Classics you wanted and expected to love...but didn't (and don't know why) [Archive]

Humming Bee

10-11-2012, 12:52 PM

The biggest disappointment definitely came with „The Little Lady of the Big House” by London. I completely adore most of his novels. Mostly they present fight between human and his weaknesses with a background of overwhelming power of nature. It is somehow motivating to read all that great stories about people who jump beyond their limits not only to achieve some goals, but also to be simply a good-man that sticks to self-imposed moral rules.

“The Little Lady of the Big House” is quite opposite from what I love about London’s novels. Fortunately there are some reflections of his life-loving attitude, admiration of human stubbornness and persistence, but in general it’s a book about woman who got bored with her hitherto life and looked for excitement in relationship with old friend of her husband. I don’t really like reading about people who create artificial problems out of blue and worship their own “suffering”. It made me strongly think about Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” which annoyed me on the same point.

Oh, I've missed the part "and don't know why" from the topic.
Well, in that case I've never understood all that fuss about "The Master and Margarita", the delight about it is simply beyond my ken.

Ser Nevarc

10-11-2012, 02:23 PM

I'm going to agree with the OP. I did not love Dorian Gray

Lykren

10-11-2012, 02:39 PM

Waiting for Godot and Gulliver's Travels both failed to thrill me. The former felt dull and repetitive, and the latter simply cheeseball.

Desolation

10-11-2012, 03:05 PM

Lolita...I liked it, sure...But I was really hoping to LOVE it. I just really didn't enjoy any stretch of the second half of the novel. But, after reading and loving the **** out of Pale Fire, I'm very inclined to give it another shot somewhere down the line.

Fahrenheit 451...I just didn't like it.

neilgee

10-11-2012, 03:19 PM

I think Wilde's forte was as a playwright, he only wrote the one novel and it was a short one. I had a tutor who really rated his poetry too but Wilde loved the cut and thrust of witty conversation and plays are the best vehicle for that.

Most disappointing novel Brothers Karamazov by Dosteyevsky, so slow and stodgy.

WICKES

10-11-2012, 04:41 PM

The biggest disappointment definitely came with „The Little Lady of the Big House” by London. I completely adore most of his novels. Mostly they present fight between human and his weaknesses with a background of overwhelming power of nature.

Have you ever read his short stories? I once listened to an excellent audio recording and was blown away. Two of those stories in particular have lingered in my mind for years.

dfloyd

10-11-2012, 05:06 PM

or more to be less than they expected, usually fail at understanding the author. It isn't the book that fails, but the reader. Usually students are the only ones who have the gall to criticisize a known classic.

Mutatis-Mutandis

10-11-2012, 05:52 PM

I've never disliked a book and couldn't figure out why. Sometime figuring out why was difficult, but I can always pin it down.

mona amon

10-11-2012, 11:13 PM

Dorian Gray for me too. I liked the preface, but the story was a damp squib for me.

Mutatis-Mutandis

10-11-2012, 11:17 PM

Dorian Gray is ****ing amazing. Just sayin'.

ladderandbucket

10-12-2012, 12:39 PM

mango

10-13-2012, 12:34 AM

les miserables. many will disagree with me here, i know but i found the book depressing that i didnt finish it. perhaps i should read it once more with a calm mind.

rgds.

kiki1982

10-13-2012, 05:32 AM

I would have to say Dorian Gray too, although I do know why...

I just found he wrote a play with the directions written out. It became boring after a wile because it was too obvious. I think it could have been much better as a play, because all the obvious things would have been left out.

For the rest, I don't know, I was disappointed with The Mill on the Floss, altough it got better once the children had grown up. It ust didn't get going, it didn't really capture my attention.

Gladys

10-13-2012, 06:15 AM

I was disappointed with The Mill on the Floss, altough it got better once the children had grown up.

Strange that. I first read and loved Middlemarch, but the psychology of Maggie in The Mill on the Floss captivated me from first to last, even in the whirling, swirling ending.

As for disappointing classics, top of my list is Henry James' The Awkward Age (1899), ostensibly a stream-of-consciousness novel about intricacies entangling family and friends of 18-year-old Nanda Brookenham, as she comes of age. Almost incomprehensible.

kelby_lake

10-13-2012, 06:42 AM

les miserables. many will disagree with me here, i know but i found the book depressing that i didnt finish it

The title indicates that it's not going to be a barrel of laughs.

kelby_lake

10-13-2012, 06:44 AM

Dorian Gray irritated me too. Wilde's style just doesn't work for novels. So "witty" you could choke on it.

Mutatis-Mutandis

10-13-2012, 10:12 AM

What's with all the Dorian Gray hate? The prose is beautifully written (i.e., the style works wonderfully), the story simultaneously clever and haunting, and the wit is perfectly balanced--I actually found it to be quite subtle. Most of it is found in the dialogue, but that's just the wit of the character--the story itself is pretty serious. If anything is "too" witty, it would be The Importance of Being Earnest, which I also love.

