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harlando 's review for:
The Aspern Papers
by Henry James
It's ok. Henry James is often described as having a timeless quality in his writing. I am not convinced.
The period shows on nearly every page. It's not just the propriety, servants, and idleness (James actually gives the servants more life than some of his contemporaries). It's not the plot either. You could bring Aspern's plot forward to the present. An amoral collector assumes a cover identity to get close to an old lady and her spinster niece in order to get a shot at some private correspondence from his favorite poet.
There is something in the narrators tone and mode of thinking that keeps it from connecting. I read Bartleby the Scrivener relatively recently. It's about 30 years older then Aspern Papers and is also a narrated account, and even though it's a bit stiff it easily transcends the 170 years to the present.
I also felt it had a stupid ending. It's a bit like the last scene in Titanic where she lets the necklace slip into the sea. It's not quite as bad, since Tina burning the papers is a "fuck you," to the scheming narrator rather than a total waste of resources, but its close enough to make a bad ending.
The period shows on nearly every page. It's not just the propriety, servants, and idleness (James actually gives the servants more life than some of his contemporaries). It's not the plot either. You could bring Aspern's plot forward to the present. An amoral collector assumes a cover identity to get close to an old lady and her spinster niece in order to get a shot at some private correspondence from his favorite poet.
There is something in the narrators tone and mode of thinking that keeps it from connecting. I read Bartleby the Scrivener relatively recently. It's about 30 years older then Aspern Papers and is also a narrated account, and even though it's a bit stiff it easily transcends the 170 years to the present.
I also felt it had a stupid ending. It's a bit like the last scene in Titanic where she lets the necklace slip into the sea. It's not quite as bad, since Tina burning the papers is a "fuck you," to the scheming narrator rather than a total waste of resources, but its close enough to make a bad ending.