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A review by willowbiblio
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
"She rested her weariness upon things that had crumbled for centuries and yet still were upright; she dropped her secret sadness into the silence of lonely places, where its very modern quality detached itself and grew objective, so that as she sat in a sun-warmed angle on a winter's day, or stood in a mouldy church to which no one came, she could almost smile at it and think of its smallness."
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This was so close to 5 stars, but some of the slower paced scene setting and character descriptions bored me to tears.
I found it so interesting that the novel as a whole metamorphized along with Isabel. It began as a fairly light, whimsical, and silly story- especially the wry humor in dialogue. As she got further from her self and deeper entangled in others' plots/intrigue, the tone of the novel became more serious and melancholy.
I also loved the parallel of Touchett Sr. and Ralph Touchett dying at Gardencourt, an unchanging place, but Isabel underwent extreme challenges and changes and so she herself was almost an entirely other person, echoing the actions but not the sentiments of the earlier death in the novel. This made the contrast even more clear.
What she was most afraid of, losing her freedom, came to pass in part out of the ignorance/arrogance of youth. Each of the women in Isabel's life represented a distinct kind of womanhood- all held up in sequence as potential lives for Isabel. In the end, she chose none of them.
There was also a kind of bitter irony that Ralph's intention to free Isabel through financial independence was the thing that led to her capture. Without her wealth, Osmond would never have pursued Isabel. It seems James wanted to lay the blame foremost with Osmond, because he gives us sympathetic insight into Mme Merle's motives and wretchedness, but really they all played a part.
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This was so close to 5 stars, but some of the slower paced scene setting and character descriptions bored me to tears.
I found it so interesting that the novel as a whole metamorphized along with Isabel. It began as a fairly light, whimsical, and silly story- especially the wry humor in dialogue. As she got further from her self and deeper entangled in others' plots/intrigue, the tone of the novel became more serious and melancholy.
What she was most afraid of, losing her freedom, came to pass in part out of the ignorance/arrogance of youth. Each of the women in Isabel's life represented a distinct kind of womanhood- all held up in sequence as potential lives for Isabel. In the end, she chose none of them.