It's just odd. Usually when Dorian Gray is brought up it's praised pretty universally, but here everyone hates it. And how has Moby Dick not been mentioned in this thread? Moby Dick has to be one of, if not the most, infamous of all classics for putting readers off.

or more to be less than they expected, usually fail at understanding the author. It isn't the book that fails, but the reader. Usually students are the only ones who have the gall to criticisize a known classic.

Ah. So no one can criticize a classic. I didn't realize all classics were perfect.

Humming Bee

10-14-2012, 06:21 AM

Have you ever read his short stories? I once listened to an excellent audio recording and was blown away. Two of those stories in particular have lingered in my mind for years.

Yeah, I've read quite a lot of them (especially Love of Life has stuck to my mind). Now it's a bit difficult to find out something new.
Those short stories by London are published (at least here in Poland) in groups of a few or dozen and it's not really sense to buy whole book just for getting one story that I haven't read yet.
I guess, I should try with e-books in English, but the same time I'm afraid it will be beyond my current English level.

Alexander III

10-14-2012, 08:07 AM

kiki1982

10-14-2012, 10:15 AM

Strange that. I first read and loved Middlemarch, but the psychology of Maggie in The Mill on the Floss captivated me from first to last, even in the whirling, swirling ending.

I just found it unrealistic and somewhat awkward, Maggie and the boy (can't remember his name) as children. He was a pillock and she was just whiny. It got that slight bit more realistic after they had grown up, but he still turned out a pillock. Where I could appreciate the anguish of having to sell all their things, I just could not see how someone realistically could be like that as he was.
Although I love Naturalism and that's worse than negative and tragic it seems more natural to me than the so-called 'realism' in The Mill on the Floss.
I am still trying to pluck up courage for Middlemarch.

What's with all the Dorian Gray hate? The prose is beautifully written (i.e., the style works wonderfully), the story simultaneously clever and haunting, and the wit is perfectly balanced--I actually found it to be quite subtle. Most of it is found in the dialogue, but that's just the wit of the character--the story itself is pretty serious. If anything is "too" witty, it would be The Importance of Being Earnest, which I also love.

It's just odd. Usually when Dorian Gray is brought up it's praised pretty universally, but here everyone hates it.

Oh, no, it wasn't anything to do with style (that was superb) or the cleverness and haunting nature of the story. To me, as a novel it was written in too obvious a way.
Yes, it had to do with Faust and Lord Henry was practically the little doggie of the medieval story, the smooth talker as devils are :D, but there was no need to repeat it ad inifitum. It would have been enough to address the change in the painting once or maybe twice (to make sure), Dorian's horror at seeing it and then the end, maybe with some antics by him in the middle.
Because the obvious introduction to Dorian's demise was needlessly so long (everyone knew the stiory of Dr Faustus), and the effect was repeated too much, certainly as an experienced reader, there is nothing more to discover, because you know how it is going to end and what is going on.

I just firmly believe it would have been better as a play. Wilde could have played out his flair as a playwright and made a clever new take on Goethe's Faust. That's all.
It wasn't his skill, style or anything like that.

I don't think we really hate it per se either. We just think it could have been better.

Emil Miller

10-14-2012, 11:17 AM

kelby_lake

10-14-2012, 02:44 PM

What's with all the Dorian Gray hate? The prose is beautifully written (i.e., the style works wonderfully), the story simultaneously clever and haunting, and the wit is perfectly balanced--I actually found it to be quite subtle.

Wilde's style works much better on stage. In a novel, it just comes across as glib, facetious and downright irritating.

kelby_lake

10-14-2012, 02:46 PM

Shakespeare's comedies - personally I love his narrative poems, sonnets and tragedies, but nearly all of his comedies have left me disappointed. My comedic tastes are more for the French and Italian styles.

What about the histories?

If you prefer farcical comedy, earlier Shakespeare might be for you. Titus Andronicus is technically a tragedy but there's a lot of farcical black comedy there.

ladderandbucket

10-14-2012, 03:25 PM

This is taken from the blog of a Russian who teaches the Russian language in London: "Dostoyevsky is by far the gloomiest of all Russian writers. Apart from the tragic life circumstances that haunted him, he must have had a certain gloomy disposition of character to create such dark works."

So as someone who doesn't absolutely enjoy gloom and doom, I am ready to give Fyodor a miss.

I actually think Dostoyevsky can be pretty funny. I love his mad, overblown characters and the scenes where everyone is arguing at once and he just builds and builds the hysteria until you think it can't get any worse...and then some other character will come in ranting on about something or another...
I do get the feeling with Dostoyevsky that all of his characters are completely insane.

