Mrs Osmond

If you are a fan of Henry James, you'll recognize the name in the title, and you'd be right to presume that Banville's latest novel is a sequel to Portrait of a Lady focusing on Isabel Archer. Having discovered the truth about her husband's relationship with Serena Merle and the underlying truth that Gilbert married her solely for her money, Isabel disregards his order that she remain in Rome, fleeing instead to rural England and the bedside of her dying cousin, Ralph Touchett. At the end of James's novel, Mrs. Touchett tells Isabel's longtime suitor, Caspar Goodwood, that she has returned to Rome and her husband, apparently to live a life of misery rather than to defy social conventions.

Banville, however, decides otherwise: his novel show more opens with Isabel disembarking from a train in London. Hurt, embarrassed, and confused, she has decided to remain there to sort out her feelings, weigh her options, and determine her next move. While there, she visits her friend Henrietta Stackpole, a journalist who has taken up the cause of women's rights. In her circumstances, Isabel has become more sympathetic to the cause, but putting her own affairs in order and securing her own independence from Gilbert Osmond are her chief concerns. She also hopes to keep her promise to Pansy, Osmond's daughter, to return to Rome, and to help Pansy to find happiness and escape her father's control. After Isabel's interference caused Lord Warburton to break off negotiations to marry Pansy, the girl has been sent back to the convent where she was raised to keep her away from the man she truly loves.

The novel centers around the stealth warfare between Isabel and Gilbert. Will she return to her husband and to Rome? How will she keep her inheritance out of Gilbert's clutches? Will she be able to maintain the independence she appears to have gained, or will she give in to society's expectations? How will she manage to protect Pansy? And what direction will her life take from here on out?

Banville does a fine job of replicating James's signature style--the elegant patterns and distinctive pacing. Here's just one random example:

"All through that long hazed-over afternoon the heat of the shrouded sun beat steadily upon the air, until an entire half of the congested sky had been pounded into a swollen lead-blue cloud in the shape of an anvil, tinged along its lower rim with a delicate, sore-seeming redness, like an incipient rash."

My only real criticism of Mrs. Osmond is the ending, and of course, I don't want to reveal what happens. Suffice it to say that the slow, langorous pacing breaks in the last few chapters as the plot takes a number of quick, unexpected turns--turns that aren't all necessarily pleasing, nor are they consistent with what has come before. Still, this was an enjoyable read, and Banville has put me in a mind to return to the original Master soon. show less

Spoilers here, so be warned.

Good grief.

What a maudlin mess this turned out to be -- so much so, that in my universe of stars I can't pick one rating that would satisfy me, so I give none.

What was this?

Such a ghostly extension (sequel?) to [b:The Portrait of a Lady|264|The Portrait of a Lady|Henry James|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1502148606l/264._SY75_.jpg|1434368] that it positively makes the skin crawl. Here, Isabel Archer becomes a revenant in her own life: she is so ghostly yet so exact; such a phantom, yet such a macabre flesh-and-blood creature that there is more life in the Vampire Lestat -- more life, in fact, and less monstrosity, for at least Rice knew who and what Lestat was.

To be show more terribly, terribly cheeky, this is when fan fiction goes "terribly" wrong.

Isabel Archer, lately sprung from Henry James's carriage, meanders through this novel in an aimless helter-skelter pursuit of her own version of revenge -- though of course, it can never be described as such, for Isabel is a Lady and revenge, as a form, lacks delicacy and charm, which a lady must-ever display. (At one point, I had an image of Isabel as a tiny silver ball in a pinball machine, bouncing about hither and yon with no purpose or control over her own actions.)

In much the same way that Isabel's invertebrate spirit led her into a disastrous marriage to Osmond in the first place, her subsequent lack of perspicacity only ensures reward where avengement was intended.

