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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
I have heard of this book, but not knowing the plot, I thought this was gonna be a romance about a free spirited young lady, I ended up being wrong. I find Isabel quite relatable in the beginning, despite being kind of a Mary Sue, but poor, poor Isabel for the rest of the book. This book is about betrayal, independence, devotion, elitism, progressive America v. traditional Europe, and so many more. I'd say it's pretty underwhelming, I can't really pinpoint it, I just don't feel like Henry James writes the ladies very well in this book, but it's still a good work of literature, James went very in depth with his characters, putting the readers into their minds, will read more books by him.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
That was a long and chaotic journey through the book. I had questions all along the book and to be honest I still ask myself about some of the characters’ behavior. I still don’t understand Isabel’s choices nor why Goodwood never tried to get over her. I felt so sad and bad for Ralph. He was the only character I love since the beginning to the end of the book and he had to die??? He said the saddest thing of the book. In the end I couldn’t even feel bad for Isabel because she chose to marry Osmond when everybody told her not to. I still feel sad because she does not have the happily ever after she deserves but, in a way, she chose her fate? I mean she was not forced to marry him she could have had say that she needed time just like she did with Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton. Osmond and Madame Merle are not innocent though. They kind of tricked Isabel in this marriage without telling her everything. Caspar Goodwood never found his happy ever after but at the same time he never tried. He knew Isabel would never have go with him after she married but he still tried to have her until the very end he didn’t try at all. Even Lord Warburton married because he had to marry someone and never forgot Isabel. In my opinion even Henrietta does not have a happily ever after because she ended up marrying someone. Nobody got the happily ever after they deserved. It pains me to admit it, but Ralph is the only one who had the end he wished for? He died with Isabel near him.
To be honest even if I really tried to enjoy the book, I cannot bring myself to think about things I really enjoyed. I think the realism created something to depressed for me to enjoy it. In the end nobody is really happy with their ending and I don’t like this kind of ending. I appreciate more Emma and Pride and Prejudice.
It was still an interesting book as it shows a lot about Henry James’ century and people’s way of life during his century. Also, I think it is great to have the point of view of an American writer on English people and that’s also why I think this book is really different from Emma. For me the book seemed to talk about real life and real problems of American and English marriages and it is not my favorite topic in books. But I have to admit that Henry James really had an interesting writing.
During my reading I asked myself what was love quite often. And I still don’t have an answer because at that time love was really different than today and I think that is why I cannot understand everything, because I don’t have the view they had back in those days.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment
Minor: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship
I don't really know why men think they should be writing books about the female experience. Then or now, it makes no sense to me.
I liked the character of Isabel in a lot of ways but like I hate that this woman who everyone describes as independent and strong-willed, who says many times that she's never going to get married and then she gets married?? To THAT guy??? Disappointing. I knew she was going to get married obviously because this is a book from the 1800's I would have expected nothing else, but I'm still disappointed.
Also why is everyone in this book such yappers? They can all just go on and on and like...this isn't how people talk in real life, I refuse to believe it's even how people talked in real life back then. Like just going on and on and on, even when it makes no sense to keep talking like they're soliloquizing. Big rambles like that only make sense in play format, not in novel format.
This would have been much better if it was like 200 pages shorter
I liked the character of Isabel in a lot of ways but like I hate that this woman who everyone describes as independent and strong-willed, who says many times that she's never going to get married and then she gets married?? To THAT guy??? Disappointing. I knew she was going to get married obviously because this is a book from the 1800's I would have expected nothing else, but I'm still disappointed.
Also why is everyone in this book such yappers? They can all just go on and on and like...this isn't how people talk in real life, I refuse to believe it's even how people talked in real life back then. Like just going on and on and on, even when it makes no sense to keep talking like they're soliloquizing. Big rambles like that only make sense in play format, not in novel format.
This would have been much better if it was like 200 pages shorter
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
tense
medium-paced
The strengths of The Portrait of A Lady outweigh it’s aesthetics limitations and outlast the rages of it’s creator. The novel was serialized twice- Both In Macmillan’s magazine, and in 14 straight issues of the Atlantic-and it doesn’t have the impeccable structure and organic feel that one sees in his short stories. The form of the serial is subject to an editorial fiat that doesn’t necessarily jibe with the the design of a novel: one is subject to demands in regards to word count and each installment having a identity of it’s own. Unless the novelist has already put their work together or make extensive edits, the work isn’t going to necessarily congeal as a whole.( and in Portrait, James did neither sufficently).
