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A review by foggy_rosamund
The Bostonians by Henry James
3.0
Basil Ransom moves to New York some time in the 1870s because, following the civil war, he can no longer own slaves on his family's cotton plantation. Unhappy and deeply dissatisfied with the world, he visits a cousin, Olive Chancellor, in Boston, who is a Suffragist. While with Olive, he meets Verena Tarrant, a beautiful and charming young woman, who is a public speaker, advocating for women's right to vote. Basil Ransom is deeply conservative and reactionary, but becomes obsessed with Verena, and starts to follow her and demand her attentions.
To a modern reader, it seems that Basil is a terrible and jaded man, who cannot stand seeing a woman who is self-possessed and does not need him, and therefore becomes obsessed with owning her. He is clearly in the wrong at all times, and reading his thoughts and conversation is infuriating. However, I'm not sure this is James' intention: James is also highly satirical in his descriptions of the suffragists, and he seems to believe that their position is wrong-headed. However, it's hard to believe he's in sympathy with Ransom, either. Verena's impression of Ransom, for example, is not complimentary: She knew he was an intense conservative, but she didn't know that being a conservative could make a person so aggressive and unmerciful. She thought conservatives were only smug and stubborn and self-complacent, satisfied with what actually existed; but Mr Ransom didn't seem any more satisfied with what existed than what she wanted to exist.
There's also an element in the novel that suggests that Olive Chancellor is a lesbian, and her attachment to Verena Tarrant is a romantic one. An early description of Olive made me smile, because while it comes across as satirical, it's also an excellent 19th century code for "this is a lesbian": There are women who are unmarried by accident, and other who are unmarried by option; but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry. It's interesting to read this book as a love triangle, and it increases the sense of tension, but also makes the conclusion even more tragic.
This is, overall, a difficult book. The first 200 pages are often dull or full of irrelevance, and, while the rest of it is more engaging, it's also depressing and enraging much of the time. I struggle to know what to make of this: its ultimate meaning is illusive, and probably more conservative than it initially seems. It's also very sad, but it is a James novel so that's no surprise.
To a modern reader, it seems that Basil is a terrible and jaded man, who cannot stand seeing a woman who is self-possessed and does not need him, and therefore becomes obsessed with owning her. He is clearly in the wrong at all times, and reading his thoughts and conversation is infuriating. However, I'm not sure this is James' intention: James is also highly satirical in his descriptions of the suffragists, and he seems to believe that their position is wrong-headed. However, it's hard to believe he's in sympathy with Ransom, either. Verena's impression of Ransom, for example, is not complimentary: She knew he was an intense conservative, but she didn't know that being a conservative could make a person so aggressive and unmerciful. She thought conservatives were only smug and stubborn and self-complacent, satisfied with what actually existed; but Mr Ransom didn't seem any more satisfied with what existed than what she wanted to exist.
There's also an element in the novel that suggests that Olive Chancellor is a lesbian, and her attachment to Verena Tarrant is a romantic one. An early description of Olive made me smile, because while it comes across as satirical, it's also an excellent 19th century code for "this is a lesbian": There are women who are unmarried by accident, and other who are unmarried by option; but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry. It's interesting to read this book as a love triangle, and it increases the sense of tension, but also makes the conclusion even more tragic.
This is, overall, a difficult book. The first 200 pages are often dull or full of irrelevance, and, while the rest of it is more engaging, it's also depressing and enraging much of the time. I struggle to know what to make of this: its ultimate meaning is illusive, and probably more conservative than it initially seems. It's also very sad, but it is a James novel so that's no surprise.