How can one possibly hope to revenge oneself against a sociopath? A pair of sociopaths? By their very nature(s) both Osmond and Merle are incapable of sustaining an injury -- they both lack conscience; neither is capable of empathy or remorse; they are both cold and calculating, having their own interests solely in mind; they each have a sense of immense superiority over their fellow beings; neither has learned anything from past mistakes; they've both taken huge risks -- at the expense of others; neither is capable of loving anyone, including themselves or each other. Oh my. The list is long. In fact, as the old joke goes, if I looked up "sociopathy" in the [b:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR|164723|Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR|American Psychiatric Association|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389919214l/164723._SX50_.jpg|159038], there would be portraits of Osmond and Merle.

How can one suppose that Isabel's actions toward her husband and his erstwhile mistress would serve as any sort of redress? Such a false and weak premise overturns the novel completely for me. The bonus becomes that, not only have they lived their respective lives on their own terms, but they each end up with a castle in Italy as a reward for their sins. Are two sociopaths likely to mourn such bounty? Just desserts indeed!

Even the Christian ethos recognizes sociopathy, at some level, so it cannot be said that Banville argues from that vantage point either.

What kept me reading, then? Well, on an ironic note, for the simple pleasure of knowing I'd be able to toss the book across the room and scream garbage at it. On a truer note ... I admire Banville's writing and am seduced, much like Isabel by Osmond by his agility with words. I know at some point, it's going to end rather badly, for me, but still ...

I do admire Banville's style, but I continue to pursue him in a (perhaps-illusive?) attempt to find better substance. show less

Giving it 5 starts even though it is less than perfect. A necessary book for anyone who has read and either loved The Portrait of a Lady, or like me, was forced to read it for an English class, took the long hard journey and just could not "deal with" either Isabel or that ending. I was actually looking forward to reading about the aftermath of "Portrait" in a modern, straightforward, non-Jamesian style. That's not what we get from Banville. From sentence two: "Even yet she felt, did Mrs Osmond, the awful surge and rhythm of the train's wheels". Because it's a self-aware adoption of the James voice it doesn't always work or serve the interests of what I think Banville is trying to do. And that is to tell us that Isabel did not simply show more square her shoulders, return to Italy and re-enter the marriage -- the most horrible, granted, but nevertheless one of the imaginable possibilities James leaves us with at the end of his story. Banville has Isabel choose Team Freedom over Team Duty (thank God) and it's gratifying to read about how she regains her own agency. Did the author go over the top in characterizing Osmond as an evil villain, as some of the reviewers are suggesting? I don't think so. I found it utterly believable that he would drop all of his exquisite manners and perfect behavior and show his true colors after the discovery of his deceit. I thought Banville mirrored exactly the Madame Merle described in "Portrait". Never a ruffled feather, the picture of elegance and control - and every inch the liar completely fused to her lies. Banville's own ending sounds several wrong notes: the way he deals with Pansy - really? The hints of what Isabel will do next - women's suffrage? Well, maybe, but I don't think he had to do any of that. This book took as its charter the end of the Osmond marriage, and did it well. show less

I’m going to bail on this after only seven chapters. I don’t know if the book is good or bad, I simply don’t think it’s going to do it for me. My “finish your plate” superego is fighting my decision, as is the knowledge that the New York Times named is a notable book at the end of the year it appeared.
Going into it, I wondered what would bother me more if Banville successfully imitates Henry James, or if he fails to continue her story in a way that fits the personality James created for Isabel Osmond, née Archer.
As for the first worry: the book abounds in Jamesian sentences, such as this: “She received Isabel with a show of muted welcome, managing the trick of coming forward while at the same time seeming to draw back, show more with a twist to her lips that was nearly but not quite a smile . . . .” The sentence continues on in this vein for the rest of the paragraph.
Yet some of the sentences come off as a parody of James’ style, not homage: “… not to put too fine a point on it — not to put a point on it of any fineness at all. . . .”
So my verdict on my first worry: mixed.
More serious is how Banville continues the story. One aspect is literally “how.” Based on the first seven chapters, it seems as if Banville will rely more on plot turns than on situation and character than does James. But on a deeper level: Banville seems to reduce Isabel’s character to a curious mix of pig-headedness and passivity, mixed with behavior that goes beyond naive to plain stupid. Something is missing of the regard James conveys for Isabel. Like Isabel’s cousin Ralph, Henry James seems to have placed Isabel in a situation for the pleasure of watching her in it. In short, he is fascinated by Isabel in a way that Banville does not make me feel.
More seriously, in Portrait of a Lady, James slowly unveils the false nature of Madame Merle and the odiousness of Gilbert Osmond. We know these things going in this time around, whereas many of the attractive characters in Portrait, such as Ralph, are gone from the scene. With Isabel now infuriating instead of fascinating, I dread the prospect of being trapped in this story with the three of them for another 300 pages. show less

