THE DEEP ONES: "The Jolly Corner" by Henry James

"The Jolly Corner" by Henry James

Discussion begins April 11

First published in The English Review (1908)



ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1190
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Jolly_Corner

PRINT VERSIONS

American Fantastic Tales
The Dark Descent
The New York Stories of Henry James
Ghost Stories of Henry James
The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction

MISCELLANY

http://relicradio.com/otr/2009/04/th169-the-jolly-corner-by-the-black-mass/
http://www.connotations.de/pdf/articles/brumm00702.pdf
http://www.loa.org/images/pdf/LOA_Straub_Interview_AFT.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jolly_Corner

I'm reading this one out of The American Fantasy Tradition.

First, let me start off by stating that I enjoyed the story. The idea of a man being haunted by his might-have-been self is great, some incredibly strange spectral scenes are vividly invoked , and the narrator is wonderfully out of whack. However, I don't see how any critic can complain about the density of Lovecraft's prose, when I find that Henry James takes the literary cake as far as that goes. :P

I gotta say ... meh.

The convoluted sentence structure was rarely worth the payoff at that level. As far as the larger story goes, the central conceit was clever, and "wonderfully out of whack" is an apt description of the narrator. But the sentimentalized ending was not the sort of thing I enjoy.

#3 Yes, when I read HJ I often feel like grabbing him by the lapels and shouting "Get on with it, man! Just say what happened!". I think the remedy is to take a dose of Jack London or Joseph Conrad.

Other than the fine atmospherics, the interest of the story for me is that the narrator is presented as the authentic self. From a 21st century perspective, the narrator is a loser who withdrew from life instead of seizing the day, making a success of life, but getting injured in the process. The conclusion seems like sour grapes: the narrator decides that 'success' was not what he wanted after all. I suppose this marks Henry James as the anti-Nietzsche.

I think this story could have benefited from an intervention by Thursday Next, as she improved the ending of Jane Eyre.

>4 paradoxosalpha:, 5

Good to know that I'm not alone in dissing a literary lion like James! Maybe it's just my late 20th/early 21st reading sensibility in action, but I feel like James is maliciously playing follow-the-leader with his convoluted sentence structure. It takes me out of the story and any interpretation of the story I may be coming up with. It's quite annoying, except for those revelatory "aha!" moments that pop up now and then. I do enjoy those. H. James frustrates me, but makes for a good mental workout, I suppose. I guess that's what makes him great! For others, anyway. :)

Henry James has been a huge influence on the writing of Peter Straub. As far as a Ghost Story goes, however, I'll take Straub.

One aspect I quite enjoyed about "The Jolly Corner" is the idea of wandering about a great, empty house in the wee hours, sensing the ghosts, or at least the once-presences of previous inhabitants. Quite eerie. I could do that myself, given the chance.

Brydon states" I’ve not been edifying—I believe I’m thought in a hundred quarters to have been barely decent. I’ve followed strange paths and worshipped strange gods."

Maybe he brought on this self-haunting himself? Is he feeling guilty about something he did during his time abroad? Maybe he developed a taste for something that would at best be considered outre in the New York he returns to? Or at least in the socially conservative society he returns to?

Regarding the complaints about James' Byzantine prose style: since I have complained about this at length myself elsewhere, I will simply borrow a phrase from the contemporary lexicon and say, "I feel you". A fellow LTer put it best in another group where we discussing James; she said something to the effect of, "James' sentences are so long that, by the time you get to the end of one of them, you forget what he was talking about at the beginning of it." :D

Also, like PA in #4, I thought the ending was pretty corny.

Having said all that, James is is king of the minutely observed (and delineated!) detail, and he actually uses that skill to great effect here, as he does in The Turn of the Screw.

Anyone else suspect (as I did) that the whole bit after Brydon discovers the closed door & he's all like, "If you won't then - good: I spare you and I give up. You affect me as by the appeal blahblahblahblahblah..." is merely an elaborate rationalization and he's actually scared shitless? :D

> 7

I enjoy a certain level of indeterminacy (cf. our discussion on Price recently), but some concrete details addressing the sort of questions you ask would have made this a better read for me. Vague intimations of indecency don't get me very far.

#7, 9

Yes, vague statements hinting at having been a naughty lad overseas don't really cut it. I didn't see any trace of such adventures in Brydon's behavior after his return to NYC. That is why I see these boasts and his vague envy/fear of his active, engaged alter ego as dark-toned Walter Mitty fantasies of someone becoming conscious of having frittered his life away. Regrets, not guilt.

>8 artturnerjr:

I thought that besides Brydon basically haunting the house himself late at night, the point from where he sees the upstairs door closed to where he sees the downstairs door is now open to be quite a fine weird moment. If you take the doppelganger aspect literally this is where Brydon faces the abyss. He tries to back down, but he is past the point of no return. "Scared shitless" is apt terminology, to be sure.

