The important thing to understand is that she has been swept up and displaced from her identity which ends up being a spur to her naive desire for independence and authenticity. This book makes me feel a lot of things just remembering it and thinking about it, James is really an incredible writer and if you are willing to meet the book on its terms you will get a beautiful experience from it. If you instead choose to shut down as soon as you encounter something that makes you uncomfortable, you will remain in the small, airless, colorless, but easily understandable and morally straightforward world that is defined for you by people like the ones who dominate discussion in online spaces.
I'm not necessarily a total partisan of James, there's plenty about him that one could fairly dislike, but the clarity, depth and detail of his insight and the peculiar rarefied purity of the world his characters inhabit make him worthwhile for any serious reader. And of course gender dynamics play a part in the story but my point is just don't be overly reactive to that sort of thing, it's depressing to see people incessantly boiling everything down to stupid shit; any real appreciation of art or beauty requires one to transcend that mode of approaching the world.
would you say henry james is an acquired taste?
I've honestly only read this one and Daisy Miller, but starting with Daisy Miller made me want to read more from him right away.
you might dislike her, but you must love gilbert osmond.
In all seriousness, I think by the end of the book your feelings for her will be mediated by a third character (not gilbert).
I'm curious as to the specifics of how you mean this, but yeah there's a lot of forces at play and Isabel is, to reiterate what I said above, very naive.
What I'm referring to is people who are very high disagreeability and very low openness to experience, and who manifest those qualities prominently in their interactions. Of course I don't want to write them off as individuals, I certainly should have referred to their posts rather than the people themselves, thank you for holding me accountable etc etc; but the posts are motivated by a particular sort of sick mindset that tends to reinforce itself and lock in to a pattern.
They all have reasons for being the way they are, though, and I will happily give people the benefit of the doubt in the hope of nudging them towards less primitive behavior. Don't get me wrong, I truly am interested in those people and their stories as well, but I would still prefer to warn others away so that they don't fall into those patterns of behavior in the first place.
This is just the germ of social media. The feedback you get on sites like this for your ideas is incredibly arbitrary and disingenuous a lot of the time. That may be because people who are super-opinionated dominate the online forums, or it could be because there are certain factors which influence the spirit of the responses given (such as anonymity). I've had a lot more honest feedback from students and teachers for my literary opinions than I've gotten on this website.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Sure, in different circumstances you would get different responses out of the same people. The question is somewhat immaterial to my original point in the first post but it's still an interesting sort of chicken-egg problem; ultimately of course both of those things are factors which end up reinforcing each other. An important distinction to make though is that if someone just goes online to vent their aggression after a long day, that's fine, understandable, healthy, etc. But if it comes from a place of "I am asserting the correct worldview and thus by actively not engaging with my enemies I am behaving righteously", it becomes a different dynamic, one that builds on itself, whereas in the aforementioned example about venting one's anger, the behavior will stop naturally on its own once the negative emotion has been let out.
man i loved gilbert osmond. frick everybody but him in that book.
what you have to understand is that henry james is primarily a writer of horror. he prescribes a strong format for impending agoraphobia as the soft remaining core of trust you have is finely adumbrated by henry's surgical hand, then perfectly excised with an equal stroke. you aren't *supposed* to like Isabel. She's going to suffer. She is no more special than you or I. Overall, there is no saving anyone in much of henry's work. It is all quite honest though, not happy, nor simplistic, just honest. Work out why life is cruel to her, work out why you hate her, and you'll benefit more from that insight than any moral from any other fable you might read.
Well, I think it's much more human than that; tragedy, horror, sure, detachment and dramatic irony, sure, masterful technique, absolutely, but you're projecting a certain degree of misanthropy, hostility, etc. that I don't think is really there. It sounds cool and all and I can understand why someone would see it that way, or want to see it that way, but you are overdramatizing.
you should read more James. it's pretty consistent across his work, they *never* win. *ever*
2 years ago
Anonymous
The idea that you're not supposed to feel any affection for the characters doesn't necessarily follow from the fact that they don't win though, that's just what a tragedy is. There is perhaps something pre-Romantic, less sentimental, in his tragic sensibility, but that just leaves it up to the reader to decide; he's not playing with the characters like toys where he makes the ones he likes have a happy ending, he's trying to portray reality.
