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3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
Slow start, but I think this might be the juiciest James novel I've read thus far. Angela Vivian I think is one of his most interesting characters.
Installment number six of my reading Henry James's novels in chronological order.
This, I must admit, was a work of James's that I'd never heard of nor seen a copy. I had to download the ebook from Project Gutenberg. And I'm quite glad both that I've begun this project which precipitated reading this novel I might otherwise never have stumbled upon. Although too lighthearted perhaps and mainly clever to be a masterpiece in the opinion of this tragedy and complexity lover of post-romantic and experimental fiction, it's actually quite charming and in an original and very Jamesian way.
Once again we have a protagonist who governs the narrative's point of view as I've noted in each of James's novels up to this one, but here the narrative manages to exploit that a bit better than in the others, cleverly concealing the revelations of truth behind a series of ignorances and mistaken assumptions all to the proof of the statement, made more than once by our heroine, that "Men are very stupid."
Of course, in regards to matters of the heart, she's not wrong. Not only does our protagonist, Bernard, misunderstand all of the other characters feelings, it takes him three years and two thirds of the novel to discover about his own, which are pretty obvious to the reader from the opening chapter. I know that sounds tedious, but James's style of close examination and thoughtful explanation kind of pull it off. The style might be a tad much for a tale this light--even if it's implications regarding male and female emotional insight and interpretations of behavior are quite welcome--but overall I was rather pleased with it. Perhaps to make up for the horribly vacuous but popular Daisy Miller character, James sought to give us a very wise woman in the person of Angela Vivian. I, for one, was in love with her from the very first page of the novel, which scene was very vivid for me as it takes place in Siena, a city where I once lived for a summer and have visited many times.
This, I must admit, was a work of James's that I'd never heard of nor seen a copy. I had to download the ebook from Project Gutenberg. And I'm quite glad both that I've begun this project which precipitated reading this novel I might otherwise never have stumbled upon. Although too lighthearted perhaps and mainly clever to be a masterpiece in the opinion of this tragedy and complexity lover of post-romantic and experimental fiction, it's actually quite charming and in an original and very Jamesian way.
Once again we have a protagonist who governs the narrative's point of view as I've noted in each of James's novels up to this one, but here the narrative manages to exploit that a bit better than in the others, cleverly concealing the revelations of truth behind a series of ignorances and mistaken assumptions all to the proof of the statement, made more than once by our heroine, that "Men are very stupid."
Of course, in regards to matters of the heart, she's not wrong. Not only does our protagonist, Bernard, misunderstand all of the other characters feelings, it takes him three years and two thirds of the novel to discover about his own, which are pretty obvious to the reader from the opening chapter. I know that sounds tedious, but James's style of close examination and thoughtful explanation kind of pull it off. The style might be a tad much for a tale this light--even if it's implications regarding male and female emotional insight and interpretations of behavior are quite welcome--but overall I was rather pleased with it. Perhaps to make up for the horribly vacuous but popular Daisy Miller character, James sought to give us a very wise woman in the person of Angela Vivian. I, for one, was in love with her from the very first page of the novel, which scene was very vivid for me as it takes place in Siena, a city where I once lived for a summer and have visited many times.
This often forgotten early James novel proved to be rather a sweet little story. It’s not one of his greatest works, but rather charming nonetheless. It just goes on a little too long: I feel there’s enough material in the story for a lengthy short story, not quite for the small novel that it is.
Since it is near-contemporaneous with the much more famous Daisy Miller, it’s interesting to see James ring the changes on a few similar themes. Here too, we have an expatriate young American who has trouble realizing he’s actually fallen in love with the young American woman he meets in Europe. Only in this case his realization takes too long to set in, at least for this reader’s patience. When I finally read: ‘He had been a great fool--an incredible fool-- not to have discovered before this what was the matter with him!’ I could only sigh: ‘Yes!!!! And the author was an ass for thinking he could string us along all this time.’
