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A review by duffypratt
The American by Henry James
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
For some reason, I thought I had read this before but I definitely had not. Either that, or my memory is way worse than I thought. Rather, I think what happened is that I had read the first page quite often when browsing book stores.
I liked this book quite a bit. It involves a nouveau riche American who abandons his businesses to go to Paris to get some culture and find a wife. He meets a poorer girl who is painting copies in the Louvre and commissions her to copy some paintings. He also meets a number of established well to do people and aristocrats, and among those he finds the women whom he resolves to marry.
The problem, of course, is that her impossibly snooty family disapproves of his having actually made his money, even though about half the family actually like him personally. Through this we get some interesting characters and some interesting foils to one another. I especially liked the portrayal of the copyist girl and her father. They only peripherally become involved in the main plot of the book, but they manage to be central to the entire thing anyways.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
She is a heartless social climber, who basically seeks only to advance herself. In the process, she also manages to support her father who has lost the means for supporting himself. And yet he despises her. She becomes central to a duel that is fought towards the end of the book, and the main character also comes to despise her for her heartlessness and social climbing. But in spite of everyone's disapproval of her, it's hard to see how she actually does anything wrong.
James has an interesting idea about rich Americans. The main character has made a ton of money in business. It's incredibly vague, and irrelevant to James, what his business was. He seems to be so far above the idea of making money that he refuses to soil his hands by even thinking about it. This is weird, since it shows that he despises the idea of making money. And yet the main prejudice the aristocrats hold against the protagonist is that he is "too commercial." They hold to the same distaste that James clearly has himself. Moreover, it's hard to believe that someone who made a ton of money by some means would then completely give up what he had spent his life doing to simply become an idle gentleman. It makes the main premise of the book a little hard to swallow.
The finale centers a note that supposedly proves that the Marquise had murdered her husband. It's a note written by him before he died. James gives us a translation of that note, and it proves that he suspected that she had tried to kill him. But it offers no details at all, and nothing more than accusations. Supposedly, this note will be the means for the protagonist to get his revenge. But it's too vague. And this is not vagueness in the way that later James is obstinately vague about almost everything. Rather, it just isn't enough to move the plot the way he wants it to move. I don't understand why he left things this way. Ultimately, for what occurs in the book, it doesn't matter, but it bothered me all the same.
Finally, there's a scene where the protagonist goes to the Rue d'Enfer (Road of Hell) to see the convent where his ex-fiance has cloistered herself in a nunnery. This was beautiful and quite touching. And the very ending has a touch of irony which is almost perfection.
This book is decidedly early to mid period James. It's by no means my favorite, but I still thought it was somewhere between very good to excellent. There are two others that I think I might have read, but am not sure - The Europeans and The Bostonians. Very slowly getting through all of these. In general, it seems I enjoy everything up through Portrait of a Lady, and then like and admire (but perhaps don't enjoy as much) his very late work. And then there's a period between them (The Spoils of Poynton, etc...) which I find fairly tedious. But I'm slowly working my way through.
I liked this book quite a bit. It involves a nouveau riche American who abandons his businesses to go to Paris to get some culture and find a wife. He meets a poorer girl who is painting copies in the Louvre and commissions her to copy some paintings. He also meets a number of established well to do people and aristocrats, and among those he finds the women whom he resolves to marry.
The problem, of course, is that her impossibly snooty family disapproves of his having actually made his money, even though about half the family actually like him personally. Through this we get some interesting characters and some interesting foils to one another. I especially liked the portrayal of the copyist girl and her father. They only peripherally become involved in the main plot of the book, but they manage to be central to the entire thing anyways.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
She is a heartless social climber, who basically seeks only to advance herself. In the process, she also manages to support her father who has lost the means for supporting himself. And yet he despises her. She becomes central to a duel that is fought towards the end of the book, and the main character also comes to despise her for her heartlessness and social climbing. But in spite of everyone's disapproval of her, it's hard to see how she actually does anything wrong.
James has an interesting idea about rich Americans. The main character has made a ton of money in business. It's incredibly vague, and irrelevant to James, what his business was. He seems to be so far above the idea of making money that he refuses to soil his hands by even thinking about it. This is weird, since it shows that he despises the idea of making money. And yet the main prejudice the aristocrats hold against the protagonist is that he is "too commercial." They hold to the same distaste that James clearly has himself. Moreover, it's hard to believe that someone who made a ton of money by some means would then completely give up what he had spent his life doing to simply become an idle gentleman. It makes the main premise of the book a little hard to swallow.
The finale centers a note that supposedly proves that the Marquise had murdered her husband. It's a note written by him before he died. James gives us a translation of that note, and it proves that he suspected that she had tried to kill him. But it offers no details at all, and nothing more than accusations. Supposedly, this note will be the means for the protagonist to get his revenge. But it's too vague. And this is not vagueness in the way that later James is obstinately vague about almost everything. Rather, it just isn't enough to move the plot the way he wants it to move. I don't understand why he left things this way. Ultimately, for what occurs in the book, it doesn't matter, but it bothered me all the same.
Finally, there's a scene where the protagonist goes to the Rue d'Enfer (Road of Hell) to see the convent where his ex-fiance has cloistered herself in a nunnery. This was beautiful and quite touching. And the very ending has a touch of irony which is almost perfection.
This book is decidedly early to mid period James. It's by no means my favorite, but I still thought it was somewhere between very good to excellent. There are two others that I think I might have read, but am not sure - The Europeans and The Bostonians. Very slowly getting through all of these. In general, it seems I enjoy everything up through Portrait of a Lady, and then like and admire (but perhaps don't enjoy as much) his very late work. And then there's a period between them (The Spoils of Poynton, etc...) which I find fairly tedious. But I'm slowly working my way through.