Henry James Jr (1843–1916)

Washington Square is famously the novel beloved of those who don’t like Henry James. The author, in turn, thought so little of it that he omitted it from the New York edition that canonized his works for posterity. So there is a certain correspondence between the author’s relation to this text and the feelings of Dr. Sloper toward his daughter Catherine. It is a charming tale, well-worth a read.
Portrait of a Lady is considered the masterpiece of James’s middle period, and I would not show more dispute that. The lady whose portrait is here presented is one of the most fully realized characters I’ve run across in fiction, ranking with those in War and Peace and Crime and Punishment. This is a particular achievement since James depicts Isabel Archer as a young woman highly eligible men fall in love with at first sight. Yet the portrait is so rounded that the reader is inclined to find her as irresistibly charming, faults and all, as the author intended. At any rate, I feel as if I’ve known at least one young lady a lot like her.
The inciting incident in the plot is that she has the misfortune to be made an heiress and to be thrust into the stratum of society whose members run into each other unexpectedly in Rome simply because May is the best month to be there.
Yet Portrait is peopled with a host of other characters, such as Madame Merle. One of the most enjoyable chapters to me was 19, when Isabel and Madame Merle have their first in-depth conversation. The opening of another chapter, 22, a depiction of the Florentine villa in which Gilbert Osmond has his apartment, is a masterly example of James’s virtuosity.
Masterly as well is the comic intrigue in Chapter 26. James is often witty, but in this set piece of exchanges between and about the various characters, the effect is hilarious, albeit in his ornate, latinate way. I laughed even louder over the opening of Chapter 44, his portrait of Isabel’s sister-in-law, Countess Gemini.
Like the other two novels, The Bostonians has a female protagonist at the center, Verena Tarrant, said to be so vivaciously beautiful that at least two characters, one male and one female, fall in love with her at first sight. Unlike Catherine Sloper and Isabel Archer, however, there is less of a center in her character. The daughter of a mesmerist, her appeal hovers on hypnosis as well, while she seems to exist as a surface for the projections of others. Coupled with her seemingly passive malleability whenever exposed to the conflicting ideals of Olive Chancellor and Basil Ransom, she never comes alive for this reader in the way the others did. This book contains fine Jamesian writing, with a plot that unfolds slowly and dialectically. I particularly enjoyed the way that the attempts of Olive and Basil to sway Verena often had an effect opposite from that intended. Still, if I were to rate each of these novels individually, I would give the first two five stars, and the final novel four.
One limitation of this Library of America edition is that it settles on one text, which in its opinion is authoritative. In the case of Portrait, this is very close to that published in the first edition, 1881. James, however, revised many of his books for the New York edition, not always improving them, but in the case of this book for the better. Readers wanting to compare for themselves can find the text of the NY edition online. show less

Dr. Sloper, a kitten drowner at heart, knows what his daughter should do and indeed, were she a kitten drowner too, it would have all worked out for the best. But instead, she is too sensitive and is hurt by everyone. Her sensitivity is all she had going for her and when she learned not to trust it, she has nothing going for her. In a tragedy, the protagonist's flaw leads them to disaster but the reader gets something out of it. Here, the father prevents that from happening and no one gets show more anything out of it. show less

A volume of James short stories is always a good idea, but this is a particularly good idea: Kermode selects stories that focus on the writing, and writers, of fiction, from the early "Author of Beltraffio" to the late-ish "John Delavoy." The stories are uneven, but that's not surprising; the title piece, "The Middle Years," and "Lesson of the Master" are works of such brilliance that it would be absurd to expect a bunch of them. "Beltraffio" suffers by comparison with "Lesson of the show more Master," which is far more intelligent and enjoyable; similarly, "The Next Time" comes right before "Figure," and can't come close to matching up. The only real dud is "Death of the Lion," which probably could have been as short as the title (no plot spoilers needed, then) and still worked as well as it does.

As much fun as the stories are to read, though, this volume works best on the intellectual level. They form almost as clear an aesthetics as the prefaces or the essays; each one tries to think through what it means to be a writer of serious fiction. What about a young writer of it? An old one? A successful one? An ignored one? A writer oppressed by social success? Or by its lack? A writer who wants to be serious, but can't help turning out popular books? Or vice versa? What should the family of serious writer expect, and how much suffering can they be expected to put up with?

As we go on, the view becomes increasingly bleak (if you think the serious author should also be commercially successful), or hopeful (if you think she should ignore the public and just try to write something beautiful).