2 years ago
Anonymous
no, he's just fricking everybody up. i think he's just a little too subtle for you, but his is a war of propriety. the texture of his words are interlaced with that contextual language, the one they use as a tool, as a weapon. take the ambassadors as an example. the entire work is about a subtext of unspoken affairs, which are only ever whispered at until they abruptly become a certainty, and the epiphany shatters an entire illusory world for an individual. then when looked at with the lens once more, the entire thing unfolds into a kaleidoscope, all moments shattered with the now clear infamous truth, all interactions become hideous, craven, not just in terms of propriety, the veneer, but below that surface, a depth to ugliness. i think he is the finest horror writer in existence. he takes from his characters, and he takes and he takes and he takes. he shows no remorse, is not even cold, but he is most certainly cruel. his ink is venom. he is the sublimely sentimental villain incarnate.
2 years ago
Anonymous
another nice thing about the ambiguity of his art is generally that you can read it in any way you wish, not because it's ultimately subkective, but because it's frequently deeper than we ourselves can fully fathom. henry scrapes the very floors of ambiguity and language itself in the process, as seen and often mocked for its circumlocutory manner, but there is a superficial reading, and an alter reading, like a direct cypher, negation nested into earlier full negation with the tone of praise, for a page or two, can have the effect of wickedly confusing one, and for what purpose? an atmosphere? the harsh oppressive atmosphere of distrust and manipulations, of secrets roaring in all ears but yours, no, all of his strokes were he an impressionist, would be dark, shades falling into the event horizon.
i like that he actually aims to never say the same thing. it makes the experience more involving during the process of interpretation. the trouble is that he doesn't poke james hard enough. respects him too much to say that James was the biggest, most flagrant hater of all frickin time. Bostonians? frick the lesbians. let them eat wiener. The Awkward Age? frick young women, their destiny is domination or be dominated. Princess Casamassima? Frick young men. all of their ideals and beliefs are meaningless and illusory. The American? Frick the Hero AND the Heroine, this aint no fairytale b***h! It happens again, and again, and again. Guy was a straight jive ass hatin homie.
You've read him more than I have so I must allow the possibility that something in that differential confirms your assertion, and your description is worthy of aesthetic appreciation in its own right, I'm just not sure how reflective it is of the strict reality. But there's nothing wrong with taking some poetic license, you are still contributing some thought-provoking and deep analysis, and you have a better understanding of his craft than I do, so I won't challenge you on it, all I want to do is point out that his world can be seen in a different way and that humanity doesn't need to be cut out of the picture. If you don't like or care about the human element, that's fine, but I don't want people to think that's the only possible way he could be read.
2 years ago
Anonymous
believe me, it's worse when you're rooting for them, i appreciate that you give me the berth and respect, but no need to restrain your disagreements, i do think i've maybe been unclear at least about the idea of disliking isabel. i quite like other characters. i don't mean people reading henry james' works shouldn't like the characters, but rather it's not your fault, he's forcing you to not like her by making her the way she is, your aversion to her decisions is expected. she's a bit of a dumb, naive, and even vaguely ungrateful or treacherous person. if you want to force yourself into liking isabel, trying to come to terms with her as a person, you're going to have a bad time, that's all. which leads me again to what sort of writer James is, though authorial intent is difficult. i can't ever make heads or tails of what he's ever talking about anyway. I'm quite comfortable with it being more myself than him, great authors let us see ourselves in them, help us to express by lighting the way, give us the words and thoughts, so maybe it's just how i take it, sure. and i don't ruin him or his stories for my mother, either, since she reads his works with a sort of joy, and she sees only things that she identifies within them i don't, but usually that leads me to believe he's got both sides covered. that he probably has even more inside him than what a few people might be able to see, but i'm a bit of a paranoid romantic when it comes to some of their abilities in my mind, these great authors. surely they didn't only mean *one* thing? hah, anyway, he's a fantastic author.
another nice thing about the ambiguity of his art is generally that you can read it in any way you wish, not because it's ultimately subkective, but because it's frequently deeper than we ourselves can fully fathom. henry scrapes the very floors of ambiguity and language itself in the process, as seen and often mocked for its circumlocutory manner, but there is a superficial reading, and an alter reading, like a direct cypher, negation nested into earlier full negation with the tone of praise, for a page or two, can have the effect of wickedly confusing one, and for what purpose? an atmosphere? the harsh oppressive atmosphere of distrust and manipulations, of secrets roaring in all ears but yours, no, all of his strokes were he an impressionist, would be dark, shades falling into the event horizon.