The second plot mirrors the main story line and concerns the best friend of the protagonist, who has to be made to realize he actually loves his wife. This friend is a serious scientist has married a garrulous and superficial socialite: an unlikely partnership, but a marriage that has to be salvaged because the heroine of the novel is convinced that although they don’t realize it, the two are actually deeply in love with each other.
(Incidentally: the serious scientist is seriously contemplating divorce in this novel. Surely one of the earliest times divorce is mentioned as a serious option in an English novel? Even if only as an option James’ heart is set against...)
This woman is characterized thus: ‘Fortunately he was not obliged to talk much, as Mrs. Gordon displayed even more than her usual vivacity, rendering her companions the graceful service of lifting the burden of conversation from their shoulders.’ James’ portrait of her (which is actually much more affectionate than this quote may suggest) is one of the very best things in this novel. He really lets rip with a couple of pages of monologue-posing-for-dialogue that are gems of entertaining garrulity. They reminded me of nothing so much as a couple of similar outbursts by Daisy Miller. In fact, Confidence helped to confirm my interpretation of those outbursts in the earlier novella, where they are rather more subtle.
Daisy Miller is both more assured and more ambiguous – and consequently richer – than this short novel. The highest achievement of Daisy Miller is probably that it never quite resolves its ambiguities: was Daisy a garrulous and superficial flirt or a touchingly innocent young lady who had feelings for that queer fish, the stiff and unresponsive Winterbourne? And was Winterbourne in love with her but just too slow to realize it, or do we make too much of it?
The failure of Confidence, and the triumph of Daisy Miller, is that in the latter the two types, superficial and garrulous socialite and the sincere and intelligent woman worthy of a serious man’s affections, are conflated into the portrait of a single confusing young lady – whereas in Confidence they’re split out into two characters in two mirroring plot lines. This arrangement is too neat and one-dimensional. It makes the story fall flat, although not without providing some excellent entertainment along the way – all of it written as stylishly as always. (Is it just me or is James incapable of writing a truly awkward sentence?)
A few lengthy quotations, first about the garrulous young woman:
And this is an interesting passage about gambling – especially if you compare it with Dostoyevsky’s rather differently inclined writing about the same phenomenon!
Since it is near-contemporaneous with the much more famous Daisy Miller, it’s interesting to see James ring the changes on a few similar themes. Here too, we have an expatriate young American who has trouble realizing he’s actually fallen in love with the young American woman he meets in Europe. Only in this case his realization takes too long to set in, at least for this reader’s patience. When I finally read: ‘He had been a great fool--an incredible fool-- not to have discovered before this what was the matter with him!’ I could only sigh: ‘Yes!!!! And the author was an ass for thinking he could string us along all this time.’
The second plot mirrors the main story line and concerns the best friend of the protagonist, who has to be made to realize he actually loves his wife. This friend is a serious scientist has married a garrulous and superficial socialite: an unlikely partnership, but a marriage that has to be salvaged because the heroine of the novel is convinced that although they don’t realize it, the two are actually deeply in love with each other.
(Incidentally: the serious scientist is seriously contemplating divorce in this novel. Surely one of the earliest times divorce is mentioned as a serious option in an English novel? Even if only as an option James’ heart is set against...)
This woman is characterized thus: ‘Fortunately he was not obliged to talk much, as Mrs. Gordon displayed even more than her usual vivacity, rendering her companions the graceful service of lifting the burden of conversation from their shoulders.’ James’ portrait of her (which is actually much more affectionate than this quote may suggest) is one of the very best things in this novel. He really lets rip with a couple of pages of monologue-posing-for-dialogue that are gems of entertaining garrulity. They reminded me of nothing so much as a couple of similar outbursts by Daisy Miller. In fact, Confidence helped to confirm my interpretation of those outbursts in the earlier novella, where they are rather more subtle.
