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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
The worst. The worst book. The worst characters. The worst plot. I held out hope through this long, boring, overly-wordy book someone would make a good choice. Alas. It makes me mad just thinking about it.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
Another slightly troubling Henry James novel! Number nine in my chronological read-through of James's novels plus a few of his novelettes. **Spoiler Alert**
OK, first of all let's get the political out of the way. Certainly the triumvirate of Elon Musk, Trump, and Ayn Rand have pretty much proven that conservatism is not only not an ideology, but is best defined as the complete and total lack of ideology, that is to say, as pure selfishness. Musk (and every other conservative rich person) falls to the right because they think their wealth makes them more important than the rest of us and thus their selfishness is somehow justified--hence Musk, a dude with no discernible talent outside of making money out of money, believes he should be educating us on social issues, deciding the outcomes of wars, and planning to move the human race to Mars. Trump is the con man who falls right in order to gain riches by exploiting the bigotries and prejudices of the ignorant. Rand tried to make all of this pure cynicism and selfishness into something that looks like an ideology when its at best a strategy for domination and wealth accumulation. But let's be real: true ideology is the selflessness of soldiers (Trump's "suckers"), woke idealist thinkers and community builders (who Musk would warn us against), and the justice seekers whose rules curbing tyranny Rand would have us believe are the real tyrants.
Since I'm going to read this novel with this belief system my reading is going to be perhaps a bit particular.
The novel is the tragedy of the biological over the ideological and how our best social impulses can be easily swept away by the biological impulse to reproduce and the gross selfishness that we feel doing so entitles us. (This is why the family clan is the linchpin of all conservative institutions like the Roman Empire and the later catholic Church--even when Jesus himself seems to have been at best indifferent to the clan.) Thus I see the novel's literal plot as an ideological fight over the loyalties of Verena by Olive (who represents ideological social service) and Basil (representing selfish reproduction/submission to patriarchal power). Olive is the Bostonian longtime abolitionist turned feminist and Basil the Southerner with conservative beliefs--really only an ironic lack of any sort of idealism. The novel's last line (and its whole final chapter, which I imagine informed the final scene of The Graduate) lets love triumph, but does say that love is at least equally a cause of tears as it is for joy so I take the novel as quite a bit less one-sided as many critics have in the past. Like Virgil's Aeneid, which simultaneously glorifies war and bemoans the tragedy of war, I think The Bostonians tries to evoke this struggle between ideology and selfishness without taking sides. It's maybe the only novel ever where the triumph of love is tragic as it trumps common sense and ideological behavior for what can only be a doomed marriage.
At least the Basil Ransom character, I thought, was villainous throughout. Other critics think the novel is on his side somehow because he's charming, but I found him consistently clueless and phony, exactly like most conservatives, puffed up that their cynicism makes them superior thinkers because they don't have to do anything (make any sacrifices) about it since it's all based on selfishness. It makes them feel superior and they act it. I don't think he's charming to anyone but Verena and even she seems to know in her heart of hearts that she shouldn't like him at all.
It's really interesting then that Olive, whose political passion seems also to be informed by her lesbianism (of course never directly addressed--I've said in another review that the characters of 19th century fiction are like Barbie dolls, without genitalia, and all sexual desires are coded as "passion" "marriage" and "love making," which is more rightly termed wooing). To me Olive is the much better logical choice for Verena but, as I think we all know from experience, we're often sexually attracted to people to whom we're otherwise indifferent and even sometimes despise. For Verena, Basil is surely one of those people. Thus it's truly sad that biological imperative makes her chose Basil over the far more simpatico choice of Olive, with whom she has so much in common intellectually, but with whom, alas, she has no desire to copulate.
To me there were times when I thought that the novel was pushing me toward the conservative viewpoint as James cannot hep but endlessly point out the little hypocrisies of the various progressive characters here--Olive's wealthy upbringing and fetishization of the poor, etc. And these are indeed flaws of so many progressives, our condescending attitude when we try to free people so mired in religious superstition and Fox News propaganda that they hate us for wishing them well. I am embarrassed by these things but long ago realized that the conservative points them out only to fuel their own cynical stance that since there is no good in goodness we might as well all be bigoted assholes. Thus, in this, the novel's narrator leans toward the conservative viewpoint.
But what changed my mind on this was the Ms. Birdseye character.
In the novel's opening scenes she is a bit ridiculed, yet her absolute selflessness shines through. Later, when Ransom comes face-to-face with her a second time she's practically Christ-like in her goodness and desire to convert him and it effects him--while he will not be converted, he still feels her goodness and is touched. He, himself, however, is never kind in the novel, only polite, like the Southern Gentleman he is--the only thing standing between him and the jungle is social conformity, which has nothing at all to do with compassion but only a cynical adherence to rules to save us from endless mutual destruction in the rat race conservatives believe the world to be.
On to The Princess Casamassima.
OK, first of all let's get the political out of the way. Certainly the triumvirate of Elon Musk, Trump, and Ayn Rand have pretty much proven that conservatism is not only not an ideology, but is best defined as the complete and total lack of ideology, that is to say, as pure selfishness. Musk (and every other conservative rich person) falls to the right because they think their wealth makes them more important than the rest of us and thus their selfishness is somehow justified--hence Musk, a dude with no discernible talent outside of making money out of money, believes he should be educating us on social issues, deciding the outcomes of wars, and planning to move the human race to Mars. Trump is the con man who falls right in order to gain riches by exploiting the bigotries and prejudices of the ignorant. Rand tried to make all of this pure cynicism and selfishness into something that looks like an ideology when its at best a strategy for domination and wealth accumulation. But let's be real: true ideology is the selflessness of soldiers (Trump's "suckers"), woke idealist thinkers and community builders (who Musk would warn us against), and the justice seekers whose rules curbing tyranny Rand would have us believe are the real tyrants.
