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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this. I read it because I wanted something like the Gilded Age show and this fit the bill, although technically this takes place a few decades before the Gilded Age in NYC. Unlike other Henry James books I've tried, this wasn't overly pretentious or dry. This also kind of reminds me of a sort of grim version of The Importance of Being Earnest, but still with interesting characters and lots of witty dialogue.
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
tense
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
O carte… clasica, despre iubire. O iubire neîmplinită, care te schimbă. O altă iubire falsă și perfidă.
“Dacă tot o să îndure o căzătură, spuse sora lui, râzând ușor, trebuie să-i întindem covoare cât mai groase.”
“Dacă tot o să îndure o căzătură, spuse sora lui, râzând ușor, trebuie să-i întindem covoare cât mai groase.”
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting to see James work out his ideas on truth, self actualization, class - in this early work. Pacing near the end was abysmal but overall enjoyed it. I remained intrigued by his obsessive attempts at exploding the limits of the sentence.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So, I have to state up front that it’s been years since I’ve read this. But what I recall, was being surprised at how sympathetic the MC Catherine was, and more specifically, how much care and sympathy James took in creating her.
She’s naive in the beginning, easily controlled (by her father) and manipulated (by Morris), but that changes. As she grows older, she becomes more mature, more empowered, and even, more beautiful. (Interesting how James equates her flowering beauty with her growing strength.)
For me, the most interesting relationship in this book was the one between Catherine and her father. He continued to control her through the dual threats of disinheritance and disappointment, always in the name of a certain kind of rational love. But while she had little control over her choices, she was able to take full responsibility for her inner life, growing in strength and agency.And in the end, though her choices matched those of her father (i.e., not to marry Morris), her reasons for those choices were entirely hers.
At some point (again, it’s been a long time since I read this), she admits that she wishes her father would’ve have let her have Morris and her delusions. And while, as the reader, we surely know that would’ve been a huge mistake, it’s a sympathetic one. Because her father’s cold rationality, correct as it may have been, left her loveless and alone (even as it made her stronger).
By the end of the novel there isn’t a shred of delusion left regarding Morris or her father. As such, she’s empowered to live her life and make her own decisions within the restrictions society has placed on her.
A fascinating, nuanced exploration of human expectation and desire in a restrictive and controlling society.
She’s naive in the beginning, easily controlled (by her father) and manipulated (by Morris), but that changes. As she grows older, she becomes more mature, more empowered, and even, more beautiful. (Interesting how James equates her flowering beauty with her growing strength.)
For me, the most interesting relationship in this book was the one between Catherine and her father. He continued to control her through the dual threats of disinheritance and disappointment, always in the name of a certain kind of rational love. But while she had little control over her choices, she was able to take full responsibility for her inner life, growing in strength and agency.
At some point (again, it’s been a long time since I read this), she admits that she wishes her father would’ve have let her have Morris and her delusions. And while, as the reader, we surely know that would’ve been a huge mistake, it’s a sympathetic one. Because her father’s cold rationality, correct as it may have been, left her loveless and alone (even as it made her stronger).
By the end of the novel there isn’t a shred of delusion left regarding Morris or her father. As such, she’s empowered to live her life and make her own decisions within the restrictions society has placed on her.
A fascinating, nuanced exploration of human expectation and desire in a restrictive and controlling society.
medium-paced
My paperback copy of this is made precious by having been fished out of a steamy bag that fell behind a dumpster at the vegetable market on 181st Street. I could see it through the clear plastic garbage bag. I poked through the plastic and rescued it, making sure it smelled okay before bringing it into the house.
Great book. After a 30 page acclimation period the dialogue really started to come alive.
Written in 1880, WS takes a look back to an earlier 1840 New York. Manhattan real estate was expanding north then. One of the earliest events of the book has the main character leaving the neighborhood near City Hall and moving so far north that they won't have to ever move again, north of, in fact, Houston Street!
Henry James philosophy of humanity seems influenced by Montaigne's idea of types. One of the characters gives a little speech explaining how, once you create a system of personality types all it takes is a few minutes of observation to categorize a new acquaintance into a type.
1) The father, Dr. Sloper, is himself a type: ultra-rational, focused, and dispassionate in the way that only a fictional character can be. His main role in the plot is to be defensive of his daughter. He delivers all of the intellectual content, sometimes in conversation with his equally intelligent cousin, a Mrs. Almond.
