A Labored Read

[Laura]

I admit that James writes in difficult and complex sentances, but that is what makes his writing so grand. He describes every little detail and every moment as if it were an epiphany. The reading of the book was difficult and required many rereadings to completely compehend. <br> I however think that Isabel as a character was completely and clearly presented. James did a remarkable job identifing Isabel not just physically but mentally as well. The insites into her thoughts and her feelings were incredible. Isabel also aged with the story her mind quickened and matured as the story of her life unfolded. I have yet to find another character so well portrayed as James' Isabel.<br> As for the rest of James' characters they lacked nothing in their descriptions. Miss Stackpole was presented with enough insite to explain her actions, yet not enough to bore me as the reader. The Lord Warburton and Ralph were given excellent descriptions as to their thoughts, actions, and the relevent relationship to Isabel. Madame Merle was decribed so completly before and after her secret was revealed that I as the reader felt betrayed also. <br> Henry James identified the reader many times and only gave the reader enough insite into each character to allow a sense of intimacy to form. James' understanding of the reader, not just of his era but of those to come, is remarkable. He was able to identify his audience so well that as questions formed in my head he aswered them. <br> I enjoyed this peice of work. I found it interesting and captivating to read. I had trouble putting it down. I do not agree with you that it could have been done better. Henry James created a masterpiece with "The Portriat of a Lady".

[Unregistered]

Scarlet O'Hara appeared in a book that has a reading level fit for a fifth grader while as Isable Archer is the heroine of a novel that not even college students can read correctly.

[lee]

James certainly has his way with words and treats small detail with the same extravagance as poignant moments. If a reader has the energy to plow through such literary logical prose as:<br><br>"Little, however, for the present, had come of his offers, and it may be confided to the reader that if the young man delayed to carry them out it<br>was because he found the labour of providing for his companion<br>by no means so severe as to require extraneous help."<br><br>Then the reader will be duly rewarded.<br><br>I found his characters too numerous and confusing in character to generate vivid and clear pictures and James' copious exposition (rather than showing the character) in rather labored constructs of sentences soon becomes too overwhelming to retain. His may be the 19th century way of literary expression and the reader is rewarded by his own labors to grind through the prose, yet, for sure, writers can learn a lot from James - his word choices are very precise.<br><br>Scarlet O'hara was far more interesting, and far better shown than James' Isabel, IMO.<br><br>lee<br><br>

[Cien]

Um -- am I the only one who doesn't think it's a total slog to read this? Yes, the sentences were challening -- for the first twenty pages. After that, I got into the drift of it, and that was that. Portrait of a Lady is not exactly Ye Olde English or Ulysses. It's not THAT bad.

[Virgil]

Cien, Portrait of a Lady is not as difficult to read as James's late fiction. I never did finish The Golden Bowl. Portrait is a a fun read, once you get what James is doing and the hang of his style.

[Cien]

I'm reading Portrait right now, and I read Daisy Miller just yesterday, so I have only very little experience with James. I was just sort of surprised to see the people in this thread acting as though Portrait is universally difficult.

[Truthlover]

I'm reading this book and taking as much time as I need. When it tires me, I flip over to another book on my Kindle, then come back to The Portrait of a Lady when I'm ready for more. Yes, the book is a slow read, because in those days there was no hurry to get done with a novel. No television, nor internet news or emails to attend to. We need to live relaxedly. On that subject, one of the best books I've ever read in my life was Josef Pieper's Leisure the Basis of Culture. If you've never read it, do yourself the enormous favor of a delicious new outlook on life. The book is very short, came out first in 1952 in Mentor Classics and was an immediate best seller and remained so for a long time. It has never gone out of print, and is considered a classic philosophical essay, found at present in two excellent translations from the original German. I've read it at least seven times, and every time I go back to it I find something strikingly new.

[mal4mac]

Thanks for the reference, I very much believe in leisure but it's hard shrugging off the old protestant work ethic! Interesting essay here:

https://www.stthomas.edu/cathstudies/cst/curriculum/PortlandCurr/NaughtonTeachingNote.pdf

The idea that we pursue work, and suffer the corresponding hardship, when we have possibility of accepting the "gift" of leisure is a strong one.

[Truthlover]

Dear mal4mac:

Thanks for the link. Very good way of presenting Pieper's book. This will help students to start reading it. And it's a must to read the book itself.

[mal4mac]

... but I'm not sure reading Henry James is a great leisure activity! I've started a couple of his novels before, but gave up. I'm reading "What Maisie knew" at the moment and have tried very hard not to give up, but I can't face going on. The library have splurged out on new copies of James so I also have "Portrait...", which will be my make or break book for him... Give up on that and I doubt I'll ever read James again. And it's not because I don't like large novels, I've read most of Dickens and Tolstoy with great enjoyment. I've read dozens (hundreds?) of major novelists and there's only a few I can't get on with at all - James is certainly one of them. It's interesting how many major writers, that I love, really detest Henry James:

Lawrence Durrell: "Would you rather read Henry James or be crushed to death by a great weight?"

Nabokov: "I have read (or rather reread) 'What Maisie Knew.' It is terrible. Perhaps there is some other Henry James and I am continuously hitting upon the wrong one?"

Arnold Bennett: "It took me years to ascertain that Henry James's work was giving me little pleasure . . . In each case I asked myself: 'What the dickens is this novel about, and where does it think it's going to?' Question unanswerable! I gave up.

Virginia Woolf: "Please tell me what merit you find in Henry James . . . We have his works here, and I read them, and can’t find anything but faintly tinged rose water, urbane and sleek, but vulgar, and as pale as Walter Lamb. Is there really any sense in it?"

Jorge Luis Borges: "Despite the scruples and delicate complexities of James his work suffers from a major defect: the absence of life."

Cormac McCarthy (from a New York Times interview): Proust and Henry James don’t make the cut. “I don’t understand them,” he says. “To me, that’s not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."

Jonathan Franzen: "I tried to start Portrait of a Lady last night, ... I became so impatient with the multiple redundancies in the first paragraph that I cast it aside in anger. The first paragraph alone! You really have to be in the mood for Henry James."

Mark Twain, that truly great American novelist, said he would rather "be damned to John Bunyan's heaven" than read Henry James's novel The Bostonians.

http://millerworlds.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/writers-on-henry-james.html

[Gladys]

I'm reading "What Maisie knew" at the moment and have tried very hard not to give up, but I can't face going on.

Despite the tsunami of criticism you invoke, I love Henry James and, particularly, What Maisie knew. The novel is black humour at its best, especially the opening page. Ida is black beyond belief. Portrait of a Lady is rather more serious.

With Henry James, the ending is always something special.