He had paused on a pathway, under a trellis of vines, and was patting his pockets and frowning—he must have forgotten something at his neighbour's apartment, his cigar case, most probably, since it was a thing he frequently mislaid and left behind. He wore a pale loose linen suit and a cambric shirt with a soft collar; his waistcoat was unbuttoned and his straw hat was pushed far back at an uncharacteristically casual and what for anyone else would have been a comical angle, although it nevertheless gave to him, with his narrow face and tapering beard, the look of one of El Greco's haloed, white-clad saints. Although they were separated only by some yards, he would not yet have seen her, so bright was the sunlight surrounding him and show more so dimly shadowed the doorway within which she stood. She made no sound or movement, only stayed still and watched him. He was usually so sharply self-aware a man that, caught there in the glare of noonday and not knowing he was observed, he appeared to Isabel unwontedly a figure of the ordinary sort, distracted, agitated, vexed both at his own forgetfulness and the stubborn way that supposedly inanimate, taken-for-granted things have of making themselves furiously elusive. (p.275)
Ah... Henry James. You either love the style of this great American novelist—designed to catch, with immense, with fiendish, subtlety, and in sentences of labyrinthine intricacy, the very texture of conscious life—or you hate it. There are 208 words in that excerpt, and we agree, I am sure, that nothing has happened, and this paragraph goes on for a page and half, and still nothing happens. What is truly remarkable about John Banville's 'sequel' to James' The Portrait of a Lady (1881) is that his style in Mrs Osmond so faithfully replicates James's style and yet remains so readable.
It's playful too. Isabel Archer is one of the great disappointments in 19th century fiction: her assertive independence fizzles out in Europe when she learns of her husband Gilbert Osmond's perfidy and it's not clear whether she goes back to him or not. Oh please! we thought, when we read Portrait of a Lady in our younger years, bring on the feminist literature project and let us have female protagonists with some intelligence and gumption. Banville plays with us all through Mrs Osmond... what is this rich (enormously rich) young woman going to do to salvage her life?

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/06/15/mrs-osmond-by-john-banville/ show less

What happens to Isabel Archer (originally of Albany, New York) after she flouts the wishes of her controlling husband Gilbert Osmond to leave Rome to be at the bedside of her dying cousin Ralph Touchett in England? Novelist John Banville channels his inner Henry James to provide us with this sequel to that master's 'Portrait of a Lady.' -- Banville achieves a remarkable similarity in tone and story to the original, which serves to yield a mostly satisfying continuation of the story. I found the Isabel of these pages, in fact, a more appealing character than the one seen in 'Portrait,' perhaps because of the suffering she has undergone in, and because of, her marriage, as well as the shock of the final revelations in James's novel. show more Still, if I could, I would deduct ½ star from my rating for the last two chapters, set, once again, in England: they felt truncated, rushed, jarring, even a trifle absurd and unrealistic, but perhaps setting up yet another sequel? Sad to have a slightly bitter aftertaste to such an enjoyable brew... show less

I loved it. Marvelous pastiche of Henry James’ style. For anyone who has read Portrait of a Lady, and wanted to throttle the odious Gilbert Osmond, this is the book for you. Although Banville does provide some much needed and deserved endings to matters left unresolved by James in the original, I noted that he created a couple of new strands, just in case he is moved to bring our Isabel back again. She has become wiser and quite intrepid!