There's also a very tempting biographical reading here: each story demands that the serious writer give up more than the previous story demanded. As James got older, did he feel himself sacrificing more and more to his work? Insert stuff about James and homosexuality here. show less

American Henry James thought long and hard before putting pen to paper to write The Portrait of a Lady. He was determined to answer his critics by producing a literary masterpiece. He likened his process of writing this novel to the erection of a particularly fine building: a classical building of course. In his preface to the novel James was at pains to point out this process:

“So far I reasoned, and it took nothing less than that technical rigour. I now easily see, to inspire me with the show more right confidence for erecting on a plot of ground the neat and careful and proportioned pile of bricks that arches over it and that was thus to form, constructionally speaking a literary monument…………That solicitude was to be accordingly expressed in the artful patience with which as I have said I piled brick upon brick. The bricks for the whole counting over - putting for bricks little touches and inventions and enhancements by the way - affect me in truths well nigh innumerable and as ever so scrupulously fitted together and packed in.”

This extraordinary preface prepares the reader for the long haul, but it also confidently claims that the reader will be in the safe hands of a master craftsman and storyteller, one who is blessed with a gift that can reveal aspects of the human condition to the patient reader. Patience is perhaps the supreme virtue for Henry James as the last sentence of this monument of a novel is:

“She walked him away with her, however, as if she had given him now the key to patience.”

Patience is what a modern reader will need for the first three quarters of this novel, but as Henry James says it will have it’s rewards. He moves his readers crablike through the first chapters where he introduces some of the main characters and sets them in a beautiful old Country House in England. His writing is delicate and fine and when we meet his central character: Miss Isabel Archer we are soon lost in admiration for her independence and wit, expressed in some splendid conversation exchanges with her hosts at Gardencourt. Miss Archer is a young American lady of exceptional talent who values her independence above all things and one can’t help feeling that Henry James imbued much of his own character in the portrait of this lady. Fine, splendid, delicate are words that we could use to describe the society that James is portraying here. These are people with independent incomes living in mid nineteenth century England, who have impeccable manners and who can call on titled individuals as their friends. Miss Archer from America can fit into this society through her intelligence and wit and because of her good American breeding. This book is about upstairs people, nobody from downstairs gets a look in.

The story line of the novel follows the career of Miss Archer. She dazzles almost everybody she meets. She has offers of marriage from Lord Warburton a fine Englishman with radical ideas who is forging a career as a diplomat and also from Casper Goodwood a leading American industrialist. She rejects them both in pursuit of something finer for herself. When her protector old Mr Touchett dies, on the advice of his invalid son Ralph he leaves Miss Archer a fortune and so suddenly she is even more attractive on the marriage market. She travels to the Italian home of Mrs Touchett, where under guidance from Madame Merle she meets Gilbert Osmond, the embodiment of fine taste and culture. After a courtship she decides to accept Gilbert Osmond waiving away Lord Warburton and Casper Goodwood who have followed her to Italy. Osmond has been married before and has a young daughter Pansy who has just left the convent to live with him and his new wife. It doesn't work well for Isabel Archer, who after the first year of marriage becomes estranged from her traditionalist husband, but she soon grows to love his young daughter. It is Pansy’s prospects on the marriage market that bring Isabel Archer’s big mistake to a head and the novel’s main theme then becomes how Isabel can come to terms with her future.

The novel was originally serialised in Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan’s magazine before being released as a novel a year later in 1881. The novel gains both power and depth as you read through; the almost painstaking preparatory work in the first sections of the novel reap rewards once the story starts to unfold. It is the quality of James’s writing that kept me reading; his descriptions, conversations and character building are first class and once the story gets rolling the groundwork provides an excellent reference for the characters and their actions. Henry James valued his own independence and so one feels he is speaking from the heart when he is describing Isabel Archers point of view. He never married himself and it is therefore no surprise to learn of Isabel Archer’s mistake once she falls into that trap. There may be some evidence for thinking that the author of The portrait of a lady was a misogynist. For example his heroine for all her intelligence, manners and charm has an inherent character fault: it is her pride that in the end leads her into a miserable existence. Most of the other female characters are shown as manipulative and uncaring or dull and it is only the young virginal Pansy that can claim to be good. By contrast there are plenty of good and upstanding male characters; Lord Warburton, Casper Goodwood, Ralph and old Mr Touchett, although the most evil characterisation is reserved for Gilbert Osmond.

This is a slow moving novel whose storyline can be pretty well predicted, but this is not why we read Henry James. We read him for his characterisation, his brilliant descriptions and his observations on the human condition as well as his skill as a novel writer. There is no evidence of his rather mannered and tortured sentence structures that he favoured in his later novels. An added bonus for readers today is the depiction of life in mid nineteenth century England, even if it is reserved for the top tier of society. Yes James can sound snobbish and a little prissy at times and this in the end makes me think that his excellent novel is not a great novel. 4.5 stars show less