August 5, 2004
IF YOU DON'T READ FOR ENJOYMENT OR COMPREHENSION, BUT FOR AFFECT, YOU'LL LOVE HIM:
The Author as Character: What happens when you put Henry James in a novel?: a review of The Master by Colm Tóibín (Joseph Epstein, Weekly Standard)
HENRY JAMES is, of course, not everybody's cup of chamomile. He happens, though, to be mine. In case you are uncertain about whether he might also be yours, here, by way of a quick test, from the middle of his novel What Maisie Knew, is a Jamesian sentence for you to contemplate: "The immensity didn't include them; but if he had an idea at the back of his head she had also one in a recess as deep, and for a time, while they sat together, there was an extraordinary mute passage between her vision of this vision of his, and her vision of his vision of her vision." You cannot hope to comprehend that sentence with a ballgame, or perhaps even an air conditioner, on in the background.
In fact, those Vietnam POWs were forced to read James when they finished the transcript of John Kerry's Senate testimony. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 5, 2004 3:39 PM
'Henry James chewed more than he bit off.'
-- Mrs. Henry Adams
Posted by: Harry Eagar at August 5, 2004 4:17 PMThere's this blogger who gave James' most famous work a B on the A-to-F scale. And he's a tough grader.
AND HE CAN'T DENY IT.
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
P.S. Clover Hooper killed herself. Shows what happens when you're a lousy literary critic.
Posted by: Casey Abell at August 5, 2004 4:39 PMCasey:
Turn of the Screw proves the rule--he could actually write a ghost story for a mass audience, just stunk going highbrow.
Posted by: oj at August 5, 2004 6:04 PMFeeling a little twinge of conscience for ridiculing Clover's really sad death. After all, being married to Henry Adams might have turned anybody's thoughts toward self-destruction. Adams wrote long, dull books about how the world was going to hell right now and right quick.
An odd footnote: James was fairly well-acquainted with Henry and Clover. In a short story called "Pandora," HJ satirized them as the Bonnycastles, a somewhat arrogant power couple in Washington. It was very mild satire, and James gave Mr. Bonnycastle some memorable lines, such as: "Hang it, there is only a month left; let us have some fun--let us invite the President!"
Sure enough, the President shows up at their party, and...well, you'll have to read the rest of the story yourselves. Even Orrin might enjoy this morsel of political humor. At one point James pokes some fun at himself.
Although the portrayal of Henry and Clover was far from nasty, the story may have contributed to the Adamses' less than favorable opinion of HJ's works. Late in life, though, Adams called forth one of James' most memorable bursts of eloquence.
Adams wrote a letter to James filled with his usual doom and gloom. James responded with a magnificent affirmation of life and faith, which has been anthologized many times. In its brevity, intensity and sheer command of the language, the letter remains one of the best ever penned.
Posted by: Casey Abell at August 5, 2004 6:07 PMCasey - is it online?
Posted by: pj at August 5, 2004 9:22 PMYep, there's an online version:
http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/etext00/pndra10.txt
Mr. Bonnycastle's comment is even better in this revised version of the story: "Hang it, there's only a month left; let us be vulgar and have some fun--let us invite the President."
There are also a few non-p.c. terms in the story that were, of course, completely acceptable in the 1880s. James would avoid them today, no doubt. But he would still have Mr. Bonnycastle invite the President.
The story is told from the point of view of an anti-Semitic German diplomat, Count Vogelstein. James describes him as a "a stiff conservative, a Junker of Junkers," and his opinions certainly justify the phrase.
Believe it or not, Vogelstein is actually one of the less unsympathetic Germans who appear in HJ's fiction. James had little love for the Fatherland and its inhabitants, as his fulminations during World War I demonstrated. At least he didn't live to see Hitler, which is a mercy.
Posted by: Casey Abell at August 5, 2004 11:55 PMOops. Just dawned on me that you might have been talking about James' letter to Adams instead of "Pandora." I don't think the letter is online. For maybe a half-million you could buy it from the Massachusetts Historical Society (just kidding).
The letter is available in a number of editions of James' corrspondence. I'm looking at a photograph of it now. It's scribbled on a single sheet of paper, with many lines going up the sides and bouncing back and forth at the top.
It's worth reading.
Posted by: Casey Abell at August 6, 2004 12:08 AMYes, it was the letter I was curious about. Is the letter dated?
Posted by: pj at August 6, 2004 5:38 PMSorry it took me so long to wander back to the blog. The letter is dated 3/21/1914, maybe not the best date for optimism! A few of the letter's phrases are quoted in the Epstein essay. The letter begins:
"My dear Henry, I have your melancholy outpouring of the 7th, and I know not how better to acknowledge it than by the full recognition of its unmitigated blackness..."
Adams could do unmitigated blackness (depression, not race) like nobody else.
Posted by: Casey Abell at August 9, 2004 2:14 PMNo luck:
Posted by: oj at August 9, 2004 3:16 PM