Mutatis-Mutandis

10-14-2012, 03:45 PM

Wilde's style works much better on stage. In a novel, it just comes across as glib, facetious and downright irritating.

I didn't get that at all when I read it.

mango

10-15-2012, 12:01 AM

I didn't want or expect to love Crime and Punishment but I did have hopes that it would be as revelatory as has often been claimed but it wasn't.
I found it tedious and rather exaggerated although I did find The House of the Dead quite interesting and The Gambler was much more lightweight than his other novels. Having seen the American film version of The Brothers Karamazov, I have no intention of reading it; I almost went to sleep. I think turgid is the word I would use to describe such a story as, I suspect, is The Idiot.
Generally, the Russians have not been my cup of tea with the exception of some of Chekhov's short stories and works by Bulgakov and Goncharev.

This is taken from the blog of a Russian who teaches the Russian language in London: "Dostoyevsky is by far the gloomiest of all Russian writers. Apart from the tragic life circumstances that haunted him, he must have had a certain gloomy disposition of character to create such dark works."

So as someone who doesn't absolutely enjoy gloom and doom, I am ready to give Fyodor a miss.

most of his works are dark. crime and punishment drags in the middle of the story but has a sweet and touching end, it shows the redemption of man from sin and hope for the future. we all live on hope.

his works appeal to me as they contain the writhing agony of human souls torn between right and wrong, driven to wrong by circumstances and the helplessness of ordinary people caught in the vices of society. but i agree with you that his works are a little exaggerated and lengthy but these were written a long time ago and we who live in the present fast world will find them so.

rgds.

kiki1982

10-15-2012, 05:23 AM

Wilde's style works much better on stage. In a novel, it just comes across as glib, facetious and downright irritating.

Exactly what I felt.

Never seen or read any of his plays, but I imagine there is a certain sparkle to them, judging from Dorian Gray. The same kind of sparkle only doesn't suit a novel.

neilgee

10-15-2012, 04:25 PM

Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. Hardy should be my favourite writer - verbose, rustic and depressing. RotN is a tragedy, full of classical allusions, bombastic descriptions of nature, themes of determinism and free will - sounds like my ideal book. I didn't like it though. No idea why not.

I've loved many Hardy novels, just last year Jude the obscure reminded me exactly how good he is at his best, a terrific novel, and yet like a ladder in the wind Return of the native fell flat for me, and that happened to be the one Hardy novel I studied at A level so (being the swot I am) I had to read it four times. It didn't improve by the bucketful with familiarity. The reasons? Egdon Heath, perhaps. Egdon Heath was a depressing place for me, an oppressive presence throughout the novel, and Hardy's writing seems slightly oppressed and lacking in sparkle throughout. Maybe a case of subject and artist having a malign influence on one another?

neilgee

10-15-2012, 04:34 PM

Strange that. I first read and loved Middlemarch, but the psychology of Maggie in The Mill on the Floss captivated me from first to last, even in the whirling, swirling ending.

As for disappointing classics, top of my list is Henry James' The Awkward Age (1899), ostensibly a stream-of-consciousness novel about intricacies entangling family and friends of 18-year-old Nanda Brookenham, as she comes of age. Almost incomprehensible.

I read Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede and Felix Holt before Middlemarch and must say I enjoyed the first three much more than Middlemarch which is often cited as her seminal novel.

Silas Marner was the biggest disappointment though, it is just too short and doesn't allow the psycholigical detail that Eliot writes in so well to develop at all, it's more like a novella.

Literature5

11-23-2012, 06:46 AM

Paradise Lost

Gladys

11-23-2012, 11:02 PM

I just found it unrealistic and somewhat awkward, Maggie and the boy (can't remember his name) as children. He was a pillock and she was just whiny. It got that slight bit more realistic after they had grown up, but he still turned out a pillock. Where I could appreciate the anguish of having to sell all their things, I just could not see how someone realistically could be like that as he was.
Although I love Naturalism and that's worse than negative and tragic it seems more natural to me than the so-called 'realism' in The Mill on the Floss.
I am still trying to pluck up courage for Middlemarch.

Knowing your love for Jane Austen, I'm quite surprised at your view of George Eliot. I much love Persuasion for its moving portrayal of the sad (yet all-too-familiar) plight of the ageing Elizabeth Elliot. Middlemarch is similar in both subject and tone except that several characters are in the spotlight of this longer book. I found nothing daunting in reading Middlemarch and the narrator's brief philosophical asides can sparkle like diamonds.