There is also the matter of intent, and here I have to voice my hesitancy. Speaking as someone who first came to James via The Bostonians(his novelistic hit job on the women’s movement of the time) and Italian Hours( Where he raged about the tyranny of women’s voices, and complained about women’s “too advanced” status in culture 30 years before the suffrage movement), it was hard for me to read the arc of Isabel Archer’s story- a woman who rebuffs two successful yet doltish nice guys and gets into a fucked up marriage afterward-and not think it a hit job on women’s autonomy. It was made harder still by James narrative intrusions:( His use of quotation marks when he spoke of Isabel as an “intellectual”, his boosterish love for Caspar Goodwood, and his tick of intrusive windy speechifying that pops up every 8 to 10 pages.)
What doesn’t make it that, In my opinion? Because for the most part, the story got away from him, and when the characters in Portrait run Away from James, the novel is in the ballpark of being as good as his most fervent boosters say it is. Like Tolstoy’s novelistic art was divorced from Tolstoy’s rabid moralism, the James who created Isabel Archer and the dynamics around her life was a different, more sympathetic, and infinitely more complex writer than the figure who raged about how women like her talk( or the pundit who intrudes in the flow of his own story). And the James who created such complex, exquisitely drawn side characters as Henrietta Stackpole, Ralph Touchett, and Edward Rosier will outlast the intellectually monochromatic essayist prone to the occasional Strindbergian outburst . Portrait may be a symbol laden dirigible of a novel-James tries to make statements on love, marriage, freedom, money, morals, decadence, America and Europe in one full book-yet it is to James’ credit-and gift for subtle characterization-that a great deal of them resonate. And his style! When he does lose him self in the dialogue and action of a scene(and isn’t beholden to the windy, comma spliced padding) James’ prose is as exquisite as his most fervent defenders say it is.
At it’s best, Portrait is a polyphonic meditation on independence, and tied to that independence is the almighty dollar. Money is central thing that haunts Isabel’s freedom, and the dark god that drives Madame Merle to puppet the marriage between her (Archer) and her boo, Gilbert Osmond. It also resonates in the stories Pansy Osmond-Gilbert and Merle’s daughter-being broken by/ made a cipher for her parents, and being cut at the knees by Isabel, who advises her against marrying the man she wants to marry. I wont go as far as to say that the villainy of Osmond and Merle completely escape caricature, but James does draw out a sketch of two narcissists in love and ( in moments) almost makes you care them.
Once can also see the effect of money and freedom in the characters that serve as more effective and believable metaphors for America. Unlike Osmond(the charming art collector who devolves into a character of near Dostoevskian darkness) Edward Rosier is introduced as a synthetically snobbish, conservative trying to “come up” in the art world, but his love for Pansy, inner agonies and renouncing of status makes him a genuinely tragic character. As an observer, gadfly, and world class muckraker , Henrietta Stackpole plants the flag for the USA quite well and wonderfully, but her strong and loyal friendship with Isabel turns out to have several sad shades to it. (In letters James expressed unease and disdain for Henrietta, which speak both to James and the extent the novel is divorced from him)
Less compelling -and I will admit I might be in the minority in my opinion-are the characters of her first two suitors( Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton) I get that it was James intent to make him Goodwood dense and a bit overbearing, but the effect is heavy handed here and whatever way James was using him as a Symbol to say about America feels leaden. I also get that Warburton-a dunderhead good guy with nothing wrong with him save the fact that Isabel just doesn’t want to marry the guy-exists as a cipher for James’ greater point, Isabel’s freedom, agency and right to make her own damm decisions. His love for both men, however, is a distraction to the novels and almost muddies his point. Reading them, I got the same millstone to a narrative feeling that I got from reading the black criminals in Saul Bellow’s minor novels: I’m sure men like them exist, but you don’t get cookies for flatly putting them on the page.
In the end of Portrait Of A Lady-particularly in the last 150 pages, when Isabel realizes her husband is in love with Madam Merle and her life spins into a cycle of benign chaos-James the artist trumps James the polemic. He remains a darker and more complex figure than canon fetishists care to admit. In his attempt to come to terms withwomen’s rights, he often showed uglier sides to his personality. ( Even the lauded essays on Women that he respected always came with the caveat that he thought them exceptions to their gender) There is too much intellectual dry rot and sewage in James’ work for me to make him a saint, but there is too much quality in his fiction for me-or the reader interested in history of the English language novel to ignore him. The best I can say about The Portrait Of A Lady-“baggy monster” it may be-is that it’s a good novel that shouldn’t be ignored.