>9 paradoxosalpha:, 10

If you don't take the doppelganger aspect literally, then the story seems to metaphorically hint that Brydon is basically trolling late a night for {enter sexual perversion of your choice here}. I don't know that James could have been specific about such details, even if he wanted to, although someone like the disreputable Thomas de Quincey (I'm currently reading Confessions of an English Opium Eater) or the unique Lautreamont clearly had no qualms about prostitutes and more much earlier on.

>11 gwendetenebre:

If you don't take the doppelganger aspect literally, then the story seems to metaphorically hint that Brydon is basically trolling late a night for {enter sexual perversion of your choice here}. I don't know that James could have been specific about such details, even if he wanted to

Yeah, there's been a great deal of speculation over the years about James' sexual orientation (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James#James.27s_biographers , for starters) so I'm sure it would be fairly easy to find any number of works to back up that interpretation. I've even heard it said that his evasive prose style (which does indeed, as bertilak indicated in #5, make you wanna scream "Get on with it!") was in some degree a response to living in a time which was not as enlightened about homosexuality as we (generally) are today.

(You see similar, albeit less thinly-veiled, hints of what would then be termed perverse sexual liasons in The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well.)

I agree with Bertilak in regards to James being the 'anti-Nietzsche'.

I can't help but wonder, what was the point to this story? I understand that Brydon is 'hunting' for his 'what-if' doppelganger, had he stayed in New York instead of travelling through Europe, but we know nothing about his 'could have been'. His friend/love interest claims to have encountered his "other self", but doesn't expound on their differences or similarites. All we get is that he's missing two fingers and good news, he's not him afterall. (???????) If Brydon were merely ghost hunting that's one thing, but this whole "by running away from the very thing I'm hunting, I got the answers I was looking for", just doesn't make any sense, and to wade through such thick and sluggish prose to get to a "eh, fuck it" conclusion was very disappointing.

>12 artturnerjr:

Or maybe he's a junkie.

>13 lammassu:

I think you really have to take the story as metaphor for it to work, despite a couple of nicely invoked, weird-themed passages. At the end, Brydon and Miss Staverson (who's up for some kink herself, if you ask me) have come to terms with and accepted that he's into whatever.

Does the story work as a weird tale? Not really. As a metaphor? I say yes - but you'll pay dearly for it with those Jamesian sentences!

>14 gwendetenebre:

Or maybe he's a junkie.

Brydon's really "waiting for the man", eh? I love it!

>15 artturnerjr:

I'm waiting for my man
Missing fingers on my hand
Up to Jolly Corner, 125
Feel sick and pervy, more dead than alive
I'm waiting for my man
Hey, white gentleman, what you doin' uptown?
Hey, white gentleman, you late-night prowlin' around?
Oh pardon me sir, it's the furthest from my mind
I'm just lookin' for an unseen doppleganger friend of mine
I'm waiting for my man
Here he comes, he's all dressed in white linen
He's quite well dressed with dangling double eye-glasses
He's never early, he's comes around late
First thing you learn is you always gotta wait I'm waiting for my man
Up to a Brownstone, up three flights of stairs
Stare at the closed door for a long time, but nobody cares
He's got the edge, scares you shitless
Ah then you gotta split because you got no time to waste
I'm waiting for my man
Miss Staverton don't you holler, darlin' don't you bawl and shout
I'm comin' to terms, you know I'm gonna work it on out
I'm feeling good, my charming monocle's mine
Until tomorrow, but that's just some other time
I'm waiting for my man

(With sincerest apologies to the Velvets)

>16 gwendetenebre:

:D

I think that Lovecraft might have especially appreciated this sentiment:

It was a few days after this that, during an hour passed with her again, he had expressed his impatience of the too flattering curiosity—among the people he met—about his appreciation of New York. He had arrived at none at all that was socially producible...

The discussion here prompted me to read the story online.

My first impression is that the pace amplifies the tension, though I won't claim that was James's deliberate effect. Akin to watching the teenager open the basement door and slowly walk downstairs: "What are you doing?! Why are you walking IN?" etc etc

The second impression, more further in, is that it's reminiscent of Sixth Sense. It doesn't quite hold up, of course: Brydon apparently talks to a builder in Chapter I, and of course also Mrs Muldoon, who presumably are alive. But there's a lot that works when thinking both Brydon and Alice are each themselves dead, and haunting living people whom we don't know directly.

Finally, I very much liked the "double consciousness" in Chapter II: Brydon goes into the house and peers up the staircase; swoons; and comes to, peering down the staircase. Seemingly he's switched places, or his consciousness has switched. This works even more subtly than Shamayalan's conceit of the dead walking amongst the living and not knowing themselves as dead.

I actually liked this story quite a bit.