As for The Mill on the Floss, which I read on the heels of Middlemarch, the novel seems to me more naturalism than realism, and centres squarely on Pride and Prejudice. It deals with the personal dilemmas of the deep and intelligent young woman (Maggie Tulliver); the perceived standing in the world of the close-minded, upwardly-mobile young man (Tom Tulliver, his father's son); the profoundly pathetic plight of the disfigured but guileless suitor (Philip Wakem); and the convenient blindness of the suave and handsome suitor (Stephen Guest). Life sometimes (perhaps often) deals a wretched hand, as happens to Maggie Tulliver and Philip Wakem. Surely Maggie is in part autobiographical?

George Eliot writes novels for mature adults. Her jagged and stinging picture of Maggie and Tom as children foreshadows a couple of the modernist novels I've just read by Australia's only Nobel Prize winning novelists: J.M. Coetzee's The Boy and Patrick White's The Living and the Dead. Tom is like some people I know well who are forever short-sighted by raging pride and an unthinking worship of petty morality. Tom would like to see himself as righteously oblivious to the personal tragedies of those closest to him. And yet he means well!

Jackson Richardson

11-24-2012, 05:26 AM

Since I was a teenager, I was attracted to the novels of Henry James. No sentimental romanticism, no tedious action packed adventure, the subtle and critical anaysis of civilised human beings in comfortable surroundings.

I have tried, I really have, but I don't get 'em. Why on earth does Isabel marry Gilbert Osborne in the first place, let alone go back to him when she's seen through him? (The Portrait of a Lady read twice.) What on earth is Millly Theale thinking about in the months before her death, when you don't see her. (Wings of a Dove ditto.) How do we know The Spoils of Poyton aren't just a load of materialistic tat? (Not read sine my teens.) And I've read The Golden Bowl and thought at times James is taking the mickey with his overblown prose style.

I'd like to like him, but I just like the idea. And I don't understand why he (and Proust) are so admired by the politically radical when their works are set in such a comfortable monied milieu,which is not particularly criticized.

kev67

11-24-2012, 06:36 AM

I thought I would enjoy Don Quixote, or at least find it interesting. The first part seemed like a joke flogged to death. The second part seemed like a bit of clever dickery and I soon gave up reading it.

kelby_lake

11-25-2012, 06:39 AM

I'm going to agree with the OP. I did not love Dorian Gray

Same.

Exactly what I felt.

Never seen or read any of his plays, but I imagine there is a certain sparkle to them, judging from Dorian Gray. The same kind of sparkle only doesn't suit a novel.

They are great plays. The stage is the perfect medium for Wilde, where characters can talk in bon mots until the cows come home. All very enjoyable.

Since I was a teenager, I was attracted to the novels of Henry James. No sentimental romanticism, no tedious action packed adventure, the subtle and critical anaysis of civilised human beings in comfortable surroundings.

I have tried, I really have, but I don't get 'em. Why on earth does Isabel marry Gilbert Osborne in the first place, let alone go back to him when she's seen through him? (The Portrait of a Lady read twice.) What on earth is Millly Theale thinking about in the months before her death, when you don't see her. (Wings of a Dove ditto.) How do we know The Spoils of Poyton aren't just a load of materialistic tat? (Not read sine my teens.) And I've read The Golden Bowl and thought at times James is taking the mickey with his overblown prose style.

Be careful with the spoilers there.

What Maisie Knew is quite a good James novel.

I've loved many Hardy novels, just last year Jude the obscure reminded me exactly how good he is at his best, a terrific novel, and yet like a ladder in the wind Return of the native fell flat for me, and that happened to be the one Hardy novel I studied at A level so (being the swot I am) I had to read it four times. It didn't improve by the bucketful with familiarity. The reasons? Egdon Heath, perhaps. Egdon Heath was a depressing place for me, an oppressive presence throughout the novel, and Hardy's writing seems slightly oppressed and lacking in sparkle throughout. Maybe a case of subject and artist having a malign influence on one another?

I'm reading Return of The Native at the moment and the descriptions of Egdon Heath are brilliant. Surely the whole point is that it's oppressive? And I think Hardy's prose here is excellent, far better than that of Jude The Obscure which although I liked it, I didn't love it as much as I expected to.

mal4mac

11-25-2012, 07:20 AM

I'm reading Return of The Native at the moment and the descriptions of Egdon Heath are brilliant. Surely the whole point is that it's oppressive? And I think Hardy's prose here is excellent...

I agree, the descriptions of Egdon Heath are spectacular. But I found the prose more difficult than that in his other novels; he uses more classical allusions than usual. I read it in the Norton Critical edition, which has excellent page notes, making the "struggle" worth it.

kelby_lake

11-25-2012, 04:12 PM

I agree, the descriptions of Egdon Heath are spectacular. But I found the prose more difficult than that in his other novels; he uses more classical allusions than usual. I read it in the Norton Critical edition, which has excellent page notes, making the "struggle" worth it.

I haven't got that far into it yet. Jude The Obscure has lots of obscure allusions.

