tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post1208543008342899190..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: A secret understanding about an apple-fritter - Henry James makes an effort to express the inexpressibleAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-31730495294251553052016-06-15T13:20:55.305-05:002016-06-15T13:20:55.305-05:00James's characters here have so much more life...James's characters here have so much more life in them than any of <i>Blithedale</i>'s abstractions.<br /><br />James omitted <i>Washington Square</i>, too. Writers get a vote, but fortunately so does everyone else. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72417983005806920412016-06-15T13:05:58.019-05:002016-06-15T13:05:58.019-05:00Good point. I managed to catch up with myself, or...Good point. I managed to catch up with myself, or at least my 2008 Bostonians self, and I remember a few things now, but I'm more confused/baffled than ever.<br /><br />There are all sorts of real/fictionalized characters in the book, and they mixed up and smashed together. I was quickly distracted by fictional/fictionalized characters, reading Blithedale shortly after Bostonians, and there's plenty of Zenobia in Olive C., and of course Blithedale itself is an actual cult. Those original American feminists were an intriguing bunch. I was pleasantly shocked by the way that James used Annie Fields and her library and residence on Charles Street, with the back windows looking out on the river, as the setting for his story and Ransome's arrival in Boston. But it seems like the antagonism James feels towards his Olive character is mostly based on his mixed feelings towards Katherine Loring.<br /><br />The other note I take away from looking back is wondering about ways in which the novel didn't work and was unpopular, how James left it out of his NY Edition, and how it was slighted in terms of critical attention. But we can enjoy reading it and find it fascinating. zhivhttp://zhiv.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-73317038376566472092016-06-13T19:51:41.609-05:002016-06-13T19:51:41.609-05:00After reading this novel, I was left a little baff...After reading this novel, I was left a little baffled by the association of the term "Boston marriage" with it. Is it supposed to include cults? Because Olive Chancellor is more like a cult leader.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13886196592726140002016-06-13T18:41:53.399-05:002016-06-13T18:41:53.399-05:00Guess I'm going to go read my own notes on thi...Guess I'm going to go read my own notes on this now. Is Olive Chancellor the Annie Fields character--who also contains elements of Katherine Loring/Alice James relationship. Thwarting a Boston marriage: that's comedy, Henry James comedy. zhivhttp://zhiv.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-7565988562242894882016-06-13T18:36:56.635-05:002016-06-13T18:36:56.635-05:00Cannibal novels is really good.Cannibal novels is really good.zhivhttp://zhiv.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-40214141721740041022016-06-08T23:23:52.719-05:002016-06-08T23:23:52.719-05:00A jaunt, I just put up a post about a jaunt.A jaunt, I just put up a post about a jaunt.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-54471248298054519652016-06-08T22:55:10.730-05:002016-06-08T22:55:10.730-05:00I think I prefer The Ambassadors of all James'...I think I prefer <i>The Ambassadors</i> of all James' novels. It's difficult only in the sense that it's a sly novel, the point-of-view character caught in a grand irony invisible to him, the narrator leaving the reader to figure it out with oblique clues. The language, however, is straightforward. There's a long exterior scene, where the protagonist goes for a jaunt outside of Paris, which is just beautiful.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-57992047971236473412016-06-08T19:19:06.071-05:002016-06-08T19:19:06.071-05:00Good, I knew some genuinely experienced James read...Good, I knew some genuinely experienced James readers would say something.<br /><br />"cannibal novels" - that's good. The ending in the theater is pushing things, yes.<br /><br />My three <i>DOmbey and Son</i> posts are 1) <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2009/07/hooroar-hooroar-i-finished-dombey-and.html" rel="nofollow">I finished it</a>, 2) <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2009/07/poor-walr-drownded-ant-he-more.html" rel="nofollow">characters</a>, and 3) <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2009/07/type-of-triumphant-monster-death-too.html" rel="nofollow">style</a> I didn't reread them; I promise nothing. Time has passed.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-17433583186256942612016-06-08T18:11:20.212-05:002016-06-08T18:11:20.212-05:00I've read the big three and although I think t...I've read the big three and although I think they're great I still prefer Portrait of a Lady. The later works are difficult and I found reading them aloud when one gets stuck helps, I belief that James was dictating at that point.<br /><br />I read The Bostonians a couple of years ago, My notes express displeasure with the stage door melodramatic, way too long, ending. I ranked it as one of James' cannibal novels, two characters in search of devouring the life force of a third. Some great scenes especially the walk in Central Park.