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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Read this while working on my MA degree. A striking example of James' powerful style.
Text number eight in my complete chronological read-through of Henry James' major works.
Ok, so this is pretty much his most popular work, yet I have very mixed feelings about it. It is, as its admirers say, amazingly ambitious, wonderfully precise, filled with gorgeously crafted sentences (with more than a few great witty zingers from witty characters), interesting characters, compelling dialogue and scenes, and yet...
...my first complaint is the silliness of some of the character names. I find it unfathomable that the man who crafted so much greatness, so many complex and beautiful sentences, would name a character in a serious novel Goodwood and think that it was ok, or Stockpole, or Touchett, Pansy, or even Warburton--although if the other names hadn't been so silly that one could probably pass. It just sounds slipshod and cheapens the book. This also signals to me, as I've said in previous James reviews, that I feel him stuck always somewhere between Dickensian drollery and Eliot profundity and this conflict is even more clear in Portrait of a Lady than in his other works I think. He wants to write an Eliot heroine, but being male and a bachelor and always fussing over these little side characters and their follies, he just can't quite pull it off. Somehow I just find these two registers incompatible and James's slippage into the Dickensian always grates on me.
Having opened up critically, then, over these minutiae, I began to muse more and more on our heroine here, Ms. Archer, and I began to see her as a kind of second coming of Daisy Miller from James's first great success of that name. If you look back at my review of that text you'll see it's certainly my least favorite James, specifically because the vacuity of the protagonist also grated on me.
Yes, some people are beautiful and vacuous, but I'd simply rather read about ugly, complicated people--yes, I found Gilbert Osmond actually refreshing here! Which is perhaps another flaw of this novel: when you'd so much rather sit down to dinner with the villain than the heroine...danger! Look, Isabel Archer is a great improvement on Daisy Miller, but I never did quite feel a center to her. All she is is curious and expectant. This might be the point. Perhaps the ending is ambiguous because she is so ambiguous and the reason the narrative has to end where it does is because she finally actually does something to begin to construct a character, realizes who she is, at this rather late date. That's an idea--but 800 pages of expectancy and suspension of self-realization is a lot. If this is the narrative's raison d'etre, I feel a bit cheated to have seen so much of her life and not seen the epiphany.
As in other James novels, the protagonist here acts as a kind of a stand-in for the narrative's/reader's POV, which is why Isabel Archer works for many readers, I suppose. We see the whole story pretty much through her eyes so simply project ourselves onto her. I just couldn't. I kept seeking her and all I got was people wanting to make her into something (including the author!), and her choosing to accept or not accept their offers, but I never really got any desire from her. (Spoiler: the two things this injudicious lady will eventually choose will be the wrong ones, another point making her less attractive as a character.) Again, perhaps that's the novel's point, and it's as interesting idea, but also a bit of a gyp in the end. Let's face it, the novel should have been called "Portrait of Getting Married" painted by a lady of great expectations but no real substance. Again with the Dickens! We're told several times how smart she is but I never really saw it. (We readers figure out what's going on with Madame Merle and Osmond long before Isabel does and even when she does the character who tells her berates her both for not having seen it sooner or even understanding it when it's explained to her--there is a point where innocence becomes stupidity and Isabel treads dangerously close in this scene.)
The much more interesting character here is obviously Madame Merle. Love, betrayal, conflict, renunciation, sorrow, regret, poverty--much more interesting than anything Isabel ever feels. Where's her novel? I want to resurrect Jean Rhys to write Madame Merle's version of the story.
PS: This old Gothic specialist couldn't help but notice and mention here the delicious Gothic tropes of a novel set mostly in Italy, as most of the early Gothics are, especially toward the end of the story--the dark and spacious Villa Roccanera (blackcastle) and the scary monastery where Pansy is sequestered, just like the Gothic heroines of old, which Isabel in her visit experiences much like the heroes being dragged before the inquisition in Ann Radcliffe's potboilers.
I loved these allusions--their touch was perfect. Also noted a couple of allusions perhaps to Madame de Stael's Corinne, whose Oswalt character (a personification of a dark, brooding Gothic England) perhaps at least partially inspired Osmond?--even if he is supposed to be American. The title character of that novel is a poet and personification of Italy. Osmond's mother is also a poet and "The American Corinne." Telling, I should think. He's somehow the bastard child of an American poet wanting to be Italy. Maybe I only criticize this novel because I have so much more in common with its villain than its heroine.