Mason Pringle

11-26-2012, 03:16 AM

I would say the Wasteland by TS Eliot. Definitely a brilliant poem by all accounts, but for some reason I couldn't emotionally "love" it as I could for a few other works

Gladys

11-26-2012, 04:30 AM

Why on earth does Isabel marry Gilbert Osborne in the first place, let alone go back to him when she's seen through him? (The Portrait of a Lady read twice.) What on earth is Millly Theale thinking about in the months before her death, when you don't see her. (Wings of a Dove ditto.) ... And I've read The Golden Bowl and thought at times James is taking the mickey with his overblown prose style.

I adore Henry James. The only dead loss was The Awkward Age (1899) with its never-ending and opaque stream-of-consciousness.

Isabel marries because she sees none too deeply - not uncommon today - but see she does, in the end. Milly the dove, in her final months, is torn between an almost justified respect and love for Merton Densher and an appalling and lethal sense of his betrayal (Isn't Kate Croy her father's daughter!). The flowery prose of the The Golden Bowl is appropriate to this the most subtle of novels about close family and friends. Exquisite beyond belief are Maggie and her peerless father, Adam Verver in this ornate masterpiece - what an ending!

What Maisie Knew is quite a good James novel.

Perhaps the most accessible of all although, even here, its ending is decidedly subtle and oh-so-clever when considered from the standpoint of Ida Farange.

Jackson Richardson

11-26-2012, 05:37 AM

I don't want to go belittling things I don't get and I really wanted to like James, or I wouldn't keep on trying. I'll give Maisie another go. I have a friend who is very moved by the ending of The Golden Bowl but my problem is I couldn't work out who was having a affair with whom. Perhaps I'm just too innocent.

Have you read Colm Tóibín's The Master, a biographical novel about James, Gladys?

kelby_lake

11-26-2012, 06:02 AM

I really like Wings of The Dove :) I haven't read Daisy Miller but that's quite short. Isn't The Turn of The Screw meant to be the most accessible one?

tonywalt

11-26-2012, 10:14 AM

It would have to be Proust Search of Lost Time(Remembrance of Things Past). I really wanted to get like it, but the flowery meandering prose was too much for my modern reality.

namenlose

11-26-2012, 05:09 PM

James is one of my favorite novelists, but I agree with ruggerlad he sometimes fails to be convincing enough. Although I love The Portrait of a Lady, it's difficult to understand what could have moved Isabel to commit the fatal mistake of her decision. Perhaps it's one of James' flaws, as the unjustified guilt of certain passages was one of Dickens', that he is not ever able to perfectly balance the shrewd conscience of his characters with the necessities of his plots.

Jackson Richardson

11-26-2012, 05:19 PM

It would have to be Proust Search of Lost Time(Remembrance of Things Past). I really wanted to get like it, but the flowery meandering prose was too much for my modern reality.

Proust, like James, is someone I read hoping to like, and it didn't quite work. I re-read the first bit (Swann's Way or whatever the latest translation call it) this Sepmber and I began to be intrigued.

But the funny thing is the way Proust is often hailed as a major modernist figure, whereas Tony understandably finds it all a bit too mannered to be modern. (Sorry Tony if I've got you wrong.)

Gladys

11-26-2012, 06:03 PM

I don't want to go belittling things I don't get and I really wanted to like James, or I wouldn't keep on trying. ... I have a friend who is very moved by the ending of The Golden Bowl but my problem is I couldn't work out who was having a affair with whom.

Have you read Colm Tóibín's The Master, a biographical novel about James, Gladys?

Whether James, Ibsen or Dostoevesky, I rarely make much sense of a novel until hours, days or weeks after finishing it. Enlightenment frequently comes, waking in the middle of the night, following several seconds of vivid mental replay. I'll look out for Colm Tóibín's The Master.

I really like Wings of The Dove :) I haven't read Daisy Miller but that's quite short. Isn't The Turn of The Screw meant to be the most accessible one?

While the plot of The Golden Bowl is simple, its psychology is Kierkegaardian in complexity. The Wings of The Dove, with it's racy plot, is easier. The Ambassadors tends to be a bit heavy going.

I liked Daisy Millar but prefer The Aspern Papers for anyone seeking an enjoyable Henry James novella. As for The Turn of The Screw, Henry James himself described it as a pot-boiler, and so it is.

Although I love The Portrait of a Lady, it's difficult to understand what could have moved Isabel to commit the fatal mistake of her decision.

