Henry James : Novels 1881-1886: Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians (Library of America)

Bought new, received new. All in good order.DGB

I thoroughly enjoy reading. And I truly admire words. And so, apparently, does Henry James. He is orotund, the kind of word he uses an extreme number of. To the high-minded literati, a term I use with no disrespect at all, his writing surely sets the standard for literary elegance. For many readers, however, it will be a lot of words for very little plot.That, however, is the essence of the writer James chose to be. “I was myself so much more antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting—a too preliminary, a preferential interest in which struck me as in general such a putting of the cart before the horse…I couldn’t emulate, the imaginative writer so constituted as to see his fable first and to make out its agents afterwards. I could think so little of any fable that didn’t need its agents positively to launch it;…”In this volume I read “Portrait of a Lady” and “The Bostonians.” And in both he executes his character-centric literary style quite consistently. While he very successfully brings his characters to life, however, they are not “life-like.” They are developed in such depth and in such detail that they lose the variety that comes with the superficiality of the characters in an engaging thriller or mystery. The figures, as he calls them, an apt word for the characters he describes, become very intensely one-dimensional.As a result the plot, such as there is one, takes on the same one-dimensional perspective. Particularly in the case of “The Bostonians” such sterile focus impedes the reader’s ability to suspend disbelief. The story becomes not only fictional, but wholly unrealistic in its consistency and lack of context.The characters themselves, as a result, become caricatures more than agents or figures. And few of them, as a result, are truly endearing. They may not generate hostility, although some fly close to that fire, but they ultimately fail to draw the reader in. (The fact that they are all rich and almost nobody has an actual job, while perhaps indicative of that era in literature, shrinks the canvas on which their story is told considerably.)I actually had no trouble getting through the book. In a more contemporary vernacular, the man could write. Despite the lack of a heart-quickening plot, there is much to marvel at in the writing itself.James deserves his reputation as a classic novelist and if you are a student of the written word at any level I recommend you read his work. In understanding the whole of literature I think we better understand our favorite little slice of it. Everything, after all, is part of some larger context.Plot is context, of course. Which is why few authors can pull off the lack of one. To the extent that James does, which will be up to the reader to decide, he is a genius to be sure.

Washington Square is a sad look at life in the mid-19th Century. After losing his wife in the hours following the birth of a daughter, Dr. Austin Sloper is lost, bewildered and angry. He and his wife had lost their son at a young age, and now he lost his dear wife birthing a daughter. To him it is the greatest tragedy, but when his daughter grows fat and "unbecoming" he has no trouble telling her how he sees her. In today's world, Dr. Townsend would be accused and easily convicted of verbal and psychological abuse. Catherine grows a dull, plain woman with no expectations of living a full life. Then she meets Morris Townsend at a party given by her aunt and thanks to her father's sister, Mrs. Penniman, Catherine's life is turned upside down. I think Catherine actually has feelings for this young man. The dynamic between the characters is complex, as the real reasons for actions are construed through the eyes of each of them. Dr. Sloper, who himself married a "well dowryed" woman, finds a gold digger behind any suitor his daughter might win, and therefore he refuses this young man's advances as based in desire for money, certainly not love. He considers his daughter unworthy of the attentions of any well-intended young man. The book is filled with twists and turns but overall provides a sadness for the young woman who after Austin's death she learns he has tied her hands so thoroughly that if she were to wed the man of her choice she would lose everything, and since she has no real self identity she lives the rest of her life alone, a strange sort of happiness;

As noted by several others, the font in which this book is printed is so small as to be virtually unreadable. That said, the inclusion of 4 of Ms Wharton's novels in one large book is definitely a bargain. It is a bargain, however, that I had to get a second copy of. Reading it in the Kindle format is so much easier. Save your money on the paperback.

Amazing to find three such extraordinary masterpieces of fiction between two covers. All three novels involve a fierce struggle for control over the life and soul of a young woman, and in each case it seems that the woman's own feelings are the least of anyone's concern. Beyond that, the only thing that these novels have in common is the sublime beauty of the writing. Some of the scenes--the lawn scene, for instance, in the opening pages of "Portrait" and the descriptions of rustic 19th century Cape Cod in the closing pages of "The Bostonians"--are among the most beautiful that I've encountered anywhere in literature and show how just thoroughly James had absorbed, and in many ways transcended, the writing of Turgenev and Flaubert. "Washington Square," the shortest and most accessible of the three, is a perfect gem. The true measure of James's genius is that he was actually able to improve on that perfection--by digging even deeper into the inner workings of his characters--in the two subsequent novels.

Attention! the print in this book is tiny, only a keen-eyed hawk could read it without a magnifying glass.

Che delusione ordinare questo libro per gustarne lo stile di James e trovarmi con la versione "word wiise" che non solo rendeva la lettura machinosa, ma era piena di errori! Come faccio a scambiare questa versione con una con il solo testo originale?