But I should add, I agree with >14 gwendetenebre:: it works primarily as metaphor, or perhaps as psychological allegory. Still, I'm glad I read it, Jamesian locution and all.

>19 elenchus:

Good note on "double consciousness", elenchus. I actually missed that subtle location switch!

I like the story, too, for the most part, but strictly as psychological horror. I don't think I can really squeeze it into the category of "weird", or even truly as an influence on what would become weird fiction.

This group is great. That story will never be one of my favorites, but I like it a lot more after hearing everyone's ideas about it.

#19, 21:

Yes, bravo on spotting the double consciousness.

I would agree that this story was psychological allegory if I thought that HJ was fully aware of what he was writing. But if he was, I would have expected a less lame and pusillanimous ending. But he could have been writing an allegory of a lame, pusillanimous character ... (I decline to proceed further into this infinite regress).

I am tempted to offer a Jungian reading (encounter with the Shadow, fear of ego dissolution, fleeing the encounter, failed attempt at individuation) but I doubt very much that HJ knew of Carl Jung in 1908. Jung didn't even know Jung in 1908.

BTW, does anybody else see Alice Staverton as Edith Wharton? Yes, I do read this story as psychological autobiography.

>23 bertilak:

I would agree that this story was psychological allegory if I thought that HJ was fully aware of what he was writing. But if he was, I would have expected a less lame and pusillanimous ending. But he could have been writing an allegory of a lame, pusillanimous character ... (I decline to proceed further into this infinite regress).

:-)

All good points, bertilak! A Jungian approach is especially valid here. KJ just interpreted and documented the archetypes, symbols, etc. that existed for humankind all along. James could easily have been plugged into that stream without consciously realizing it.

I agree that my appreciation of the story is probably not what HJ consciously put into it. But hey, appreciation nonetheless.

Here is an announcement for my guest spot on "The Hermetic Hour," Poke Runyon's radio program. The link to the program is at the bottom. It is archived and can be accessed at any time. Much discussion was devoted to Leiber and Lovecraft, and related topics and authors.

On the Hermetic Hour Thursday, April 12, 2012, host Poke Runyon will introduce Professor Curtis Shumaker who teaches English literature at CalPoly Pomona and specializes in the study of science fiction. Curtis is also an esoteric and a Masonic scholar. He will discuss the recent book on esoteric/occult writers in literature "The Dark Muse" (recently reviewed in The Seventh Ray)
and the concept of the "Weird" as a manifestation of an incomprehensible, irrational universe, as opposed to a "supernatural" universe where everything follows the rules of magick -- which seem reasonable in their own context. We will touch on Lovecraft's scientific/magical mythology, moving on to the later writers in the Lovecraft cycle: Fritz Leiber ("Our Lady of Darkness"), Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Jack Williamson ("Darker Than You Think") and even a Jungian perspective on GD/Crowley type magick. -- So, get your note books ready to write down some books you'll want to read.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-hermetic-hour

> 26

Sounds interesting, Curtis-hasn't-cataloged-any-books. But offering it on this thread is mighty spammy. What's it got to do with "The Jolly Corner," exactly?

> 26

Is this a reference to A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult by Gary Lachman?

I agree that there were other threads wherein this would have been more relevant.

Also, I'd like to poke fun at the idea of "writers in the Lovecraft cycle," which should (strictly speaking) denote Robert Blake and perhaps Karkash-ton, but not the listed writers who weren't even members of the Lovecraft circle, let alone characters in his fiction.

>26 CurtisShumaker:, 29

Technically, Leiber was a very late member of the "circle", such as it was, if you allow for his brief-yet-interesting correspondence (HPL also liked the original Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story), but otherwise.... true!

The only "Lovecraft cycle" I can think of was his bike, and he rarely even took it out of the garage.

Mr. Shumaker did join the WT at least, and I'd be pleased if he were to engage in conversation here, but I agree that posting a promo in the middle of a discussion on Henry James was a bit rude and "spammish".

I haven't finished my first cup of coffee today yet, and I can only say I'm relieved that Professor Shumaker didn't post his announcement to multiple threads in this group and Weird Fiction. Why he chose this thread remains a mystery. Kenton's generosity facilitates my curmudgeon-spirit.

Sure, bring on that erudition, Professor!

>30 gwendetenebre:

Leiber and others were not in the Lovecraft cycle, but I would certainly grant them epicycle status.

>31 paradoxosalpha:

Hey! I wanna be the curmudgeon! I blew it!

>32 bertilak:

Ah! Yes! Immanentize the epicycle!

> 33

Robert Anton Wilson lifted "immanentize the eschaton" from The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin, who was characterizing the prophecy of Joachim of Fiore. (I learned that from reading Glenn Magee.)

Wow, this thread's really gone off the rails, eh?

>34 paradoxosalpha:

That's The Weird Tradition - from Henry James to The New Science of Politics in one glorious mutation!