Daisy Miller is both more assured and more ambiguous – and consequently richer – than this short novel. The highest achievement of Daisy Miller is probably that it never quite resolves its ambiguities: was Daisy a garrulous and superficial flirt or a touchingly innocent young lady who had feelings for that queer fish, the stiff and unresponsive Winterbourne? And was Winterbourne in love with her but just too slow to realize it, or do we make too much of it?
The failure of Confidence, and the triumph of Daisy Miller, is that in the latter the two types, superficial and garrulous socialite and the sincere and intelligent woman worthy of a serious man’s affections, are conflated into the portrait of a single confusing young lady – whereas in Confidence they’re split out into two characters in two mirroring plot lines. This arrangement is too neat and one-dimensional. It makes the story fall flat, although not without providing some excellent entertainment along the way – all of it written as stylishly as always. (Is it just me or is James incapable of writing a truly awkward sentence?)
A few lengthy quotations, first about the garrulous young woman:
Blanche Evers was a pretty little goose--the prettiest of little geese, perhaps, and doubtless the most amiable; but she was not a companion for a peculiarly serious man, who would like his wife to share his view of human responsibilities. What a singular selection--what a queer infatuation! Bernard had no sooner committed himself to this line of criticism than he stopped short, with the sudden consciousness of error carried almost to the point of naivetae. He exclaimed that Blanche Evers was exactly the sort of girl that men of Gordon Wright's stamp always ended by falling in love with, and that poor Gordon knew very much better what he was about in this case than he had done in trying to solve the deep problem of a comfortable life with Angela Vivian. This was what your strong, solid, sensible fellows always came to; they paid, in this particular, a larger tribute to pure fancy than the people who were supposed habitually to cultivate that muse. Blanche Evers was what the French call an article of fantasy, and Gordon had taken a pleasure in finding her deliciously useless. He cultivated utility in other ways, and it pleased and flattered him to feel that he could afford, morally speaking, to have a kittenish wife. He had within himself a fund of common sense to draw upon, so that to espouse a paragon of wisdom would be but to carry water to the fountain. He could easily make up for the deficiencies of a wife who was a little silly, and if she charmed and amused him, he could treat himself to the luxury of these sensations for themselves. He was not in the least afraid of being ruined by it, and if Blanche's birdlike chatter and turns of the head had made a fool of him, he knew it perfectly well, and simply took his stand upon his rights. Every man has a right to a little flower-bed, and life is not all mere kitchen-gardening. Bernard rapidly extemporized this rough explanation of the surprise his friend had offered him, and he found it all-sufficient for his immediate needs.
And this is an interesting passage about gambling – especially if you compare it with Dostoyevsky’s rather differently inclined writing about the same phenomenon!
He knocked about, as he would have said, for half the night – not because he was delighted at having won ten thousand francs, but rather because all of a sudden he found himself disgusted at the manner in which he had spent the evening. It was extremely characteristic of Bernard Longueville that his pleasure should suddenly transform itself into flatness. What he felt was not regret or repentance. He had it not in the least on his conscience that he had given countenance to the reprehensible practice of gaming. It was annoyance that he had passed out of his own control – that he had obeyed a force which he was unable to measure at the time. He had been drunk and he was turning sober. In spite of a great momentary appearance of frankness and a lively relish of any conjunction of agreeable circumstances exerting a pressure to which one could respond, Bernard had really little taste for giving himself up, and he never did so without very soon wishing to take himself back. He had now given himself to something that was not himself, and the fact that he had gained ten thousand francs by it was an insufficient salve to an aching sense of having ceased to be his own master. He had not been playing – he had been played with. He had been the sport of a blind, brutal chance, and he felt humiliated by having been favored by so rudely-operating a divinity. Good luck and bad luck? Bernard felt very scornful of the distinction, save that good luck seemed to him rather the more vulgar. As the night went on his disgust deepened, and at last the weariness it brought with it sent him to sleep.
2.5
There’s a reason I knew nothing much of this short novel, a sort of comedy of manners, beforehand: it’s not that good.