There is also the matter of intent, and here I have to voice my hesitancy. Speaking as someone who first came to James via The Bostonians(his novelistic hit job on the women’s movement of the time) and Italian Hours( Where he raged about the tyranny of women’s voices, and complained about women’s “too advanced” status in culture 30 years before the suffrage movement), it was hard for me to read the arc of Isabel Archer’s story- a woman who rebuffs two successful yet doltish nice guys and gets into a fucked up marriage afterward-and not think it a hit job on women’s autonomy. It was made harder still by James narrative intrusions:( His use of quotation marks when he spoke of Isabel as an “intellectual”, his boosterish love for Caspar Goodwood, and his tick of intrusive windy speechifying that pops up every 8 to 10 pages.)
What doesn’t make it that, In my opinion? Because for the most part, the story got away from him, and when the characters in Portrait run Away from James, the novel is in the ballpark of being as good as his most fervent boosters say it is. Like Tolstoy’s novelistic art was divorced from Tolstoy’s rabid moralism, the James who created Isabel Archer and the dynamics around her life was a different, more sympathetic, and infinitely more complex writer than the figure who raged about how women like her talk( or the pundit who intrudes in the flow of his own story). And the James who created such complex, exquisitely drawn side characters as Henrietta Stackpole, Ralph Touchett, and Edward Rosier will outlast the intellectually monochromatic essayist prone to the occasional Strindbergian outburst . Portrait may be a symbol laden dirigible of a novel-James tries to make statements on love, marriage, freedom, money, morals, decadence, America and Europe in one full book-yet it is to James’ credit-and gift for subtle characterization-that a great deal of them resonate. And his style! When he does lose him self in the dialogue and action of a scene(and isn’t beholden to the windy, comma spliced padding) James’ prose is as exquisite as his most fervent defenders say it is.
At it’s best, Portrait is a polyphonic meditation on independence, and tied to that independence is the almighty dollar. Money is central thing that haunts Isabel’s freedom, and the dark god that drives Madame Merle to puppet the marriage between her (Archer) and her boo, Gilbert Osmond. It also resonates in the stories Pansy Osmond-Gilbert and Merle’s daughter-being broken by/ made a cipher for her parents, and being cut at the knees by Isabel, who advises her against marrying the man she wants to marry. I wont go as far as to say that the villainy of Osmond and Merle completely escape caricature, but James does draw out a sketch of two narcissists in love and ( in moments) almost makes you care them.
Once can also see the effect of money and freedom in the characters that serve as more effective and believable metaphors for America. Unlike Osmond(the charming art collector who devolves into a character of near Dostoevskian darkness) Edward Rosier is introduced as a synthetically snobbish, conservative trying to “come up” in the art world, but his love for Pansy, inner agonies and renouncing of status makes him a genuinely tragic character. As an observer, gadfly, and world class muckraker , Henrietta Stackpole plants the flag for the USA quite well and wonderfully, but her strong and loyal friendship with Isabel turns out to have several sad shades to it. (In letters James expressed unease and disdain for Henrietta, which speak both to James and the extent the novel is divorced from him)
Less compelling -and I will admit I might be in the minority in my opinion-are the characters of her first two suitors( Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton) I get that it was James intent to make him Goodwood dense and a bit overbearing, but the effect is heavy handed here and whatever way James was using him as a Symbol to say about America feels leaden. I also get that Warburton-a dunderhead good guy with nothing wrong with him save the fact that Isabel just doesn’t want to marry the guy-exists as a cipher for James’ greater point, Isabel’s freedom, agency and right to make her own damm decisions. His love for both men, however, is a distraction to the novels and almost muddies his point. Reading them, I got the same millstone to a narrative feeling that I got from reading the black criminals in Saul Bellow’s minor novels: I’m sure men like them exist, but you don’t get cookies for flatly putting them on the page.
