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A review by alison_kinney
The Ambassadors by Henry James
5.0
This is not a review so much as a reaction. This is a great and surprising book. BUT, not one to take with you as your only book on a three-week Italian vacation: you need time, commitment, and above all focused attention to get anything out of it. You may think you'll want to do the whole Jamesian youngish-female-American-in-Europe thing, and have his lovely thoughts mirroring your own inevitable self-revelation, but in fact, when you aren't busy DOING the whole youngish-female-American-in-Europe thing, you will be too tired to take on any syntax as formidable as James's. You will try, but fall asleep with your face in the book before finishing the first paragraph. After having done this two or three times, you will, rather, reread your guidebook on parts of Europe you're not traveling to, or stare out the window, or stare into space, or even, I kid you not, read a book by Peter Mayle that you find abandoned in your rented apartment, rather than dare to face James again.
But afterwards, when you're pining away for the coffee and the art and the whole quality-of-life thing, you'll pick up your James and finish it in a blaze of glory. Five stars, because it's better than most of the other four-stars among my ratings, though it doesn't compare to the similarly Goodreads five-starred but ought-to-be bazillion-starred The Wings of the Dove.
**spoiler here**** And what did I learn from this book? That it is all too easy to be vulgar, even or especially as a reader. And that sometimes you have to give up everything ("Everything!") you have to avoid the sin of vulgarity, but that this sacrifice is worth it.
But afterwards, when you're pining away for the coffee and the art and the whole quality-of-life thing, you'll pick up your James and finish it in a blaze of glory. Five stars, because it's better than most of the other four-stars among my ratings, though it doesn't compare to the similarly Goodreads five-starred but ought-to-be bazillion-starred The Wings of the Dove.
**spoiler here**** And what did I learn from this book? That it is all too easy to be vulgar, even or especially as a reader. And that sometimes you have to give up everything ("Everything!") you have to avoid the sin of vulgarity, but that this sacrifice is worth it.