It starts off okay, with different meanings of the title word interspersed within its pages, plus a very tiny glimpse for me into perhaps the beginnings of his [b:The Beast in the Jungle|517570|The Beast in the Jungle|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348051678s/517570.jpg|1808874]. But the characters of the two men are twisted to fit the theme, and the inscrutable nature of Angela Vivian (Living Angel!) and the speech of the other member of the love-rectangle turn rather tedious.
Whether it’s intentional or not, and though James' occasional first-person narrator has a statement about women that I find completely wrong and a narratorial usage of I say that makes no sense, the work does point out the unrealistic expectations men have of women.
There’s a reason I knew nothing much of this short novel, a sort of comedy of manners, beforehand: it’s not that good.
It starts off okay, with different meanings of the title word interspersed within its pages, plus a very tiny glimpse for me into perhaps the beginnings of his [b:The Beast in the Jungle|517570|The Beast in the Jungle|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348051678s/517570.jpg|1808874]. But the characters of the two men are twisted to fit the theme, and the inscrutable nature of Angela Vivian (Living Angel!) and the speech of the other member of the love-rectangle turn rather tedious.
Whether it’s intentional or not, and though James' occasional first-person narrator has a statement about women that I find completely wrong and a narratorial usage of I say that makes no sense, the work does point out the unrealistic expectations men have of women.
FIRST LINE REVIEW: "It was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been spending the winter in Rome." Not the most enticing of opening lines, but this book continued to reinforce my newly-discovered love for the novels of Henry James. I had never read him until this year and "Confidence" is the 4th that I've chalked up in the "win" column. Charming, intelligent, romantic, with female characters that make the men seem like the ultimate idiots, but for loving them! Many lovely little twists and turns to the story, even though you pretty much know where it's going.
I'm kind of surprised this isn't more popular because it is funny and engaging. A little loose and free-wheeling. For once he writes about the men more distinctly than the women. I kind of read it like marriage advice, which is probably a mistake.
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read these on my Kindle, from a "Complete Works" that I got for nothing or almost nothing. Later in life, James went back and revised his earlier work to conform better with his later aesthetic. There are several writers who have done revisions like this -- famously Mary Shelley with Frankenstein -- and I think its almost always a mistake. Once an author publishes a work, he should have no more authority over it than anyone else.
With James, and with this book, it makes me wonder. There is more detail and description in this book than in most of James. But I get the feeling that there would have been even more if I had not read the "corrected" edition. As his career progressed, it seems clear that James fell more in love with vagueness, and with having his characters never come out and say what they mean. Here, they sometimes do, but there are other times when I get the feeling that they did, but the author then thought better of it. Thus, in some ways, this book feels a little schizophrenic to me, which makes sense because it was written by one guy, and then edited much later by another.
The story, as in much of James, is very simple. Hero meets girl in chance meeting. Later, hero visits friend who is thinking about engaging himself to girl. Friend asks for advice. Hero gives, perhaps, bad advice. A love triangle is suggested, and a "comedy" of sorts ensues. That said, its the old fashioned kind of comedy, where everyone ends up married, and not the new sense of comedy, which is supposed to be funny. This is never funny, although there are points at which it is mildly amusing.
The twist that James seems to throw in here is that the real "love" difficulty is between the Hero and his friend, who seem to be more in love than any of the conventional couples. The only real conflict and resolution in the book is in the rift between these two. It is by far the most overtly queer of any of the James books I've read. (I still have about five to read at some point, so that's quite a bit.) It's kind of cool to see how James pulls this off without breaking any of the taboos at the time. But that's not enough to make me enjoy the book. I would have had a better chance at liking this if it had more of his concrete early style (as in Watch and Ward or Roderick Hudson), or if it had more fully been completely vague like the later books (Wings of the Dove or Golden Bowl). As it is, it felt like a stylistic mess.