2)The nearest thing to a villain is Morris Townsend, 30 year old suitor of Dr Sloper's daughter. Morris is an idler, born to aristocracy but spent of his own fortune and seemingly needing to marry into the wealth of the Sloper family. The reader of Washington Square is constantly reevaluating his opinion of this nominal villian. He is a genuinely nice guy, likes everyone to like him, but definitely not attracted in any meaningfully way to Catherine.
3) Lavinia Penniman, a spinster with an enormous capacity for romantic imagination, a meddling nursemaid to the heroine. Handsome suitor Morris Townsend regards the widow Penniman as "fantastic" (in the literal sense) and thinks she is a "dessicated matron".
4) Catherine Sloper, 21, the heroine, is sympathetic if you like guileless simplicity. Catherine is repeatedly described as both plain and simple. But she is sincere, extremely filial, and experiencing young love for the first time. How this dull but utterly good person reacts is, I gradually realized, heroic.
I'm just a bit halfway through and trying to predict how it will turn out. Will the suitor ennoble himself somehow? Or will he turn out to not be the brother of the 5 member family on "the 2nd Avenue", but rather the father of it, the woman of that household being revealed to be not his sister but rather his wife? I'm just guessing. More to come.
I mentioned that my copy of this was fished out of a plastic garbage bag. Some struggling teen reader, Yulisa Gutierrez, managed to put her name in the cover of the paperback and then heavily mark entire series of paragraphs from beginning to end with an orange highlighter, finally giving up around page 17, only to reappear as the book's owner one last time on page 105 to make a big orange asterisk in the scene where Morris tells Catherine that he would love her even if she were disinherited. I have sympathy both for the teen reader and for the teacher who failed to excite her about this excellent book with its story that offers much portrayal of how to deal with exciting 'bad boy' suitors, a situation more current than the oil painting on this book's cover. )
Great book. After a 30 page acclimation period the dialogue really started to come alive.
Written in 1880, WS takes a look back to an earlier 1840 New York. Manhattan real estate was expanding north then. One of the earliest events of the book has the main character leaving the neighborhood near City Hall and moving so far north that they won't have to ever move again, north of, in fact, Houston Street!
Henry James philosophy of humanity seems influenced by Montaigne's idea of types. One of the characters gives a little speech explaining how, once you create a system of personality types all it takes is a few minutes of observation to categorize a new acquaintance into a type.
1) The father, Dr. Sloper, is himself a type: ultra-rational, focused, and dispassionate in the way that only a fictional character can be. His main role in the plot is to be defensive of his daughter. He delivers all of the intellectual content, sometimes in conversation with his equally intelligent cousin, a Mrs. Almond.
2)The nearest thing to a villain is Morris Townsend, 30 year old suitor of Dr Sloper's daughter. Morris is an idler, born to aristocracy but spent of his own fortune and seemingly needing to marry into the wealth of the Sloper family. The reader of Washington Square is constantly reevaluating his opinion of this nominal villian. He is a genuinely nice guy, likes everyone to like him, but definitely not attracted in any meaningfully way to Catherine.
3) Lavinia Penniman, a spinster with an enormous capacity for romantic imagination, a meddling nursemaid to the heroine. Handsome suitor Morris Townsend regards the widow Penniman as "fantastic" (in the literal sense) and thinks she is a "dessicated matron".
4) Catherine Sloper, 21, the heroine, is sympathetic if you like guileless simplicity. Catherine is repeatedly described as both plain and simple. But she is sincere, extremely filial, and experiencing young love for the first time. How this dull but utterly good person reacts is, I gradually realized, heroic.
I'm just a bit halfway through and trying to predict how it will turn out. Will the suitor ennoble himself somehow? Or will he turn out to not be the brother of the 5 member family on "the 2nd Avenue", but rather the father of it, the woman of that household being revealed to be not his sister but rather his wife? I'm just guessing. More to come.
I mentioned that my copy of this was fished out of a plastic garbage bag. Some struggling teen reader, Yulisa Gutierrez, managed to put her name in the cover of the paperback and then heavily mark entire series of paragraphs from beginning to end with an orange highlighter, finally giving up around page 17, only to reappear as the book's owner one last time on page 105 to make a big orange asterisk in the scene where Morris tells Catherine that he would love her even if she were disinherited. I have sympathy both for the teen reader and for the teacher who failed to excite her about this excellent book with its story that offers much portrayal of how to deal with exciting 'bad boy' suitors, a situation more current than the oil painting on this book's cover. )