Since I'm going to read this novel with this belief system my reading is going to be perhaps a bit particular.
The novel is the tragedy of the biological over the ideological and how our best social impulses can be easily swept away by the biological impulse to reproduce and the gross selfishness that we feel doing so entitles us. (This is why the family clan is the linchpin of all conservative institutions like the Roman Empire and the later catholic Church--even when Jesus himself seems to have been at best indifferent to the clan.) Thus I see the novel's literal plot as an ideological fight over the loyalties of Verena by Olive (who represents ideological social service) and Basil (representing selfish reproduction/submission to patriarchal power). Olive is the Bostonian longtime abolitionist turned feminist and Basil the Southerner with conservative beliefs--really only an ironic lack of any sort of idealism. The novel's last line (and its whole final chapter, which I imagine informed the final scene of The Graduate) lets love triumph, but does say that love is at least equally a cause of tears as it is for joy so I take the novel as quite a bit less one-sided as many critics have in the past. Like Virgil's Aeneid, which simultaneously glorifies war and bemoans the tragedy of war, I think The Bostonians tries to evoke this struggle between ideology and selfishness without taking sides. It's maybe the only novel ever where the triumph of love is tragic as it trumps common sense and ideological behavior for what can only be a doomed marriage.
At least the Basil Ransom character, I thought, was villainous throughout. Other critics think the novel is on his side somehow because he's charming, but I found him consistently clueless and phony, exactly like most conservatives, puffed up that their cynicism makes them superior thinkers because they don't have to do anything (make any sacrifices) about it since it's all based on selfishness. It makes them feel superior and they act it. I don't think he's charming to anyone but Verena and even she seems to know in her heart of hearts that she shouldn't like him at all.
It's really interesting then that Olive, whose political passion seems also to be informed by her lesbianism (of course never directly addressed--I've said in another review that the characters of 19th century fiction are like Barbie dolls, without genitalia, and all sexual desires are coded as "passion" "marriage" and "love making," which is more rightly termed wooing). To me Olive is the much better logical choice for Verena but, as I think we all know from experience, we're often sexually attracted to people to whom we're otherwise indifferent and even sometimes despise. For Verena, Basil is surely one of those people. Thus it's truly sad that biological imperative makes her chose Basil over the far more simpatico choice of Olive, with whom she has so much in common intellectually, but with whom, alas, she has no desire to copulate.
To me there were times when I thought that the novel was pushing me toward the conservative viewpoint as James cannot hep but endlessly point out the little hypocrisies of the various progressive characters here--Olive's wealthy upbringing and fetishization of the poor, etc. And these are indeed flaws of so many progressives, our condescending attitude when we try to free people so mired in religious superstition and Fox News propaganda that they hate us for wishing them well. I am embarrassed by these things but long ago realized that the conservative points them out only to fuel their own cynical stance that since there is no good in goodness we might as well all be bigoted assholes. Thus, in this, the novel's narrator leans toward the conservative viewpoint.
But what changed my mind on this was the Ms. Birdseye character.
In the novel's opening scenes she is a bit ridiculed, yet her absolute selflessness shines through. Later, when Ransom comes face-to-face with her a second time she's practically Christ-like in her goodness and desire to convert him and it effects him--while he will not be converted, he still feels her goodness and is touched. He, himself, however, is never kind in the novel, only polite, like the Southern Gentleman he is--the only thing standing between him and the jungle is social conformity, which has nothing at all to do with compassion but only a cynical adherence to rules to save us from endless mutual destruction in the rat race conservatives believe the world to be.
On to The Princess Casamassima.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'd forgotten how derisive James is, and how belittling this book is about feminism, or women in general.
a fascinating look into the world of late 19th Century Boston and its women's rights circuits. It also contains not-quite-explicit lesbianism, although it is far from a happy gay romance (without being too 'bury-your-gays-y', although being published in 1886 even that would be fairly controversial).
It took me a while to get into James' writing style, but once I did, I was really able to enjoy the beauty of it.
It took me a while to get into James' writing style, but once I did, I was really able to enjoy the beauty of it.
En mi humilde opinión es uno de los libros menores de un autor enorme, uno de mis favoritos. Precisamente lo que me gusta de Henry James es que debes desenredar la madeja según lees. En muchos casos debes sacar tus propias conclusiones. A pesar de esas maravillosas descripciones tan detalladas que tiene en común con la que fuera su amiga Edith Wharton, tanto de escenarios, situaciones, emociones o perfiles psicológicos, siempre hay una historia oculta entre lineas. James siempre dice mucho más de lo que escribe. Algo que es obvio para el lector está magistralmente velado con las palabras adecuadas, todo un arte. Todo esto se me hizo mucho más patente en novelas o relatos como Daisy Miller, Washington Square, El Americano u Otra Vuelta de Tuerca. En fin, la pena es que no pueda darle 4'99 sólo por ser mi adorado Henry James.