What does this word mean in "What Maisie Knew"?

[Jackson Richardson]

I’ve been re-reading What Maisie Knew in an old edition without notes. I hadn’t appreciated how convoluted and mannered the prose style is, nor (what nobody says) that it is meant to be funny.

At any rate can someone clarify the following passage? (What “the word” may be is irrelevant.)

“The word stuck in her mind and contributed to her feeling from this time that she was deficient in something that would meet the general desire. She found out what it was; it was a congenital tendency to the production of a substance to which Moddle, her nurse, gave a short ugly name, a name painfully associated at dinner with the part of the joint that she didn’t like.”

What is the painful name?

[North Star]

'painful name'? The name of the substance has an association with the part of the joint she didn't like, and so it is painfully associated with that.

[Jackson Richardson]

Yes, but what is the name?

[mona amon]

The painful name is "fat". It's a big fuss about almost nothing, but that's James for you. Are you sure it's all supposed to be funny? :)

I could never get past this first chapter of this book, but I've read Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians and Wings of a Dove. I admire his genius, but can never quite like his books - there's something about them that repels me. Except for The Bostonians. I really loved that one.

[Jackson Richardson]

Thanks, mona. It's obvious now you say it. I've tried for years to like Henry James and read and even re-read most of his major works, but he doesn't click. I'm not at all sure it's meant to be funny, but it seemed a way to enjoy it. The novel is a social comedy after all, although of a rather edgy kind. And the circumlocution around "fat" is an sort of elephantine joke.

Isn't The Bostonians hopelessly sexist by today's standards?

[Emil Miller]

The first word that comes to mind with Henry James is 'circumlocution'.

[mona amon]

Thanks, mona. It's obvious now you say it. I've tried for years to like Henry James and read and even re-read most of his major works, but he doesn't click. I'm not at all sure it's meant to be funny, but it seemed a way to enjoy it. The novel is a social comedy after all, although of a rather edgy kind. And the circumlocution around "fat" is an sort of elephantine joke.

Isn't The Bostonians hopelessly sexist by today's standards?

Totally, utterly, hopelessly! :D and yet it is brilliant, complex and beautiful. Have you read it? We had a book club discussion of it here - http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?73674-February-13-James-Reading-The-Bostonians. He's made the chief feminist (Olive Chancellor) extremely unlikeable - indeed she's more of a man-hater than a feminist, while the reactionary Basil is a sympathetic character, and therein lies most of the sexism, but I do not think any present day feminist will object to the way the story plays out, now that we do not regard a woman's natural desire for husband and children as something anti-feministic. Henry James is best at describing states of mind, especially the struggling suffering mind, (I'm sure even the circumlocutions around "fat" will add up to something in the end :)) and the chapter where he describes Olive's state of mind at the verge of defeat is one of the best things I've ever read. There's also a lot of sophisticated comedy going on - I won't call it 'funny' because that is a word I reserve for the more good natured and humanistic stuff like Austen, Dickens and Wodehouse, but the final chapter, a sort of grand finale where the highly dramatic is being constantly undercut by the hilariously comic, is truly brilliant.

I also enjoyed the Merchant Ivory movie version.

[Jackson Richardson]

I must re-read it. I did read Rhoda Broughton's Dear Faustina a few years back which seems to have an identical plot - young woman encouraged to set up with another woman but ends up with nice young man. Broughton was a friend of James, but possibly she made more of the Sapphic element. (It's pretty obvious why the older woman is jealous.)

Mind you I'm all in favour of same sex couple living together as I've been doing so for most of my adult life.

[mona amon]

While it is obvious to the reader that Olive is in love with Verena, I just couldn't figure out what Henry James felt about same sex relationships. James portrays feminism as being against nature (against a woman's natural urge to get married and have children), and since Olive is both Lesbian and Feminist, that greatly complicates the issue. Also, it isn't clear whether she is even aware that her interest in Verena is a romantic one, and not just a passionate interest in the cause.

But it is a really great book. If you do read it again, tell me what you think.

[Jackson Richardson]

I will Mona. I have to admit that having got half way through Maisie, I've set it aside it for a few days. And I'm not going to go straight into another James in a hurry. But in the next few months, DV.

I can't really work out what Henry James thinks about anything, particularly as he is hailed as the great liberator from the omniscient narrator.

[Gladys]

I could never get past this first chapter of this book, but I've read Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians and Wings of a Dove.

I found What Maisie Knew, along with the The Aspern Papers and The Spoils of Poynton, easy reads and hard to put down, unlike many a James'. By contrast, the quirky late novels, The Awkward Age and The Sacred Fount, were torture from beginning to end.

The opening page of What Maisie Knew is one of the finest I have read. James's description of mother Ida is a gem": even husband Beale looks passable alongside her. The novel is funny throughout although most of the humour is decidedly black, and subtle rather like that in Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

I believe the ending is particularly cryptic, like so many of his novels, and centres rather surprisingly around the role and motives of vindictive Ida, who disappears from the action somewhat before the end, having wreaked her ever-so-subtle damage.


I can't really work out what Henry James thinks about anything, particularly as he is hailed as the great liberator from the omniscient narrator.

Like Shakespeare, Henry James is inscrutable and that's half the fun of reading him. He shows, a little, but never tells.

[Jackson Richardson]

I have to say I've given it up a few months back but I'm glad you liked it. Half way through it seemed repetitive, with Maisie taken in yet again and thinking the last person she spoke to was lovely.

[Gladys]

Half way through it seemed repetitive, with Maisie taken in yet again and thinking the last person she spoke to was lovely.

Early in the novel, Maisie is frequently described as a little girl. So it is hardly surprising, in the two or three years the novel encompasses, that Maisie shares the gullibility of most young children. Indeed, how strange were it otherwise. But what makes you think, Jonathan, that What Maisie knew is primarily about the little girl?

Though smart for her age, Maisie is gullible. Sir Claude and Mrs Wix are also rather gullible and malleable. By contrast, Beale, Ida and Miss Overmore are as far from gullible as it is possible to be! And the behaviour and sentiments of these three are central to the plot and, of course, the ending. Throughout the novel, our understanding of these three grows, and Beale and his deserted wife (Overmore) are shown to be irredeemably vile. The lingering question - and prime interest - becomes, “Why does Ida seem no worse (and, later, even a little generous) when we know from the opening page that she unequivocally is?”

As for any repetition, the ongoing black humour works for me.