In the end of Portrait Of A Lady-particularly in the last 150 pages, when Isabel realizes her husband is in love with Madam Merle and her life spins into a cycle of benign chaos-James the artist trumps James the polemic. He remains a darker and more complex figure than canon fetishists care to admit. In his attempt to come to terms withwomen’s rights, he often showed uglier sides to his personality. ( Even the lauded essays on Women that he respected always came with the caveat that he thought them exceptions to their gender) There is too much intellectual dry rot and sewage in James’ work for me to make him a saint, but there is too much quality in his fiction for me-or the reader interested in history of the English language novel to ignore him. The best I can say about The Portrait Of A Lady-“baggy monster” it may be-is that it’s a good novel that shouldn’t be ignored.
Izborila sam se sa Henrijem na "mišiće"; prva trećina je bila lepršava, zabavna, a druge dve trećine su se vukle i više mi se smučila i naša junakinja Izabel i svi njeni prosci.
Možda bi mi se ovo više dopalo da sam čitala u originalu (Edvard Rozije se sam od sebe na nekoliko mesta preimenovao u Edmonda), ali bojala sam se da će to biti preveliki zalogaj.
Bilo je dragulja tu i tamo, poput:
"Grofici Đemini često je bilo dosadno - umirala je od dosade, kako je sama govorila. Ali umrla nije i hrabro se nosila sa svojom sudbinom (...)"
i
"Dolazio je i ser Metju Houp, ali Ralfu je ovaj čuveni lekar dosadio i rekao je majci da mu napiše da je već umro, pa da njegova lekarska pomoć nije više potrebna. Gospođa Tačet mu je, međutim, prosto stavila do znanja da ga njen sin ne podnosi i da ne treba da dolazi."
Koliko bi bilo zabavnije da je cela knjiga bila u ovom tonu - nažalost, Izabel i dalje nisam upoznala i posle 700+ stranica. Do čega je njoj uopšte stalo na kraju? I ovaj otvoreni kraj me nije zadovoljio jer nemam predstavu šta bi ona sama uradila. Stekla sam utisak da Džejms baš i nije pronikao u žensku "suštinu"; bolje je prikazao sve ženske sporedne likove, koji su klizili ka stereotipima ali možda je to njegov najveći domet? Sledeća na redu mi je njegova "Krila golubice", nadam se da će to ići bolje (čitajte: nadam se da je prevod prihvatljiviji.)
Možda bi mi se ovo više dopalo da sam čitala u originalu (Edvard Rozije se sam od sebe na nekoliko mesta preimenovao u Edmonda), ali bojala sam se da će to biti preveliki zalogaj.
Bilo je dragulja tu i tamo, poput:
"Grofici Đemini često je bilo dosadno - umirala je od dosade, kako je sama govorila. Ali umrla nije i hrabro se nosila sa svojom sudbinom (...)"
i
"Dolazio je i ser Metju Houp, ali Ralfu je ovaj čuveni lekar dosadio i rekao je majci da mu napiše da je već umro, pa da njegova lekarska pomoć nije više potrebna. Gospođa Tačet mu je, međutim, prosto stavila do znanja da ga njen sin ne podnosi i da ne treba da dolazi."
Koliko bi bilo zabavnije da je cela knjiga bila u ovom tonu - nažalost, Izabel i dalje nisam upoznala i posle 700+ stranica. Do čega je njoj uopšte stalo na kraju? I ovaj otvoreni kraj me nije zadovoljio jer nemam predstavu šta bi ona sama uradila. Stekla sam utisak da Džejms baš i nije pronikao u žensku "suštinu"; bolje je prikazao sve ženske sporedne likove, koji su klizili ka stereotipima ali možda je to njegov najveći domet? Sledeća na redu mi je njegova "Krila golubice", nadam se da će to ići bolje (čitajte: nadam se da je prevod prihvatljiviji.)
I wrote my college theseis paper on Henry James, although I don't love his works, and this was one of the novels that I focused on.
emotional
hopeful
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
Much better than the first time I read it - the four stars given last year was definitely out of the ol' 'classic' proxy, but hey. Enjoyed it a lot when I had more time to read it and really absorb the long sentences and pages. However, the book is too long. The whole Pansy marriage plot is just not needed, in my opinion. But overall it's a super solid book with some great twists and that. Few write better dialogue than James.
It's weird... like it's a good book but it's nothing to get excited about??? You just finish it and you're like: "hmm, yeah! Okay. That was good." And what else can you say, you know. It's just like, yeah! That was certainly a novel.
It's weird... like it's a good book but it's nothing to get excited about??? You just finish it and you're like: "hmm, yeah! Okay. That was good." And what else can you say, you know. It's just like, yeah! That was certainly a novel.