>31 paradoxosalpha: & 33

What? There's curmudgeonly activity going on and I wasn't informed? >:(

Late to the discussion here having just read the story.

I admit I was, after reading a bit of the H. G. Wells -- Henry James correspondence a few years ago -- prepared to dislike this story. Without ever having read him, I tagged James as a tedious writer of minutely observed social situations.

And maybe he is in other places, but I liked this story. Yes, he piles on subordinate clause after subordinate clause with almost every sentence hanging on the "suspense" of having James' actual thought revealed. This isn't a story for reading while nodding off. Still, I thought some of the language was unusual and interesting. I particularly liked the phrase "confronting presence".

I liked the plot which wasn't quite a doppelganger plot or a traditional ghost story. And, yes, I also thought maybe James was going to have Alice and the Brydon revealed as dead.

I thought the weakest point of the story was the ending. To my mind, there was some ambiguity as to which version of Brydon she preferred. However, I'm going to presume James intended the traditional possibility of a romance blooming after the story ended.

>19 elenchus:
Nice observation on the significance of the switched location.

>7 gwendetenebre:
I caught that line but thought "strange gods" was meant in the metaphorical sense of strange ambitions and obsessions -- strange but not decadent, evil, or even particularly outre but just not middle-class and income producing. But, you're right. You could play around with that to add another weird element.

>37 RandyStafford:

the H. G. Wells -- Henry James correspondence

I'll bet that's fascinating reading; Wells and James had an infamously contentious relationship.

>37 RandyStafford:

Good observations, Randy. I think we're all agreed on the ending, but you're right - maybe the more traditionally-accepted upbeat note simply held sway in this case.

I wasn't saying in >7 gwendetenebre: that anything of the weird was involved in the "strange gods" description, but I do think that James is strongly hinting that Brydon was into some behavior - I'd guess sexual or pharmaceutical - that would considered quite decadent for the time period. This something would no doubt be like like the boy scouts compared to what our civilization has lowered itself to over the past century, but I could see prostitution or an addiction to laudanum, perhaps. Hmmm... opium might explain a lot here. The story taken as a whole, though, begs for metaphorical interpretation.

I'll have to look into Wells v. James....

The Wells v. James exchange sounds quite interesting!

In the January 2014 issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction (#305), there's an interesting article on the probable inspiration for James' story: Poe's "William Wilson".

Terry Thompson notes the similarities. The article is "'With a Drawn Sword': Evoking Poe's 'William Wilson' in Henry James's 'The Jolly Corner'".

It's free of litcrit jargon.

>41 RandyStafford:

I've been thinking about this story recently, so this is a perfectly-timed heads up. Thanks, Randy. I've never seen an issue of the NYRSF, but thanks to this article and a couple of other items of interest in the table of contents, I ordered a copy in .pdf format. Can't go wrong for three bucks, right?

>42 gwendetenebre: Like you said, three bucks and I got stuff on some of my favorites: Stableford, Gunn, Poe, and Joshi.

The prose style is perfection, beautiful, poetic and effective. It is especially wonderful when read aloud, and that makes me wonder if this is a story that James dictated after painful arthritis made writing with pen so difficult. I've read the tale many times, but reading it anew to-night made me realise how James, like Lovecraft, contains depths of wonder and brilliance in his short stories that one rarely finds in other writers. I read this in the Penguin Classics edition THE JOLLY CORNER AND OTHER TALES, whut has a fine Introduction by Roger Gard, in which he discusses James's exquisite late style and its perfection. James's dialogue is especially fine, full of wit and perception, always relevant to story motif and movement. Like Lovecraft, James had, in his spectral fiction, a stunning brilliance and novelty that is so delicious that I return to his short stories again and again. I used to regularly check out the volumes of his tales editing by Edel from library, and thus was overjoy'd when The Library of America finally published all of James's short fiction in five handsome volumes. James has keenly influenced my own work, for which I am moft grateful.

Wilum, would you recommend another of James's short stories, with similar reverberations as this one? He's written so much, I'd be grateful for a pointer.

I love James's really powerful and utterly weird stories such as "The Beast in the Jungle," "The Figure in the Carpet" and "The Altar of the Dead." Much of my obsession with James's short stories is that he deals intimately yet strangely with the lives (and deaths) of writers, with the entire state of being a writer of public persona. These tales appeal to me keenly because they reflect my own existence as a literary artist, I suppose. All of James's ghost stories have been collected in a single volume, GHOST STORIES OF HENRY JAMES, whut may be purchased from anywhere from one penny (!~) to up to six bucks on Amazon.

Thanks much for that, I may have to scrimp a penny and shell out for that volume. Regardless, though, "The Beast in the Jungle" has been nominated for the Spring 2014 DEEP ONES read, and I hope to read it for that!