Ok, so this is pretty much his most popular work, yet I have very mixed feelings about it. It is, as its admirers say, amazingly ambitious, wonderfully precise, filled with gorgeously crafted sentences (with more than a few great witty zingers from witty characters), interesting characters, compelling dialogue and scenes, and yet...
...my first complaint is the silliness of some of the character names. I find it unfathomable that the man who crafted so much greatness, so many complex and beautiful sentences, would name a character in a serious novel Goodwood and think that it was ok, or Stockpole, or Touchett, Pansy, or even Warburton--although if the other names hadn't been so silly that one could probably pass. It just sounds slipshod and cheapens the book. This also signals to me, as I've said in previous James reviews, that I feel him stuck always somewhere between Dickensian drollery and Eliot profundity and this conflict is even more clear in Portrait of a Lady than in his other works I think. He wants to write an Eliot heroine, but being male and a bachelor and always fussing over these little side characters and their follies, he just can't quite pull it off. Somehow I just find these two registers incompatible and James's slippage into the Dickensian always grates on me.
Having opened up critically, then, over these minutiae, I began to muse more and more on our heroine here, Ms. Archer, and I began to see her as a kind of second coming of Daisy Miller from James's first great success of that name. If you look back at my review of that text you'll see it's certainly my least favorite James, specifically because the vacuity of the protagonist also grated on me.
Yes, some people are beautiful and vacuous, but I'd simply rather read about ugly, complicated people--yes, I found Gilbert Osmond actually refreshing here! Which is perhaps another flaw of this novel: when you'd so much rather sit down to dinner with the villain than the heroine...danger! Look, Isabel Archer is a great improvement on Daisy Miller, but I never did quite feel a center to her. All she is is curious and expectant. This might be the point. Perhaps the ending is ambiguous because she is so ambiguous and the reason the narrative has to end where it does is because she finally actually does something to begin to construct a character, realizes who she is, at this rather late date. That's an idea--but 800 pages of expectancy and suspension of self-realization is a lot. If this is the narrative's raison d'etre, I feel a bit cheated to have seen so much of her life and not seen the epiphany.
As in other James novels, the protagonist here acts as a kind of a stand-in for the narrative's/reader's POV, which is why Isabel Archer works for many readers, I suppose. We see the whole story pretty much through her eyes so simply project ourselves onto her. I just couldn't. I kept seeking her and all I got was people wanting to make her into something (including the author!), and her choosing to accept or not accept their offers, but I never really got any desire from her. (Spoiler: the two things this injudicious lady will eventually choose will be the wrong ones, another point making her less attractive as a character.) Again, perhaps that's the novel's point, and it's as interesting idea, but also a bit of a gyp in the end. Let's face it, the novel should have been called "Portrait of Getting Married" painted by a lady of great expectations but no real substance. Again with the Dickens! We're told several times how smart she is but I never really saw it. (We readers figure out what's going on with Madame Merle and Osmond long before Isabel does and even when she does the character who tells her berates her both for not having seen it sooner or even understanding it when it's explained to her--there is a point where innocence becomes stupidity and Isabel treads dangerously close in this scene.)
The much more interesting character here is obviously Madame Merle. Love, betrayal, conflict, renunciation, sorrow, regret, poverty--much more interesting than anything Isabel ever feels. Where's her novel? I want to resurrect Jean Rhys to write Madame Merle's version of the story.
PS: This old Gothic specialist couldn't help but notice and mention here the delicious Gothic tropes of a novel set mostly in Italy, as most of the early Gothics are, especially toward the end of the story--the dark and spacious Villa Roccanera (blackcastle) and the scary monastery where Pansy is sequestered, just like the Gothic heroines of old, which Isabel in her visit experiences much like the heroes being dragged before the inquisition in Ann Radcliffe's potboilers.