She's young, inexperienced and blinded by charisma. She succumbs early in the novel. I don't see a problem. :confused:

namenlose

11-26-2012, 06:51 PM

She's young, inexperienced and blinded by charisma. She succumbs early in the novel. I don't see a problem. :confused:

For me it's a problem of characterization. While Isabel was presented as a perceptive and intelligent young lady, Osborne was characterized as a deceptive charlatan. Her act of coming back to him may work well in the novel if the decision seems convincing enough to the reader, and it did not seem to me. I do recognize though that James worked her background with competency to make this special plot point consistent, but I still find it a little hard to accept. Perhaps it's a subjetive dissatisfaction, but I've read some critical essays on the novel that shared the same impression. However, I can understand why you see no problem in that. If I reread the novel in the future — what is fairly possible —, I may make a personal reevaluation of this particular aspect.

kev67

11-26-2012, 07:13 PM

Anyone interested in Henry James might enjoy Author, Author by David Lodge too. There have been several novels about James in the last decade or so.

Gladys

11-27-2012, 01:48 AM

[Isabel's] act of coming back to him may work well in the novel if the decision seems convincing enough to the reader, and it did not seem to me.

Your interesting comment prompted me to return to a couple of notes I made after reading the book, two years ago.

In the end, Isabel Archer does indeed return to Rome, to young Pansy and the woeful Oswald. While Isabel's return seems paradoxical, to say the least, we can easily understand it by reflecting on her ongoing motivations (her character). Henry James invariably explains the motivations, or world-view, of his major characters early in a novel - sometimes on the opening page. The Portrait of a Lady is no exception. The narrator tells us:

The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action: she held it must be detestable to be afraid or ashamed. She had an infinite hope that she should never do anything wrong.

And,

In matters of opinion she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then she treated herself to a week of passionate humility. After this she held her head higher than ever again; for it was of no use, she had an unquenchable desire to think well of herself. She had a theory that it was only under this provision life was worth living; that one should be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organisation (she couldn't help knowing her organisation was fine), should move in a realm of light

Therefore, inspirational Isabel freely elects to suffer, "in a realm of light". Her return to Oswald crowns a paradoxically glorious ending, in which Isabel stands firm, buoyed by "an infinite hope", with her own integrity amazingly intact. She lives!

In the footsteps of older brother of William, Henry James' characters are almost always vehicles for expressing and playing out philosophical ideals. Henry James makes the return Isabel Archer to Oswald as unpalatable as possible to prepare for a philosophical coup d'état in the ending. Isabel ultimately places moral and personal integrity before personal comfort. James has comparable paradoxes in the endings of most of his novels: paradoxes that demand some philosophical reflection from his reader.

I am reminded of how badly many high-schools, and a couple of movies, butcher the tragic ending of the early novel Washington Square because they fail to divine the philosophical rigour embedded, by Henry James, in his characterisation of Dr Austin Sloper and daughter Catherine.

namenlose

11-27-2012, 09:11 AM

Yes, I'm aware of this particular aspect of James. Since the beginning this conclusion was cautiously prepared by him to fit all the necessities of his plot. Just as Hawthorne and Eliot, he was preoccupied with the concepts of personal ilusion and individual restraint, specially when such themes could be developed through the weaving of social environments and situations.

That, I believe, constitutes the fountain of my discontentment: although I can clearly perceive his idea and the way it completes the novel and its literary purposes, as well as the way it was presaged and worked throughout the story, it still does not persuade me. I feel there's an unbalance between the characterization of both characters and the fatal conclusion. Since it's such an unusual conclusion, as you yourself pointed, it demands a careful presentation. The last time I read the novel, I felt it was not careful enough to make me believe in it as much as I would like.

As it is one of my favorites, though, I Intend to reread The Portrait of a Lady in the next years and rethink this particular plot point. I don't know if my impressions will change, but reading such a marvelous novel again will be worth my time one way or another. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the book.

Gladys

11-28-2012, 01:44 AM

Since it's such an unusual conclusion, as you yourself pointed, it demands a careful presentation.

My favourite writers Ibsen, Dostoevsky and Henry James invariably end in unusual ways, which are easily misconstrued. That's part of the joy of reading them. For instance, the ending of Washington Square is a challenge to understand but, on rereading, I found countless occasions where it was presaged and worked throughout the story, most of which I had missed. Thankfully I did pick up enough of this evidence, in the first read, to appreciate the gist of an ending that is way more tragic than it first seems.

I get much the same feeling about the ending when I recently read and enjoyed George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss.

namenlose

11-29-2012, 05:02 PM

My favourite writers Ibsen, Dostoevsky and Henry James invariably end in unusual ways, which are easily misconstrued. That's part of the joy of reading them. For instance, the ending of Washington Square is a challenge to understand but, on rereading, I found countless occasions where it was presaged and worked throughout the story, most of which I had missed. Thankfully I did pick up enough of this evidence, in the first read, to appreciate the gist of an ending that is way more tragic than it first seems.

I get much the same feeling about the ending when I recently read and enjoyed George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss.