What are the Jamesheads' thoughts on the following passage I read in a Martin Amis book the other day?
>All writers enter into a platonic marriage with their readers, and in this respect James’s fiction follows a peculiar arc: courtship, honeymoon, vigorous cohabitation, and then growing disaffection and estrangement; separate beds, and then separate rooms. As with any marriage, the relationship is measured by the quality of its daily intercourse—by the quality of its language. And even at its most equable and beguiling (the androgynous delicacy, the wonderfully alien eye), James’s prose suffers from an acute behavioral flaw.
>Students of usage have identified the habit as “elegant variation.” The phrase is intended ironically, because the elegance aspired to is really pseudoelegance, antielegance. For example: “She proceeded to the left, towards the Ponte Vecchio, and stopped in front of one of the hotels which overlook that delightful structure.” I can think of another variation on the Ponte Vecchio: how about that vulgar little pronoun “it”? Similarly, “breakfast,” later in its appointed sentence, becomes “this repast,” and “tea-pot” becomes “this receptacle”; “Lord Warburton” becomes “that nobleman” (or “the master of Lockleigh”); “letters” become “epistles”; “his arms” become “these members”; and so on.
>Apart from causing the reader to groan out loud as often as three times in a single sentence, James’s variations suggest broader deficiencies: gentility, fastidiousness, and a lack of warmth, a lack of candor and engagement. All the instances quoted above come from The Portrait of a Lady (1881), from the generous and hospitable early-middle period. When we enter the arctic labyrinth known as Late James, the retreat from the reader, the embrace of introversion, is as emphatic as that of Joyce, and far more fiendishly prolonged.
i like that he actually aims to never say the same thing. it makes the experience more involving during the process of interpretation. the trouble is that he doesn't poke james hard enough. respects him too much to say that James was the biggest, most flagrant hater of all frickin time. Bostonians? frick the lesbians. let them eat wiener. The Awkward Age? frick young women, their destiny is domination or be dominated. Princess Casamassima? Frick young men. all of their ideals and beliefs are meaningless and illusory. The American? Frick the Hero AND the Heroine, this aint no fairytale b***h! It happens again, and again, and again. Guy was a straight jive ass hatin homie.
This just seems like a sneer at the quaintness of an "outdated" sensibility, nothing too substantial in it. His idiosyncrasies make him an easy target, someone recently posted a whole list of quotes of various authors saying things like this about him.
believe me, it's worse when you're rooting for them, i appreciate that you give me the berth and respect, but no need to restrain your disagreements, i do think i've maybe been unclear at least about the idea of disliking isabel. i quite like other characters. i don't mean people reading henry james' works shouldn't like the characters, but rather it's not your fault, he's forcing you to not like her by making her the way she is, your aversion to her decisions is expected. she's a bit of a dumb, naive, and even vaguely ungrateful or treacherous person. if you want to force yourself into liking isabel, trying to come to terms with her as a person, you're going to have a bad time, that's all. which leads me again to what sort of writer James is, though authorial intent is difficult. i can't ever make heads or tails of what he's ever talking about anyway. I'm quite comfortable with it being more myself than him, great authors let us see ourselves in them, help us to express by lighting the way, give us the words and thoughts, so maybe it's just how i take it, sure. and i don't ruin him or his stories for my mother, either, since she reads his works with a sort of joy, and she sees only things that she identifies within them i don't, but usually that leads me to believe he's got both sides covered. that he probably has even more inside him than what a few people might be able to see, but i'm a bit of a paranoid romantic when it comes to some of their abilities in my mind, these great authors. surely they didn't only mean *one* thing? hah, anyway, he's a fantastic author.