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-26956725321800589602016-06-08T18:08:26.486-05:002016-06-08T18:08:26.486-05:00Tom: I'd love to read your dombey and son comm...Tom: I'd love to read your dombey and son comments. You can send them to christopher.lord@dickensjunction.com. <br /><br />I have read all three of the late James novels: The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, and The Ambassadors. All are difficult, but all have wonderful and powerful endings, rare in novels of any date. Lambert Strether's moment of "knowing" in The Ambassadors is one of the great moments in English-language literature, and when Maggie walks around the table near the end of The Golden Bowl, I was gobsmacked. With James everything is about "knowing," and in those two novels when the lead character "knows" something, it's awesome. I need to re-read Wings of the Dove. All are tall peaks; all are worth scaling.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00014242874264804584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-9590567445835610582016-06-08T10:31:08.660-05:002016-06-08T10:31:08.660-05:00I believe real Jamesians would say his best novels...I believe real Jamesians would say his best novels are the three big late ones, <i>The Ambassadors</i> and so on, but I have not read any of them.<br /><br />I have now read a lot more James than I had a year or two ago, but it still does not seem like that much. I will never read all of James, either.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29896985748551858082016-06-08T09:17:17.049-05:002016-06-08T09:17:17.049-05:00You write:
It is funny that you mention Dombey an...You write:<br /><br />It is funny that you mention Dombey and Son, since I wrote a post long ago - it is in my middle style - about the perilous thickening of style Dickens was facing around that time.<br /><br />That novel more than any other helped me see - made me more attentive to - how Dickens changed over time.<br /><br />I respond: <br /><br />That to me is one of the fascinating adventures available to me in reading. I very much like to "study" how authors change for better or worse over time. A great example is Shakespeare, and two more recent examples that interest me are Hemingway and Flannery O'Connor (with the latter making remarkable progress and improvements in her all too brief lifetime). <br /><br />Now, let me throw you a question since you seem to be an experienced Henry James reader: What do you think are his "crowning achievements" among his huge accomplishments in fiction? I would like to read the "best" but -- with regrets -- have neither the time nor the ambition to read all of Henry James. <br /><br />Postscript: I still hope to get through all of Shakespeare before I kick the bucket, but the bucket looms large on the horizon for me as it does for most septuagenarians. <br />RTDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17113953356514605424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-58587070466845720262016-06-08T08:52:59.650-05:002016-06-08T08:52:59.650-05:00Yes, well said. I would add Washington Square to ...Yes, well said. I would add <i>Washington Square</i> to the "accessible" list, another power triangle, come to think of it, with the father in the "powerful woman" slot. Stylistically, none of these books are more difficult than George Eliot.<br /><br />It is funny that you mention <i>Dombey and Son</i>, since I wrote a post long ago - it is in my middle style - about the <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2009/07/type-of-triumphant-monster-death-too.html" rel="nofollow">perilous thickening of style</a> Dickens was facing around that time.<br /><br />That novel more than any other helped me see - made me more attentive to - how Dickens changed over time.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-24820029239806498902016-06-08T08:09:40.240-05:002016-06-08T08:09:40.240-05:00I have for years thought of The Bostonians, along ...I have for years thought of The Bostonians, along with The Spoils of Poynton, to be among James's most accessible full-length work. We are presented in each with a power triangle (love is not always involved) of a young woman, a virile potent young man, and a woman of power and/or cunning, a dynamic well outside of what a reader normally expects. Since James's "grand style" had not yet evolved into the near-impentrability of the late novels, these books, along with "What Maisie Knew," read relatively straightforward. I say "relative" because they are, after all, Henry James, not Mark Twain. <br /><br />I haven't read the book for years but, once again, you make me want to go back. Now that I've almost certainly pulled the bookmark on La Regenta, maybe I'll be free after I finish Dickens's Dombey and Son for Dickens Universe next month (Dombey and Son would, of course, make an excellent book for this exceptional blog).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00014242874264804584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65615327841211779012016-06-08T08:08:23.159-05:002016-06-08T08:08:23.159-05:00All of Henry James - an achievement, that will be ...All of Henry James - an achievement, that will be an achievement.<br /><br />The characters in this novel are such a pleasure.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-68665502892909728842016-06-08T01:34:08.761-05:002016-06-08T01:34:08.761-05:00I haven't read this since university, but will...I haven't read this since university, but will return to it as I work my way through all of HJ. Still on the stories vol. 1...Great character sketches here whet my appetite.Simonhttp://tredynasdays.co.uknoreply@blogger.com