I loved these allusions--their touch was perfect. Also noted a couple of allusions perhaps to Madame de Stael's Corinne, whose Oswalt character (a personification of a dark, brooding Gothic England) perhaps at least partially inspired Osmond?--even if he is supposed to be American. The title character of that novel is a poet and personification of Italy. Osmond's mother is also a poet and "The American Corinne." Telling, I should think. He's somehow the bastard child of an American poet wanting to be Italy. Maybe I only criticize this novel because I have so much more in common with its villain than its heroine.
I read this for a class and really enjoyed diving into James' writing and development of character. However I would not have picked this up on my own or let alone have finished it if not for a grade. Super interesting but very longwinded.
emotional
medium-paced
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I seriously want to bang my head against the wall after reading this book. I'm not saying Henry James isn't a good author I'm just saying he made the story go on FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was total torture. The "action" didn't even happen until maybe chapter 30 and that's me being considerate. The book's purpose is REALLY misleading because I thought the "evil" man Isabel married was an evil witch of a man but he was actually just a narcissistic piece of trash that she could have left and married someone better. I can't believe I wasted my time with this book. Just for future reference, if you ever have to do a book report DONT PICK THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gorgeous fucking prose. The language is textured, beautiful, sublime. Isabel Archer is the independent, imaginative, stubborn as a bull heroine with whom everyone should be acquainted.
I really thought she was going to marry Goodwood when he came back at the end but her decision to return to Rome, in spite of her misery, really caught me off guard! There are so many ways to read into it, but in my opinion right now, she did it because she didn't want to feel like a victim. She always wanted to be in control of her life and her decisions and in her mind, marrying Osmond was a decision she made, not one she was coerced into. The only way for her to find some resolution is to frame her life as her choices and her mistakes. She takes responsibility for her life, even when she could have written off her miserable marriage as the result of external factors (the odious fucking Madame Merle's scheming). Rather than view herself as an injured bird in need of rescuing, she stands by her decisions, this is the culmination of her independence and self-regard. I can't say I would have made the same decision but it did me good to witness Isabel make her own decisions and take responsibility of her own life.
Damn, Henry James, excellent work.
I really thought she was going to marry Goodwood when he came back at the end but her decision to return to Rome, in spite of her misery, really caught me off guard! There are so many ways to read into it, but in my opinion right now, she did it because she didn't want to feel like a victim. She always wanted to be in control of her life and her decisions and in her mind, marrying Osmond was a decision she made, not one she was coerced into. The only way for her to find some resolution is to frame her life as her choices and her mistakes. She takes responsibility for her life, even when she could have written off her miserable marriage as the result of external factors (the odious fucking Madame Merle's scheming). Rather than view herself as an injured bird in need of rescuing, she stands by her decisions, this is the culmination of her independence and self-regard. I can't say I would have made the same decision but it did me good to witness Isabel make her own decisions and take responsibility of her own life.
Damn, Henry James, excellent work.
meh.
This was a slog of a slog. the writing was...well it was a LOT. but it was fine. the dialogue was actually quicker and wittier than i had imagined going in. but i didn't like the protagonist. i do not feel like it was a great multidimensional female character written by a man, which is what EVERYONE has been saying about it. I think what they meant was, "it's a pretty good try at writing a female character...for a man. right?" but it's not. and there are men who can write multidimensional female characters. probably. i can't think of any right now, but probably. this one's not it.
i guess what i took from it and found interesting was that it made me reflect on the ways in which we are all complicit in our own doom & downfall. isabel certainly makes some stupid decisions and holds fast to philosophies that do not serve her well at all.
but also, cut that shit in HALF. cuz i just can't read any more pages. it is a length that implies great authorial self-indulgence.
This was a slog of a slog. the writing was...well it was a LOT. but it was fine. the dialogue was actually quicker and wittier than i had imagined going in. but i didn't like the protagonist. i do not feel like it was a great multidimensional female character written by a man, which is what EVERYONE has been saying about it. I think what they meant was, "it's a pretty good try at writing a female character...for a man. right?" but it's not. and there are men who can write multidimensional female characters. probably. i can't think of any right now, but probably. this one's not it.
i guess what i took from it and found interesting was that it made me reflect on the ways in which we are all complicit in our own doom & downfall. isabel certainly makes some stupid decisions and holds fast to philosophies that do not serve her well at all.
but also, cut that shit in HALF. cuz i just can't read any more pages. it is a length that implies great authorial self-indulgence.