I can certainly see disliking Isabel, but I think what you said to begin with is the most accurate assessment: she is not special, she is an everywoman, she remains in the state of nature, until the world comes crashing in and she's not ready for it. She definitely reads as pompous and full of herself in many situations, but I think she's ultimately intended as an innocent whose faults the reader is invited to forgive in light of her youth and guilelessness. But since you like Osmond I think we just have very different sensibilities, I'm a bit of a sentimental homosexual so my approach is probably more similar to your mother's. We can definitely agree on the fact that he's a genius though, this discussion (and going back to re-read a bit in order to fact check my memory) is just further whetting my appetite to get into the later works.
no, no, not osmond! whoof. I meant Ralph! He's the only one i don't hate. Weird, i figured everyone liked the crippled fellow, i had forgotten their names, so i assumed, foolishly. it's been some time, i fear. but yeah, Ralph. Frick osmond, that douchebag, and his toady, that Marquise de Merteuil ass b***h
Ahh okay that makes much more sense, I just thought people were saying that in the usual tradition of going for the edgiest possible take. Yes, it's impossible not to love Ralph, he's one of those characters you just can't help wanting to be friends with (and not just for the chance that he might secure you a nice little inheritance).
The important thing to understand is that she has been swept up and displaced from her identity which ends up being a spur to her naive desire for independence and authenticity. This book makes me feel a lot of things just remembering it and thinking about it, James is really an incredible writer and if you are willing to meet the book on its terms you will get a beautiful experience from it. If you instead choose to shut down as soon as you encounter something that makes you uncomfortable, you will remain in the small, airless, colorless, but easily understandable and morally straightforward world that is defined for you by people like the ones who dominate discussion in online spaces.
thank you jamesgay. did not expect a serious response.
I'm not necessarily a total partisan of James, there's plenty about him that one could fairly dislike, but the clarity, depth and detail of his insight and the peculiar rarefied purity of the world his characters inhabit make him worthwhile for any serious reader. And of course gender dynamics play a part in the story but my point is just don't be overly reactive to that sort of thing, it's depressing to see people incessantly boiling everything down to stupid shit; any real appreciation of art or beauty requires one to transcend that mode of approaching the world.
I've honestly only read this one and Daisy Miller, but starting with Daisy Miller made me want to read more from him right away.
I'm curious as to the specifics of how you mean this, but yeah there's a lot of forces at play and Isabel is, to reiterate what I said above, very naive.
would you say henry james is an acquired taste?
Not OP, but yes, You have to put in the work to get him. Oh, but once you get him...
>by people like the ones who dominate discussion in online spaces.
Oh the irony. Tldr have a nice day dick sucker.
What I'm referring to is people who are very high disagreeability and very low openness to experience, and who manifest those qualities prominently in their interactions. Of course I don't want to write them off as individuals, I certainly should have referred to their posts rather than the people themselves, thank you for holding me accountable etc etc; but the posts are motivated by a particular sort of sick mindset that tends to reinforce itself and lock in to a pattern.
They all have reasons for being the way they are, though, and I will happily give people the benefit of the doubt in the hope of nudging them towards less primitive behavior. Don't get me wrong, I truly am interested in those people and their stories as well, but I would still prefer to warn others away so that they don't fall into those patterns of behavior in the first place.
This is just the germ of social media. The feedback you get on sites like this for your ideas is incredibly arbitrary and disingenuous a lot of the time. That may be because people who are super-opinionated dominate the online forums, or it could be because there are certain factors which influence the spirit of the responses given (such as anonymity). I've had a lot more honest feedback from students and teachers for my literary opinions than I've gotten on this website.
Sure, in different circumstances you would get different responses out of the same people. The question is somewhat immaterial to my original point in the first post but it's still an interesting sort of chicken-egg problem; ultimately of course both of those things are factors which end up reinforcing each other. An important distinction to make though is that if someone just goes online to vent their aggression after a long day, that's fine, understandable, healthy, etc. But if it comes from a place of "I am asserting the correct worldview and thus by actively not engaging with my enemies I am behaving righteously", it becomes a different dynamic, one that builds on itself, whereas in the aforementioned example about venting one's anger, the behavior will stop naturally on its own once the negative emotion has been let out.
you might dislike her, but you must love gilbert osmond.