With James, and with this book, it makes me wonder. There is more detail and description in this book than in most of James. But I get the feeling that there would have been even more if I had not read the "corrected" edition. As his career progressed, it seems clear that James fell more in love with vagueness, and with having his characters never come out and say what they mean. Here, they sometimes do, but there are other times when I get the feeling that they did, but the author then thought better of it. Thus, in some ways, this book feels a little schizophrenic to me, which makes sense because it was written by one guy, and then edited much later by another.
The story, as in much of James, is very simple. Hero meets girl in chance meeting. Later, hero visits friend who is thinking about engaging himself to girl. Friend asks for advice. Hero gives, perhaps, bad advice. A love triangle is suggested, and a "comedy" of sorts ensues. That said, its the old fashioned kind of comedy, where everyone ends up married, and not the new sense of comedy, which is supposed to be funny. This is never funny, although there are points at which it is mildly amusing.
The twist that James seems to throw in here is that the real "love" difficulty is between the Hero and his friend, who seem to be more in love than any of the conventional couples. The only real conflict and resolution in the book is in the rift between these two. It is by far the most overtly queer of any of the James books I've read. (I still have about five to read at some point, so that's quite a bit.) It's kind of cool to see how James pulls this off without breaking any of the taboos at the time. But that's not enough to make me enjoy the book. I would have had a better chance at liking this if it had more of his concrete early style (as in Watch and Ward or Roderick Hudson), or if it had more fully been completely vague like the later books (Wings of the Dove or Golden Bowl). As it is, it felt like a stylistic mess.
Yawn, I'm sure there are scheming people as described but doubt that a group of people all speak in such a similar elegant fashion, even in the 19th century.
Confidence is one of James' lesser-known novels, which is probably due to several factors. It wasn't included in his New York edition. It has two versions--American and British--intended specifically for those audiences. (I read the American version from the Library of America, which identified most of the American slang and expressions that James changed in the British version.) It also happened to fall within the four-year period (1878-1882) during which he produced some of his first great works: The Europeans, Daisy Miller, Washington Square, The Portrait of the Lady, and his theatrical comedy version of Daisy Miller, which was a popular success. Confidence happens to be merely a good work overshadowed by a handful of classics.
At first it seems to bear a passing resemblance to Daisy Miller, which had been published a year earlier. Indeed, we get more playful references to playboys making "studies" of young ladies (Daisy Miller is, of course, subtitled "A Study"), but James soon turns this idea on its head, as the ladies--Angela and her mother--begin to manipulate the men like so many chess pieces. This gives the title "Confidence" its double meaning: to take one into confidence as a way to share and keep secrets, but also the confidence to take control of a situation and remain assured of the desired outcome. It feels almost like a companion piece to Daisy Miller, as if it should be published alongside that novella in textbooks or critical editions. The male protagonist, Bernard, is wonderfully self-effacing, and therefore much easier to like than Winterbourne. By the end of the novel, the reader appreciates James' ability to manage the love quadrangle (a favorite Jamesian motif) in a way that is insightful, while giving the reader a satisfying conclusion. Compared to some of his more famous works, Confidence is light entertainment; however, the novel is still a pleasure to read just for fun.
At first it seems to bear a passing resemblance to Daisy Miller, which had been published a year earlier. Indeed, we get more playful references to playboys making "studies" of young ladies (Daisy Miller is, of course, subtitled "A Study"), but James soon turns this idea on its head, as the ladies--Angela and her mother--begin to manipulate the men like so many chess pieces. This gives the title "Confidence" its double meaning: to take one into confidence as a way to share and keep secrets, but also the confidence to take control of a situation and remain assured of the desired outcome. It feels almost like a companion piece to Daisy Miller, as if it should be published alongside that novella in textbooks or critical editions. The male protagonist, Bernard, is wonderfully self-effacing, and therefore much easier to like than Winterbourne. By the end of the novel, the reader appreciates James' ability to manage the love quadrangle (a favorite Jamesian motif) in a way that is insightful, while giving the reader a satisfying conclusion. Compared to some of his more famous works, Confidence is light entertainment; however, the novel is still a pleasure to read just for fun.