn't? Maybe she should? Oh no, Muffy, she daren't! ......zzzzzzz please please Henry you don't have to sprawl like Dickens across your imaginary world, but give us just a smidge of variety! ( )

3592. Washington Square, by Henry James (read June 25 2002) It was fun to read this simply crafted story and I (surprise, surprise!) found myself more sympathetic to the position of Catherine Sloper's father than I suppose is politically correct. I am giving this book its own number rather than calling it a re-read, though I read a book entitled Selected Fiction of Henry James, finishing it on April 28, 1963, and it contained this story (it got a good
reaction from me that time, too) as well as others. But since I did not re-read that entire book, I have concluded this book is not a mere re-read (in which case it would not get a number of its own). ( )

What I loved about this book was the completely natural descriptions and dialogue. You grow to know intimately Doctor Sloper, his sister Mrs. Penniman, and his daughter Catherine. You know they are all well-meaning people but you also see all of their deficiencies. Dr. Sloper is cursed with having a daughter neither beautiful nor intelligent and he is all too aware of her faults. Mrs. Penniman, widowed, must live vicariously to feel any sort of romance, and poor Catherine, not too smart but due to inherit a pretty penny, finds herself the object of the attention of young and unscrupulous Mr. Townsend. You can see why she falls in love with him, who is dashing and dapper if completely spendthrift and unreliable. You can feel the discomfort when Dr. Sloper makes a visit to Townsend's abode to find out that he is mooching off his sister. You can feel the shock of Townsend when Mrs. Penniman begins to arrange secret meetings with him, simply to be a part of this dissapproved (and thus oh so much more exciting) relationship. And yet everything is drawn in a very few strokes. James has a talent for writing just enough to allow you to know exactly what is going on.

But beyond the wonderfully succinct and natural descriptions of every scene, the reader gets to enjoy watching Catherine grow a spine. She has been entirely supported by her father her whole life, loves him and worships him. And gradually -- you can proudly watch this change as the pages flow by -- you see her grow strong enough to reject Mr. Townsend's active pursuit, see Mrs. Penniman for all her flaws and understand that her father can be wrong. My words can't properly describe it. These things seem not so strange given the independence people nowadays assume. But imagine, if you will, witnessing the adolescence and maturation of a human mind, all over the course of about two hundred pages. It is remarkable.

It's now been so long since I read the book that I cannot give any further particulars. Suffice it to say that I felt Henry James has a delightfully clear and natural turn of phrase and an exceptional understanding of the human spirit. Each character was worthy of pity and admiration, each had strengths and foibles, and seemed utterly wonderfully human. It is infrequent that I have the pleasure of reading such well-written characters.

This American classic is about a “crime of the heart.” Catherine Sloper is emotionally abused by her father and abandoned by her fiancé, but she triumphs in the end. James also offers a detailed portrait of the lives of New York’s upper-middle class during the Gilded Age and realistic depicts the atmosphere of Greenwich Village’s Washington Square. One of my all-time favorites. ( )

http://www.i-reports.info/b/B199405.h... ( )