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A review by fionnualalirsdottir
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Reading [b:The Ambassadors|28363994|The Ambassadors|Henry James|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459112559l/28363994._SY75_.jpg|1395409] is like progressing through a circular maze. The reader roams around the edges at first, coming up frequently against dead ends. Why is Chad Newsome so difficult to figure out? What are the author’s intentions for Maria Gostrey? Will Mrs Newsome, or even her more formidable-sounding daughter, Mrs Pocock, ever make a physical appearance in the story? The enigmas in this early stage are such that if the reader found herself accidentally back at the start she might be tempted to abandon the maze altogether. But it would be a difficult choice to make because in all her frustrated revolvings she has nevertheless passed through some exquisite passages. She continues, and little by little she finds herself circling a smaller space, and she tells herself that perhaps she is finally getting closer to the heart of the story. Yet even when a new direction seems full of promise, she still comes up against the same blind alleys as before and she despairs of ever getting to the centre.
At this stage she stops worrying about finishing. She's enjoying the convoluted paths, taking her time and appreciating every twist and turn. She is blissful in the face of the beauty of certain passages and asks for nothing more than to spend the rest of her life deciphering Jamesian sentences.
Her bliss is soon disturbed by a new preoccupation. In her circling she has picked up a companion. Lambert Strether, the main character in this third person narrative, seems to be walking in her footsteps or she in his. She may not understand all his thoughts and desires but she empathizes with him fully as he too circles the central facts of the story, enjoying the beauty along the way but encountering the same dead ends as herself. And while she enjoys Strether's company very much, her discomfort arises from a fear that he may come to grief before the end, and she herself alongside him.
There are many pitfalls in Strether's path: he is being used by almost every other character in the narrative while nevertheless trying to serve everyone to the best of his abilities. The reader wants to warn him of the dangers, to whisper, watch out, Strether. But she has learned something from Maria Gostrey. Silent support is what Strether requires at this point, especially as he is about to face the daunting Mrs Pocock, looming forth from what seems like another blind alley.
But Mrs Pocock’s bulk fails to hide the opening leading to the centre of the maze:
The reader can only be in awe of the writer’s skill in delivering her, right alongside his main character, to the heart of the story—in one blinding flash. She looks back at the manner in which she read the earlier sections and realises she was an innocent then, incapable yet of understanding. Now it has all come to mean something different; she has grown and changed just as Strether has changed: He had heard, of old, only what he could then hear; what he could do now was to think of three months ago as a point in the far past
If Lambert Strether and the reader finally reach the point of brutal lucidity, it is thanks to the unassuming character of Maria Gostrey. We wondered at the beginning about her role in the story. It is very simple: James needed her to keep the thread. Without her, there would be no way, happy or unhappy, for the reader to exit the maze that is [b:The Ambassadors|28363994|The Ambassadors|Henry James|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459112559l/28363994._SY75_.jpg|1395409].
At this stage she stops worrying about finishing. She's enjoying the convoluted paths, taking her time and appreciating every twist and turn. She is blissful in the face of the beauty of certain passages and asks for nothing more than to spend the rest of her life deciphering Jamesian sentences.
Her bliss is soon disturbed by a new preoccupation. In her circling she has picked up a companion. Lambert Strether, the main character in this third person narrative, seems to be walking in her footsteps or she in his. She may not understand all his thoughts and desires but she empathizes with him fully as he too circles the central facts of the story, enjoying the beauty along the way but encountering the same dead ends as herself. And while she enjoys Strether's company very much, her discomfort arises from a fear that he may come to grief before the end, and she herself alongside him.
There are many pitfalls in Strether's path: he is being used by almost every other character in the narrative while nevertheless trying to serve everyone to the best of his abilities. The reader wants to warn him of the dangers, to whisper, watch out, Strether. But she has learned something from Maria Gostrey. Silent support is what Strether requires at this point, especially as he is about to face the daunting Mrs Pocock, looming forth from what seems like another blind alley.
But Mrs Pocock’s bulk fails to hide the opening leading to the centre of the maze:
the jump was but short to supreme lucidity. Light became indeed after that so intense that Strether would doubtless have but half made out, in the prodigious glare, by which of the two the issue had been in fact precipitated. It was, in their contracted quarters, as much there between them as if it had been something suddenly spilled with a crash and a splash on the floor.
The reader can only be in awe of the writer’s skill in delivering her, right alongside his main character, to the heart of the story—in one blinding flash. She looks back at the manner in which she read the earlier sections and realises she was an innocent then, incapable yet of understanding. Now it has all come to mean something different; she has grown and changed just as Strether has changed: He had heard, of old, only what he could then hear; what he could do now was to think of three months ago as a point in the far past
If Lambert Strether and the reader finally reach the point of brutal lucidity, it is thanks to the unassuming character of Maria Gostrey. We wondered at the beginning about her role in the story. It is very simple: James needed her to keep the thread. Without her, there would be no way, happy or unhappy, for the reader to exit the maze that is [b:The Ambassadors|28363994|The Ambassadors|Henry James|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459112559l/28363994._SY75_.jpg|1395409].