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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
James is so sharp! You get the sense that you're reading reading real people, rather than characters. Just like real people though, they have habits that can exasperate you after a while. I have a whole new layer of understanding about the history of Boston now, too.
Did a review of this book here: https://youtu.be/hoN1fL_bB8k
When i love an author, especially as much as i love Henry James, i always hesitate to review a book of his/hers, for fear it will come out as too partial...
Henry James is a superb storyteller whose many works over the decades of his life are quite literally beautiful detailed watercolors that give us access to a world, supremely fascinating, so close in time and yet so utterly different.
What you have is a bittersweet tragicomedy that centers on a unusually quirky triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from a Mississippi family bankrupt by the civil war; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and an important figure in the Boston feminist movement; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protege of Olive's with a gift for public speaking that Olive decides to put to good use. The "fight" between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection is the main subject of the novel...but what ends up taking the lead is the women's rights movement in the late 1880's in Boston, all served up with a dose of the famous Henry James irony.
The pace is rather slow at first, the amount of detail James puts into the story is enormous and it inevitably slows down the story telling, but it ends up picking up about halfway through and moving very very fast to the end...which is actually very good and does leave you thinking.
Its not "Portrait of a Lady" but it does deserve time and attention, especially for anyone who enjoys Henry James and his work.
Happy Readings!
Henry James is a superb storyteller whose many works over the decades of his life are quite literally beautiful detailed watercolors that give us access to a world, supremely fascinating, so close in time and yet so utterly different.
What you have is a bittersweet tragicomedy that centers on a unusually quirky triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from a Mississippi family bankrupt by the civil war; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and an important figure in the Boston feminist movement; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protege of Olive's with a gift for public speaking that Olive decides to put to good use. The "fight" between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection is the main subject of the novel...but what ends up taking the lead is the women's rights movement in the late 1880's in Boston, all served up with a dose of the famous Henry James irony.
The pace is rather slow at first, the amount of detail James puts into the story is enormous and it inevitably slows down the story telling, but it ends up picking up about halfway through and moving very very fast to the end...which is actually very good and does leave you thinking.
Its not "Portrait of a Lady" but it does deserve time and attention, especially for anyone who enjoys Henry James and his work.
Happy Readings!
slow-paced
Classic wordy James | Relevant with election | Shocking for the time
Not James at his finest. The characters are well-drawn. The "fish-out-of-water" scenario is in place. The language and sentence structure are moderately less challenging than in some of his other novels. But the denouement seems straight out of Kisses for my President. I suppose that one can argue that it is a product of its time, and that a woman's choice, were she to choose "love" would require that she throw over everything else and abandon anything that was meaningful to her.
It falls in line with the "we can't hire you as a physicist because you are just going to get married and quit to have babies."
It falls in line with the "we can't hire you as a physicist because you are just going to get married and quit to have babies."
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
This was like reading a horror story. Ransom is such a type of guy that still exists today, who sees a successful woman and wants nothing more than to dominate her to prove his own superiority. She’s a hunting trophy on his wall, and the more successful she was before he sentenced her to domestic life the more glory he has. In this way the second half of the book is just mounting dread as Ransom pursues Verena relentlessly. So did I enjoy that? No. But was it well done? I suppose so.
category (?): published before 1900
finally finished this book!!! i can’t believe it took me almost a month. it was a very nonlinear progression. the beginning of the book, honestly almost the entire first Book (the bostonians was originally published as a serial and in my copy at least was organized into three books) slogged on for so long. i honestly can’t imagine reading it as a serial. i feel like almost every week i would’ve been disappointed at how little happened. but ! there were definitely some shenanigans and funny descriptions even in this first bit.
the book finallyyyy picks up around halfway through. i also by this point got more used to the writing style so that probably helped some. i will say i did genuinely laugh out loud at certain parts! and you really get invested towards the end!
the ending (no spoilers) annoyed me, but in a way where i could accept that that was where the book was leading anyway. i understand that it’s a satire, and that realism was big at the time, but reading this at the time probably would’ve made me so sad. it’s just kinda cynical and demoralizing? (((i don’t want to go into too much detail because spoilers but yeah))) HOWEVER as a lens into the time period? so interesting ! to see the discussion of the post civil war era, especially with one of the main characters being from mississippi and the main settings of boston (duh) and new york. i liked seeing the discussions of feminism, and the different kinds of femininity we see, and i gotta give credit where credit is due—this book basically invented the term “boston marriage” so… happy pride month!
speaking of boston: i loved seeing the areas and community of boston and massachusetts depicted here! it was really fun to hear about the back bay, the cape, and even central mass!
overall: 3.5⭐️! do i recommend? if you want to read it and feel comfortable reading an older style of writing, go ahead! but if you don’t want to, you’re not missing out on too much!
finally finished this book!!! i can’t believe it took me almost a month. it was a very nonlinear progression. the beginning of the book, honestly almost the entire first Book (the bostonians was originally published as a serial and in my copy at least was organized into three books) slogged on for so long. i honestly can’t imagine reading it as a serial. i feel like almost every week i would’ve been disappointed at how little happened. but ! there were definitely some shenanigans and funny descriptions even in this first bit.
the book finallyyyy picks up around halfway through. i also by this point got more used to the writing style so that probably helped some. i will say i did genuinely laugh out loud at certain parts! and you really get invested towards the end!
the ending (no spoilers) annoyed me, but in a way where i could accept that that was where the book was leading anyway. i understand that it’s a satire, and that realism was big at the time, but reading this at the time probably would’ve made me so sad. it’s just kinda cynical and demoralizing? (((i don’t want to go into too much detail because spoilers but yeah))) HOWEVER as a lens into the time period? so interesting ! to see the discussion of the post civil war era, especially with one of the main characters being from mississippi and the main settings of boston (duh) and new york. i liked seeing the discussions of feminism, and the different kinds of femininity we see, and i gotta give credit where credit is due—this book basically invented the term “boston marriage” so… happy pride month!
speaking of boston: i loved seeing the areas and community of boston and massachusetts depicted here! it was really fun to hear about the back bay, the cape, and even central mass!
overall: 3.5⭐️! do i recommend? if you want to read it and feel comfortable reading an older style of writing, go ahead! but if you don’t want to, you’re not missing out on too much!
Wasn't my thing. I got about 35 pages in and still hadn't gotten into it with no hope in sight of a chance of it. On to the next book. :)
I generally enjoy novels like this, but a few chapters in, I was bored almost to tears. It just seemed so Jane Austen-y, and I hate Jane Austen. Oh, woe is the poor girl and all that jazz.