In all seriousness, I think by the end of the book your feelings for her will be mediated by a third character (not gilbert).
man i loved gilbert osmond. frick everybody but him in that book.
what you have to understand is that henry james is primarily a writer of horror. he prescribes a strong format for impending agoraphobia as the soft remaining core of trust you have is finely adumbrated by henry's surgical hand, then perfectly excised with an equal stroke. you aren't *supposed* to like Isabel. She's going to suffer. She is no more special than you or I. Overall, there is no saving anyone in much of henry's work. It is all quite honest though, not happy, nor simplistic, just honest. Work out why life is cruel to her, work out why you hate her, and you'll benefit more from that insight than any moral from any other fable you might read.
Well, I think it's much more human than that; tragedy, horror, sure, detachment and dramatic irony, sure, masterful technique, absolutely, but you're projecting a certain degree of misanthropy, hostility, etc. that I don't think is really there. It sounds cool and all and I can understand why someone would see it that way, or want to see it that way, but you are overdramatizing.
you should read more James. it's pretty consistent across his work, they *never* win. *ever*
The idea that you're not supposed to feel any affection for the characters doesn't necessarily follow from the fact that they don't win though, that's just what a tragedy is. There is perhaps something pre-Romantic, less sentimental, in his tragic sensibility, but that just leaves it up to the reader to decide; he's not playing with the characters like toys where he makes the ones he likes have a happy ending, he's trying to portray reality.
no, he's just fricking everybody up. i think he's just a little too subtle for you, but his is a war of propriety. the texture of his words are interlaced with that contextual language, the one they use as a tool, as a weapon. take the ambassadors as an example. the entire work is about a subtext of unspoken affairs, which are only ever whispered at until they abruptly become a certainty, and the epiphany shatters an entire illusory world for an individual. then when looked at with the lens once more, the entire thing unfolds into a kaleidoscope, all moments shattered with the now clear infamous truth, all interactions become hideous, craven, not just in terms of propriety, the veneer, but below that surface, a depth to ugliness. i think he is the finest horror writer in existence. he takes from his characters, and he takes and he takes and he takes. he shows no remorse, is not even cold, but he is most certainly cruel. his ink is venom. he is the sublimely sentimental villain incarnate.
You've read him more than I have so I must allow the possibility that something in that differential confirms your assertion, and your description is worthy of aesthetic appreciation in its own right, I'm just not sure how reflective it is of the strict reality. But there's nothing wrong with taking some poetic license, you are still contributing some thought-provoking and deep analysis, and you have a better understanding of his craft than I do, so I won't challenge you on it, all I want to do is point out that his world can be seen in a different way and that humanity doesn't need to be cut out of the picture. If you don't like or care about the human element, that's fine, but I don't want people to think that's the only possible way he could be read.
believe me, it's worse when you're rooting for them, i appreciate that you give me the berth and respect, but no need to restrain your disagreements, i do think i've maybe been unclear at least about the idea of disliking isabel. i quite like other characters. i don't mean people reading henry james' works shouldn't like the characters, but rather it's not your fault, he's forcing you to not like her by making her the way she is, your aversion to her decisions is expected. she's a bit of a dumb, naive, and even vaguely ungrateful or treacherous person. if you want to force yourself into liking isabel, trying to come to terms with her as a person, you're going to have a bad time, that's all. which leads me again to what sort of writer James is, though authorial intent is difficult. i can't ever make heads or tails of what he's ever talking about anyway. I'm quite comfortable with it being more myself than him, great authors let us see ourselves in them, help us to express by lighting the way, give us the words and thoughts, so maybe it's just how i take it, sure. and i don't ruin him or his stories for my mother, either, since she reads his works with a sort of joy, and she sees only things that she identifies within them i don't, but usually that leads me to believe he's got both sides covered. that he probably has even more inside him than what a few people might be able to see, but i'm a bit of a paranoid romantic when it comes to some of their abilities in my mind, these great authors. surely they didn't only mean *one* thing? hah, anyway, he's a fantastic author.
