I've read much good literature, but I've always read widely but not deep. For example, I'm well-read in American Literature, having read Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, Crane, Twain, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Salinger, Bellow, and Roth. I've read most of the novels of the last three authors, but, of the others, I've read only two or three. I've also read a representative few of the so-called great books or classics, The Odyssey, Don Quixote, many of Shakespeare's plays, War and Peace, and Crime and Punishment. There are many gaps in my reading, Milton, for example, Jane Austin, and, to the point, Henry James. I always look forward to filling these gaps, but I find, when I do, sometimes I'm pleased and sometimes disappointed. Five years ago I read Stendahl's The Red and the Black with an on-line reading group. I thought it was one of the worst books I've ever read. How could it have been on so many lists of the world's great books? I felt the same reading Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. And, so do I feel having just completed Henry James' The American. I've sought out a James website to air my complaints.
Frankly, I think The American is a terrible book. There isn't much of a plot, but then I'd heard not to expect much from James insofar as plot is concerned, the meat of his novels is in the interaction of his psychologically well-develeoped characters. Sorry, I didn't like his characters either. I did not care for any character in this book. The main character, Christopher Newman, who, I suppose, is not a bad guy, in many respects. He's made a lot of money, but he never cheated anyone or took unfair advantage. He has made his money honestly, but, in my estimation, he's a shallow character who doesn't inspire me, the reader, to identify with him. He shares the ethnic prejudices of his day ( "No Irish need apply." and "Conditions suitable for a white man." are propositions he believes in). He goes to Europe to "do the tourist thing." He wants to get married, but demands what we would call today a "trophy wife." I don't like him and, consequently, I can't share his disappointment when he's unfairly rebuffed in his attempts to "acquire" the aristocratic Madame de Cintre by her haughty older brother and her mean-spirited mother.
And what about James' supposed psychological development of his characters? Newman certainly isn't very psychologically well-developed. He's fascinated by Madame de Cintre, but we don't get any insight as to why she is so appealing to him except for her pedigree and her "eyes." Newman makes no attempt in his courtship of her to find out who she really is. There is nothing going on during the several months that he courts her expect polite talk and social small talk.
It is to Newman's credit that, in the end, when he could extract some vengence against the de Bellegardes, he doesn't, That, I suppose, is the point to the novel, but I found Newman so unsympathetic that I couldn't enjoy this small moral victory too much. If he had any sense in the first place and if he wasn't so blinded by his desire for his trophy, he should have known very early that the aristocratic de Bellegardes didn't want to have anything to do with him. I found his persistence somewhat laughable.
So my question is why is Henry James considered as great as he is when, in this novel, at any rate, he gives us no plot and characters we don't care about? My only answer is that I probably shouldn't take this as a representative novel. It is any early one, I realiize. Maybe he got a lot better. If he wrote with a graceful style in this one, I could, possibly, see some hope. But that brings me to my third objection, the style of this novel is turgid. I can select any page at random and find an example: "He greeted her with high geniality and bade her come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There is something which might have touched the springs both of mirth and of melancholy in the ancient maidenliness with which Mrs. Bread endeavored to comply with these directions." I don't know, but I would think that this and most of James' style would benefit from a good editor who would pare down his rhetoric. "He enthusiastically greeted her and asked her to come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There was something both funny and sad at the way Mrs. Bread was unable to do so."
I would like someone to convince me that I'm wrong and that Henry James is the great author so many have said he is.