With this particular exception, I share your esteem for Ibsen's and James' endings. In fact, I don't think the conclusion of The Portait of a Lady is actually bad, in spite of the mixed responses it receives from critics and readers. Sometimes I wonder if my feelings about it are not moved more by a personal partiality towards the heroine than by the actual characterization accomplished in the novel :biggrin5:. However, I must decide it myself when I come to the book again.

Dostoevsky, though, is different to me. Although his works were to a great extent planned with the end of supporting his orthodox idealism, in my opinion his art occasionally paid for it. Nevertheless, when it comes to the conclusions of his four major novels, the only one I judge specially weak is Crime and Punishment's. His purpose of presenting the decline of Raskolnikov's ideas as an example of the practical failure of nihilism is central to the novel and certainly serves as the core of its psychological strength, but the epilogue sounded more as a weak argument founded upon the protagonist's fall than anything else to me. Of course one could take it as a personal consolation after all the fearsome previous events, but Dostoevsky would probably want it to mean more than that. What did you think of it? I have to say, though, that The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and Demons did not cause me the same impression.

Gladys

11-30-2012, 02:05 AM

...when it comes to the conclusions of his four major novels, the only one I judge specially weak is Crime and Punishment's. His purpose of presenting the decline of Raskolnikov's ideas as an example of the practical failure of nihilism is central to the novel and certainly serves as the core of its psychological strength, but the epilogue sounded more as a weak argument founded upon the protagonist's fall than anything else to me. Of course one could take it as a personal consolation after all the fearsome previous events, but Dostoevsky would probably want it to mean more than that. What did you think of it? I have to say, though, that The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and Demons did not cause me the same impression.

The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov are magnificent; Demons I will read over Christmas. I have read several of his earlier books. As for Crime and Punishment, I was crushed by the unremittingly grim, psychological tone and, perhaps, was distracted for I completely overlooked the existential significance of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaïlov, despite familiarity with existentialist philosophy.

I was thoroughly shocked by the grim mood of the Raskolnikov story. Even in his generosity, bleakness is hovering, and the other characters seemed dragged down by him. Unlike The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, reading was a chore. The ending lacks the heroism of the others, except for Sonia. Looking back on 'Crime and Punishment', I see shades of black. :(

mona amon

12-01-2012, 07:40 AM

Re Portrait of a Lady (The only James novel I've read) -

For me it was just the opposite of this thread - After seeing the movie I was expecting to hate it, but to my surprise I found it pretty brilliant. Now this doesn't mean I liked it. I was full of admiration for the powerfulness of his writing, but I think it was his mind that I didn't like. At the end of the day it seemed rather gratuitous to make a girl stew in her own mistake to such an extent, when she had a way out.

She's young, inexperienced and blinded by charisma. She succumbs early in the novel. I don't see a problem.

That's just it - there was no charisma that I could pick up on. He seemed plain creepy to me, and to the other characters in the book as well. Isabel's situation closely resembles Dorothea Brooke's in Middlemarch, and James clearly didn't approve of Dorothea giving up her ideals and succumbing to an ultimately happier fate. Here's a quote from his Quarterly review of Middlemarch -

Dorothea was altogether too superb a heroine to be wasted; yet she plays a narrower part than the imagination of the reader demands. She is of more consequence than the action of which she is the nominal centre. She marries enthusiastically a man whom she fancies a great thinker, and who turns out to be but an arid pedant. Here, indeed, is a disappointment with much of the dignity of tragedy; but the situation seems to us never to expand to its full capacity. It is analyzed with extraordinary penetration, but one may say of it, as of most of the situations in the book, that it is treated with too much refinement and too little breadth. It revolves too constantly on the same pivot; it abounds in fine shades, but it lacks, we think, the great dramatic chiaroscuro. Mr. Casaubon, Dorothea's husband (of whom more anon) embittered, on his side, by matrimonial disappointment, takes refuge in vain jealousy of his wife's relations with an interesting young cousin of his own and registers this sentiment in a codicil to his will, making the forfeiture of his property the penalty of his widow's marriage with this gentleman. Mr. Casaubon's death befalls about the middle of the story, and from this point to the close our interest in Dorothea is restricted to the question, will she or will she not marry Will Ladislaw ? The question is relatively trivial and the implied struggle slightly factitious. The author has depicted the struggle with a sort of elaborate solemnity which in the interviews related in the two last books tends to become almost ludicrously excessive.
The dramatic current stagnates; it runs between hero and heroine almost a game of hair-splitting. Our dissatisfaction here is provoked in a great measure by the insubstantial character of the hero. The figure of Will Ladislaw is a beautiful attempt, with many finely-completed points; but on the whole it seems to us a failure. It is the only eminent failure in the book, and its defects are therefore the more striking. It lacks sharpness of outline and depth of color; we have not found ourselves believing in Ladislaw as we believe in Dorothea, in Mary garth, in Rosamond, in Lydgate, in Mr. Brooke and Mr. Cauaubon. He is meant, indeed, to be a light creature (with a large capacity for gravity, for he finally gets into Parliament), and a light creature certainly should not be heavily drawn. The author, who is evidently very fond of him, has found for him here and there some charming and eloquent touches; but in spite of these he remains vague and impalpable to the end. He is, we may say, the one figure which a masculine intellect of the same power as George Eliot's would not have conceived with the same complacency; he is, in short, roughly speaking, a woman's man. It strikes us as an oddity in the author's scheme that she would have chosen just this figure of Ladislaw as the creature in whom Dorothea was to find her spiritual compensations.