>what you have to understand is that henry james is primarily a writer of horror.
this guy gets it
another nice thing about the ambiguity of his art is generally that you can read it in any way you wish, not because it's ultimately subkective, but because it's frequently deeper than we ourselves can fully fathom. henry scrapes the very floors of ambiguity and language itself in the process, as seen and often mocked for its circumlocutory manner, but there is a superficial reading, and an alter reading, like a direct cypher, negation nested into earlier full negation with the tone of praise, for a page or two, can have the effect of wickedly confusing one, and for what purpose? an atmosphere? the harsh oppressive atmosphere of distrust and manipulations, of secrets roaring in all ears but yours, no, all of his strokes were he an impressionist, would be dark, shades falling into the event horizon.
What are the Jamesheads' thoughts on the following passage I read in a Martin Amis book the other day?
>All writers enter into a platonic marriage with their readers, and in this respect James’s fiction follows a peculiar arc: courtship, honeymoon, vigorous cohabitation, and then growing disaffection and estrangement; separate beds, and then separate rooms. As with any marriage, the relationship is measured by the quality of its daily intercourse—by the quality of its language. And even at its most equable and beguiling (the androgynous delicacy, the wonderfully alien eye), James’s prose suffers from an acute behavioral flaw.
>Students of usage have identified the habit as “elegant variation.” The phrase is intended ironically, because the elegance aspired to is really pseudoelegance, antielegance. For example: “She proceeded to the left, towards the Ponte Vecchio, and stopped in front of one of the hotels which overlook that delightful structure.” I can think of another variation on the Ponte Vecchio: how about that vulgar little pronoun “it”? Similarly, “breakfast,” later in its appointed sentence, becomes “this repast,” and “tea-pot” becomes “this receptacle”; “Lord Warburton” becomes “that nobleman” (or “the master of Lockleigh”); “letters” become “epistles”; “his arms” become “these members”; and so on.
>Apart from causing the reader to groan out loud as often as three times in a single sentence, James’s variations suggest broader deficiencies: gentility, fastidiousness, and a lack of warmth, a lack of candor and engagement. All the instances quoted above come from The Portrait of a Lady (1881), from the generous and hospitable early-middle period. When we enter the arctic labyrinth known as Late James, the retreat from the reader, the embrace of introversion, is as emphatic as that of Joyce, and far more fiendishly prolonged.
i like that he actually aims to never say the same thing. it makes the experience more involving during the process of interpretation. the trouble is that he doesn't poke james hard enough. respects him too much to say that James was the biggest, most flagrant hater of all frickin time. Bostonians? frick the lesbians. let them eat wiener. The Awkward Age? frick young women, their destiny is domination or be dominated. Princess Casamassima? Frick young men. all of their ideals and beliefs are meaningless and illusory. The American? Frick the Hero AND the Heroine, this aint no fairytale b***h! It happens again, and again, and again. Guy was a straight jive ass hatin homie.
This just seems like a sneer at the quaintness of an "outdated" sensibility, nothing too substantial in it. His idiosyncrasies make him an easy target, someone recently posted a whole list of quotes of various authors saying things like this about him.
I can certainly see disliking Isabel, but I think what you said to begin with is the most accurate assessment: she is not special, she is an everywoman, she remains in the state of nature, until the world comes crashing in and she's not ready for it. She definitely reads as pompous and full of herself in many situations, but I think she's ultimately intended as an innocent whose faults the reader is invited to forgive in light of her youth and guilelessness. But since you like Osmond I think we just have very different sensibilities, I'm a bit of a sentimental homosexual so my approach is probably more similar to your mother's. We can definitely agree on the fact that he's a genius though, this discussion (and going back to re-read a bit in order to fact check my memory) is just further whetting my appetite to get into the later works.
no, no, not osmond! whoof. I meant Ralph! He's the only one i don't hate. Weird, i figured everyone liked the crippled fellow, i had forgotten their names, so i assumed, foolishly. it's been some time, i fear. but yeah, Ralph. Frick osmond, that douchebag, and his toady, that Marquise de Merteuil ass b***h
Ahh okay that makes much more sense, I just thought people were saying that in the usual tradition of going for the edgiest possible take. Yes, it's impossible not to love Ralph, he's one of those characters you just can't help wanting to be friends with (and not just for the chance that he might secure you a nice little inheritance).