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duffypratt 's review for:
The Spoils of Poynton
by Henry James
This book probably represents James at his most annoying. Looking at it generously, there are 5 characters (though I think one of them does not actually make an appearance). Their world is cramped and claustrophobic. Their concerns, for the most part, seem to be petty. This is debatable, because everything with James at this point in his writing, seems to be pointing elsewhere - to something ineffable. The only problem is that things wouldn't seem so profound, mysterious, and ineffable, if only someone would just come out and say what they meant. For James, that becomes more and more difficult with his characters. They stubbornly, and endlessly, talk about the matter that concerns them most. But for the most part, they are so concerned with niceties and appearances that they never once come to the point. And this refusal to say what they mean leads to bad consequences for just about everyone involved. I won't say it leads to tragedy, because here I didn't think any of the characters merited a tragic end. They were all fairly base to begin with, I didn't feel bad when they got taken down.
The plot, like most of later James, is very simple. It could easily have been molded into a wonderful 20-30 page short story. Add the false starts, the hesitations, the circling back on things that were sort of decided but not really, and it balloons into a much bigger work. And I realize that all this sounds like I didn't like the book. But I did. I enjoy later James, even though I sometimes find it almost endlessly frustrating. I did not like this book as much as either The Wings of the Dove or The Golden Bowl. Here, it feels like he has just found a new approach to his writing and it doesn't sit all that well with the material he's presenting.
There was a philosopher at Cambridge in the early 1900s named G.E. Moore. He was vastly admired by the members of the Bloomsbury circle. They all thought him extremely profound. This, despite the fact that he rarely talked at any of their parties. The members of the circle took his reticence for deep thinking. But when someone asked him about this, he replied, "Perhaps its because I have nothing to say." I sometimes feel that way about the characters in these James books. They talk and talk at a subject or around a subject, but in the end I'm left wondering whether any of them have anything to say at all. All of their fine distinctions seem to be backed up by an engulfing emptiness. But unlike Moore, they don't stay quiet. Sometimes I'm glad that they don't. In this book, I wasn't quite so sure.
The plot, like most of later James, is very simple. It could easily have been molded into a wonderful 20-30 page short story. Add the false starts, the hesitations, the circling back on things that were sort of decided but not really, and it balloons into a much bigger work. And I realize that all this sounds like I didn't like the book. But I did. I enjoy later James, even though I sometimes find it almost endlessly frustrating. I did not like this book as much as either The Wings of the Dove or The Golden Bowl. Here, it feels like he has just found a new approach to his writing and it doesn't sit all that well with the material he's presenting.
There was a philosopher at Cambridge in the early 1900s named G.E. Moore. He was vastly admired by the members of the Bloomsbury circle. They all thought him extremely profound. This, despite the fact that he rarely talked at any of their parties. The members of the circle took his reticence for deep thinking. But when someone asked him about this, he replied, "Perhaps its because I have nothing to say." I sometimes feel that way about the characters in these James books. They talk and talk at a subject or around a subject, but in the end I'm left wondering whether any of them have anything to say at all. All of their fine distinctions seem to be backed up by an engulfing emptiness. But unlike Moore, they don't stay quiet. Sometimes I'm glad that they don't. In this book, I wasn't quite so sure.