Dorothea ultimately gives in to common sense and normal human feelings, but James apparently did not approve of this. His heroine Isabel was to retain her exalted sense of personal integrity to the bitter end. She flees from Caspar Goodwood's bountiful sexuality and returns to Rome, which in my eyes makes her a sort of masochistic prude.

But I did not mind the end because, unlike her choice of marrying Osborne, it did not seem in the least contrived. and was at least consistent with her character. But it's a character I intensely dislike.

kelby_lake

12-01-2012, 09:02 AM

Dorothea ultimately gives in to common sense and normal human feelings, but James apparently did not approve of this.

I do agree with James, really. The reader is forced to accept that shallow Ladislaw would be a good match for deep Dorothea. All the women are forced back into the kitchen (metaphorically) at the end of the novel. It's Austen refinement when there should have been Bronte passion.

There were lots of famous women novelists in the 19th century, weren't there?

mal4mac

12-01-2012, 10:06 AM

There were lots of famous women novelists in the 19th century, weren't there?

There were in England, just perused Bloom's list, and there are ten Victorian women writers from England on it, but only one from France, i.e., George Sands. Was France more sexist than England in that era? Why was George such a popular name for women writers?

kelby_lake

12-01-2012, 10:42 AM

There were in England, just perused Bloom's list, and there are ten Victorian women writers from England on it, but only one from France, i.e., George Sands. Was France more sexist than England in that era? Why was George such a popular name for women writers?

Eliot nicked it off her lover, didn't she? I suppose it's because George doesn't sound definitiely masculine. It could also be used as a girl's name too (short for Georgia/Georgina/Georgiana).

Gladys

12-03-2012, 03:50 AM

I was full of admiration for the powerfulness of his []Henry James'] writing, but I think it was his mind that I didn't like. At the end of the day it seemed rather gratuitous to make a girl [Isabel] stew in her own mistake to such an extent, when she had a way out.

In post #48 I have defended Isabel 'stewing' at the end, in part, by applauding Henry James for an astonishing philosophical and literary tour de force. Who would have thought! Can't you see that Isabel's way out would have raped her lofty ideals? That the reader dislikes the outcome matters little here.

That's just it - there was no charisma that I could pick up on. He [Gilbert] seemed plain creepy to me, and to the other characters in the book as well. Isabel's situation closely resembles Dorothea Brooke's in Middlemarch, and James clearly didn't approve of Dorothea giving up her ideals and succumbing to an ultimately happier fate.

The parallel between Isabel and Dorothea regarding marriage is excellent! Both are young, both idealistic, both seeking for something morally and intellectually higher, both blundering in marrying (early in the novel), and both maintaining personal integrity to the end. Gilbert, like Casaubon, seems to the young and innocent girl a larger-than-life cosmopolitan. Neither James nor Eliot wishes the reader to be enraptured by these men, even at first: creepy they are indeed. Madame Merle is much harder to dismiss, early, and, arguably, later.

The reader is forced to accept that shallow Ladislaw would be a good match for deep Dorothea.

Dorothea ultimately gives in to common sense and normal human feelings, but James apparently did not approve of this. His heroine Isabel was to retain her exalted sense of personal integrity to the bitter end. She flees from Caspar Goodwood's bountiful sexuality and returns to Rome, which in my eyes makes her a sort of masochistic prude.

I can not share Henry James' view of Dorothea. George Eliot, in Middlemarch and The Mill on the floss, is less concerned with philosophical niceties and idealised characters than with the ambivalent realities of life facing "the woman". Dorothea, Maggie Tulliver and Mary Evans (aka George Eliot) live in a man's world, like it or not. Accommodation, compromise and the second-best-choices were, and perhaps still are, a woman's lot. Have you read an internet biography of George Eliot? Magnificent endings for the woman are best kept for children's stories. In James's novel, Isabel lives , is fully alive, heroically ("Man shall not live by bread alone"); in the Eliot's "novel for adults", Dorothea does what she can, humbly, with understatement. Each novel is great in its own way.

But I did not mind the end because, unlike her choice of marrying Osborne, it did not seem in the least contrived, and was at least consistent with her character.

Isabel marries because Youth equals Immaturity. :smile5: