The Awkward Age

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Romance / General; Fiction / Romance / Historical; Literary Collections / American / General; Literary Criticism / American / General;

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Customer Reviews

A Psychological Policier
If you are not prepared to read several scenes in this novel slowly and often, there is a very good chance that, like many academic reviewers, you will leave it thinking less well of the characters in it than you do of yourself for having, with only moderate encouragement from James, "seen through them." Not many of them are easy to like. Mrs. Brook in particular is, as James clearly implies in his preface to the New York edition, essentially a character in a French novel--charming, beautiful, terminally manipulative. But the pleasure of this book is precisely that it obliges you, by the precise obliquity of its writing, to recurively correct your notions as you move through a series of set scenes, transferring your allegiances as characters initially attractive come to seem less so, and as characters less attractive come, by their honesty or their helplessness, to the moral fore. The long scene at Tishy Grendon's, in which everything comes to a kind of moral head, craves such careful reading that even inveterately fascinated and loyalist readers of James will need to piece their way through it very slowly. Critics and readers who, understandably, wonder why all this fuss is made about people themselves ultimately trivial, need to be reminded that James spent his life as a writer teaching us, by the difficulty of his writing, to read (in just the same way that Bach teaches us to listen). It is "the fascination of what's difficult" that keeps us turning pages, though it must be said that what's difficult here is considerably less so than, say, in The Golden Bowl or The Wings Of The Dove. Ultimately, what is upheld in these novels is the willingness, in a world riddled with well bred rottenness, evil in spotless linen, to live without self pity or bitterness, and for this alone James should be required reading for Americans of the 21st Century.

2003-08-28 | Helpful Votes: 15 | Rating: 5

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An Uncharacteristic Gem by a Literary Giant
This novel tells a familiar tale: old-fashioned man enters a tangled web of wealthy British fashionable types, makes a proposal, and the web falls apart. Mr. Longdon, a wealthy old man from Suffolk, returns to London to find the children and grandchildren of his ancient love. Out of respect for this unspoiled affection, he takes an interest in the grand-daughter of his love and tries to pull her out of the circle of influence that has, effectively, soiled her. James manages some interesting and convincing characters, and these pawns interact in some magnificent scenes. It almost reminds me of Restoration Comedy, with its complicated dialogue and dramatic jumps in setting that resemble staged scenes. The major thread of the novel is the relationship between Vanderbank, a complicated but good-natured young man who has managed to penetrate that affluent circle, and Nanda Brookenham, the granddaughter of Longdon's lost love. Vanderbank remains deliciously puzzling to the end of the novel, and Nanda manages a kind of heroism. The conclusion is somewhat surprising; James, by this point in his career, seems to have moved beyond the endorsement of conservative values evident in a work like The Bostonians. Despite the surprise, though, it was a great deal of fun getting to that conclusion. This novel is as close to a page-turner as I have read from James thus far, and bristles with subtle interrogation of a rotting social structure. I have no trouble saying, like F.R. Leavis, that this novel ranks among James's best.

2002-08-25 | badgradstudent (Chicago, Illinois) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 5

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"Maisie" was better
Critics will often pair this novel with his earlier "What Maisie Knew."

Both novels deal with the child's / adolescent's emerging conscience, while faced with adult corruption.

In "Maisie" and "Awkward," we see James following up on his fascination with Hawthornian themes.

James's facility with dialogue, in which abrupt blushes are loaded with meaning, is apparent here. The drawing-room conversations reminded me of a party in a swimming pool; each character is constantly, in a conversational sense, "taking a plunge and coming up somewhere else."

I found this novel somewhat thin - read closely James's "Preface to the New York Edition"; can you hear James in self-defense mode?

Overall, not bad, but "Maisie's" somber and gloomy tone was better suited to the subject matter and themes than the "light and ironic" touch of "Awkward."

2002-07-19 | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

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A Frustrating Book, Unlikeable Characters
I thought the value of this book lied not in its story (it was forgettable), but as a sort of cultural museum, allowing one to look into what English "high society" was like at the end of the 19th century.

What it was, I found, was horribly superficial and empty. These people had little to do with their time except gather at eachother's parlours and chat idlely and endlessly. But with nothing to talk about and all day to talk about it, it was considered better to sound "clever" than to have something meaningful to say; style was valued in the absense of substance. No one said what they felt, no one felt strongly about what they said, and the whole frustrating lot of them came across as a bunch of phonies. They were all but toppling over with the weight of their own pretensions.

The reason I found this frustrating, though, is that in his other works I have read (admittedly not that many), the reward for struggling through James' prose is his deeply penetrating understanding of human nature; clearly, James "gets" people, and it shows in his sharp observation and subtle wit. So that made me struggle all the more to peel back the layers of clever chatter to "get" what James was driving at, but after I turned the final unfathomable page, all I could say was "huh?"

2000-09-01 | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 2

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Great Plot, Could Have Used a Different Author
When Nanda Brookenham "comes out" in her mother's salon, one question is immediately which of its male members she will marry--and soon. The urgency is partly financial: Nanda's parents seem to live almost beyond their means and she has no dowry. It is also moral: Given the salon's racy talk and unconcealed sexual intrigues, how can Nanda long continue to present an image of the "pure young girl" it was assumed most men would want to marry? And finally, it may be familial: Does Mrs. Brookenham really want a younger female competitor sitting with her daily?

Nanda's choices seem limited to three: The handsome, clever, conceited Vanderbank, who she prefers, but who is not that well off and who may be attached to her mother. The ugly, awkward, but rich and kind Mitchy, who prefers her. And possibly, the elderly, conventional, but rich and kind Mr. Longdon, who was in love with her dead grandmother and who may turn out to be either a benefactor or a suitor.

Nanda's mother is highly manipulative, not only in trying to arrange her daughter's marriage but in meddling with all her friends' affairs. The grandmother to whom Mr. Longdon always compares Nanda was the eptiome of old-fashioned purity and reticence. The other central question of the novel is: Which role model will Nanda choose?

In the hands of a less verbose writer, The Awkward Age could have been action-packed, clever, and even moving in depicting the limitations of its characters' choices. As it is, James's hesitations, qualifications, and reluctance to fully disclose his characters' motivations partly spoil it. We know (as much as James will ever tell) which suitor Nanda chose. But we are unable to gauge whether she has been manipulative, and acted from cynical financial and social calculation, or whether she has been "pure," and acted from real emotional impulse. That is, we never quite know which role model she chose (though I have my guess).

The novel is written mostly in dialog and reads in places like a play. Personally, I'd like to see it turned it into a play or film script. Simply cutting out a lot of verbosity could give it a clear meaning and a real ending. I even think I know what she'd do with her life after the novel ended.

2000-03-27 | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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The Europeans - A Sketch

Description

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

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Customer Reviews

Compared to Earlier and Later Works ...
... The Europeans seems indeed to be merely "a sketch", a practice piece, worth reading only for James's masterly prose and for occasional sparkles of wit. Or perhaps it should be taken as James's effort to 'cash in' on the perennial market for romance novels for women readers, a market that was a lucrative in the 19th C as it remains today. That latter interpretation, I confess, is hindered by the absence of passion exhibited in any the four entangled 'love stories' of the narration. Marriages do occur eventually; I hope that's not too much of a spoiler, since I won't disclose how many or whom.

One could also interpret The Europeans as a study of miscommunication. The title characters, a sister and brother whose mother was American but who have 'grown up' as thorough Europeans, come to visit their American cousins whom they've never met or known, who live quiet, sober lives in a Massachusetts village. The reader is 'encouraged' to suppose that the sister is both fleeing a milieu in Europe that has gone sour and seeking a 'fortunate' matrimonial opportunity. The American cousins and their social set are people of substantial means and insubstantial culture. Perplexed in every way by the arrival of such exotic relatives, nonetheless they generously welcome the travelers into their quaint puritanical family circle. What ensues is a minuet of misperceptions and miscues.

James seems to have learned a good deal about the structural mechanics of novel-writing in the short time between "The American" and "The Europeans". Whereas in the former, he sometimes labors over describing a character in excessive external detail, in the latter he allows his characters to portray themselves through actions and dialogue. It's a subtler style of narrative, on a par with the polished best of Jane Austen or George Eliot. But of course the 19th C British 'novel of manners' was the model of all of Henry James's novels, a form he never abandoned. It's also quite plausible that James consciously intended "The Europeans" as a sequel to "The American," a thematic coda. It's not as exciting or insightful as its immediate predecessor, and it's barely a prophecy of the brilliance James would soon achieve in "The Bostonians". But it's too artfully written not to be entertaining as a display of craft.

2010-06-30 (Wherever I am, I am.) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Less brilliant than other James' works
This is not one of my favourites (and it was not among the James' fovourites, either). Both characters and plot do not live up to the very high standard I got used to, reading HJ.

I read this book soon after "Washington square", and while I was really shocked by how brilliant and powerful that novel is, this one has not had such a strong effect (not that it is bad, simply it is not too good).

2010-03-24 (Italy) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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The foreign cousins
This minor work by James is another brick in the tall wall of his obsessive study of the cultural and behavioral differences between Europeans and Americans at the turn of the Century (XIX to XX, of course). The prose is, as always, elegant and intricate, with a rich and sophisticated language that every admirer of James enjoys so much, but it is no doubt much lighter than his masterworks. Eugenia and Felix Young, children of Americans but raised in Europe, arrive in Boston to look for their uncle Wentworth and his children. He has few memories of her departed sister, the Youngs' mother, and doesn't even remember she left two kids when she died. So the Youngs are well received but naturally elicit all kinds of suspicion. What are the refined Eugenia, married to a Baron of Münster, and the artistically inclined Felix up to? What's the objective of their visit? The members of the Wentworth household react differently, according to their own expectations, attractions, rejections, and delusions. Brother and sister become an exotic attraction, a couple of rather decadent noble people playing king and queen of a rural, puritan, and prude environment. In particular, Felix elicits the total admiration and infatuation of the young and independently-minded Gertrude. It's a funny and pleasant read, which prefigures future, more complex plots and characters by James.

2009-08-06 (Mexico, Distrito Federal Mexico) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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The Europeans
The Europeans by Henry James. Published by MobileReference (mobi)

Henry James is one of the best American writers. Reading this novel has made me very excited to read further works by James, as I plan to read the entirety of his literary output. It is the brilliance and charm of 'Europenas' that has instilled in me this excitment.

2009-06-30 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Sloppy edition
The edition I had (Bibliobazaar) is so full of spelling mistakes (Eg. P:41, instead of "Munster", "M; auunster", and this repeated throughout the book) that I regretted not specifying a certain edition. I feel I got a very cheap edition for my money.

2009-04-02 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 2

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The Outcry

Description

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: American fiction; Art / Techniques / Painting; Drama / American; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; History / General; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / American / General;

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Customer Reviews

Slight but satisfying example of late James
For those who admire the style of the later Henry James, and enjoyed the final three "big" novels - The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and the Golden Bowl - this much shorter and lighter novel - almost a short story by James' standards - will be a very pleasant diversion.

Obviously adapted from his play without much attempt to disguise this fact, the novel is driven by the characters' sharp and often witty dialogue. The characters are well drawn, and the story is unusually straightforward for James. While there remain the usual elliptical phrases and circumlocutions we've come to expect in his later novels, these have been toned down in the interests of dramatic momentum and the book is actually an easy read.

While it is certainly not one of the great James novels, it is nevertheless recommended to those who enjoy reading this author.

2002-08-27 | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 4

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What Maisie Knew

Description

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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Customer Reviews

Good Literature, Average Story
This is a well thought effort by James where he tries to introduce a symmetrical relationship between two divorces parents- who each try to use the daughter as a pawn - plus the new partners of each parent. There are four primary characters plus the daughter Maisie and an older housekeeper or nanny Mrs. Wix, and a few minor characters. The book is a bit like a play with a few characters and concentrates on their dialogue.

The heart of the story is what does Maisie think of the situation and how does she deal with it. As a character is the information too sophisticated for her - or does the story fit with a girl such as Maisey.
That is, can she as a character be expected to understand the situation?

Obviously, Henry James put some thought into creating and writing the story and it has a certain mathematical symmetry. Saying that, the prose is sometimes a bit too complicated and the story lacks drama and passion.

It is the sort of book that is easy to put down and it is not a page turner.

Hence 4 stars.

2009-02-16 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Maisie, light of my life, fire of my loins
Doh! I meant Lolita. Well, I think that Maisie is a protyope for Lolita. She adapts to being shifted around by her parents and their various lovers by becoming something of a nymphette herself with Daddy Claude. This is a must read for all of us Nabakov fans. I'm quite sure he read it too.

2007-06-16 (Clemson, SC) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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The Corruption of Maisie
WHAT MAISIE KNEW is probably the weirdest novel by Henry James. He had already written of seamy themes before this, but now he writes a variation of one of his favorite themes--that of the corruption of the innocent. Maisie is a young female child, perhaps six years old whose parents are getting divorced. In the best of situations divorce hits hard, and this was far from the best. Maisie's parents, Beale and Ida Farange are morally depraved and care not a whit for the welfare of their daughter. Maisie is a good-natured child who wants only to be loved by the parents she loves. Maisie is the prototypical Jamesian innocent about to be plunged into a maelstrom of decay.

The terms of the divorce allow Maisie to live with each parent at six month intervals, and this she does. It is what she sees and happens to her that begin to cloud Maisie's moral universe. To begin with when she stays with her father, his friends paw her in ways that smack of sexual abuse. Maisie's mother, Ida, hires a governess, Miss Overmore, to care for Maisie. Soon enough Miss Overmore begins an affair with Maisie's father, Beale, ultimately marrying him. Ida follows suit by marrying her lover, Sir Claude. So now Maisie must adjust to a set of step parents. Claude's interest in his step-daughter verges on the incestuous--indeed later on when Maisie is thirteen, she outright propositions him. Ida hires a new governess, Mrs. Wix, to take the place of the erstwhile Miss Overmore. Mrs. Wix is a decent elderly woman who truly loves Maisie and tries to inculcate in her a moral center of goodness. This sense of goodness is put to the test immediately, when Maisie's remarried parents begin a new dance of musical lovers.

As Maisie ages toward young girlhood, she shows signs that she has well learned the lessons of moral depravity that abound. She has no problem adjusting to a series of new adults zipping in and out of her life as parents, step parents, and lovers of parents. Maisie even makes it easy for these newcomers to pull the wool over the eyes of their cuckolded partners by making suggestions to facilitate what is by now a familiar routine or illicit romances. By the end of the novel, a thirteen year old Maisie desires Sir Claude as her own lover. Mrs. Wix, when she hears of this, angrily demands of Maisie what has happened to the sense of moral decorum that she thought was by now firmly instilled in Maisie. The answer, of course, is that the sense of propriety was doomed from the start since Maisie early on learned the difference between words of decorum and deeds of decorum. The Maisie at the end of WHAT MAZIE KNEW suggests that children--or adults for that matter--need a ongoing foundation of goodness to show that the ugliness they may see unfolding around them need not envelop them.

2006-08-14 (jersey city, nj United States) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

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Developing Moral Sense
Henry James' 1907 WHAT MAISIE KNEW provides deep psychological insight into a young girl's predicament, as a result of her parents' bitter divorce in Edwardian England. Inspired by a friend's comments on the "shuttlecock" lifestyle of a divorced child in the vicious game of spousal revenge, this novel studies the harmful existence of an innocent victim of a joint custody dispute. Even at the tender age of seven, Maisie realizes the wisdom of playing dumb. Although she reports little back to the opposing sides, Maisie keenly observes and thoughtfully listens to all that occurs in both her uncomfortable biospheres. Eventually she adopts the simple policy of not telling--thus refusing to provide more fuel for animosity on either side.

As in THE GOLDEN BOWL--a lengthy novel dealing with the marital and emotional battles among a very limited cast of characters--this shorter work could easily be adapted for the stage, as the chapters fall naturally into Scenes. James' protracted dialogues between Maisie and the impassioned adults who dispute her parenting rights would be delicious to dramatize, although readers would lose the private psychological depth as Maisie copes with increasingly new information. She reconciles her maturing lucid udnerstanding to the empowered adults in her universe with private schemes to protect one or the other parent and later, step-parent.

These intense colloquies are designed both to elicit information re events which have occurred offstage, and to stir Maisie to the brink of definitive action--which will directly effect the five adults whom we assume are most interested in her welfare: Beale Farange, Ida Farange, Sir Claude, Miss Overton, and Mrs. Wix. Little Maisie unwittingly serves as a catalyst for adult passion, while she secretly exults in bringing her favorite people together. One of the great literary ironies of this novel springs from the unexpected separations which her warm-hearted meddling precipitates. To her childlike logic, being Free is the most desirable status for formerly married persons--free to love and marry whom they choose--free to make a cherished home for her and to ease their own heartache.

Maisie is further isolated from children, even girls her own age; thus she is left to puzzle out the world using only her keen observation of adult interactions. But how can the lonely girl truly develop a sense of morality--at least by Edwardian standards? Is she herself Free to choose her new and permanent step-parents? Does she have the right to demand that the adults who love her make extreme sacrifices--just to retain her presence and loyalty? Does Maisie at 12 know what is best for herself? Which path will she ultimately choose? Her final decision will impact the lives of three far-from-blameless but well-meaning adults. Maise at 12 is too worldy-wise to indulge in Child's Play. This absorbing work is truly Vintage James.

2006-07-22 | kitka12345 (Westchester, NY) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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Several Turns of the Screw
What hubris to review a work by such a major novelist as Henry James, even though WHAT MAISIE KNEW may not be one of his major novels! All the same, a review can perhaps be useful in two regards: by commenting on this particular edition, and by suggesting how the novel might appeal to those familiar with other James works but not this one.

The Penguin Classics paperback is crisply printed, comfortable in the hand, and well annotated. There is also an excellent essay by Paul Theroux. It gives too much away, I think, to be read as an introduction, but it does make a helpful afterword. If you do read the essay first, which is how it is printed, it may seem that Theroux has revealed virtually the entire plot, but in fact this is not so. James's narrative exposition is unusually swift in this book, and a lot happens very quickly, but his main interest lies in exploring the psychological depths of the situation that he has established; there is a distinct change of gear at roughly the halfway point of the book.

As Theroux points out, the novel is generally considered a transitional work between James's earlier style and his later one. Theroux also locates this gear-change at the point where James ceased writing in longhand and started dictating his novels to a stenographer -- a crisis described so well by Colm Toibin in his biographical novel, THE MASTER. The first half of the book shows a leanness of style and also a great sense of humor not often associated with the author. But the book's premise is intrinsically comic: Maisie, a five-year-old girl, observes the doings of the adults around her as she is shipped from household to household in consequence of her parents' divorce, as the parents take lovers and remarry, and then as virtually everybody else in the story takes other lovers. The humor comes from the fact that while Maisie understands so little at first, the adult reader quickly picks up what is going on. The spider symmetries of the expanding web of sex make a formal pattern as clear and intricate as a dance, illuminated by James's dry wit and his beautiful ability to see through childish eyes.

Several things change at the half-way point. Maisie becomes old enough to understand a little more. The adults whom she had previously observed from below now become more conscious of her as a potential ally and start using her unscrupulously to further their own ends. Twists of the plot which had at first seemed only amusing now appear as quite nasty turns of the screw, as Maisie's affections and loyalties are forced into the vise. Questions of morality come to the fore, and eventually dominate the action. The narrative tone also changes; although Maisie's knowledge and moral awareness develops considerably, James is forced into using his own voice to describe it, as though Maisie herself has lost the words to follow her own farewell to childhood.

The reference above to THE TURN OF THE SCREW is deliberate, for WHAT MAISIE KNEW (1897) seems almost like a preliminary draft for the more famous story, published in the following year. Yes, there are differences: this is comic rather than tragic, complicit rather than mysterious, and much less hermetic. The child heroine appears to come through with more wisdom and less trauma than the situation might have caused. But the final scene is astonishingly close to the ending of the later story: a struggle for control of a once-innocent child waged between a humble governess and two charismatic figures who exert a powerful hold both on the child and on each other. Only the ending is different, though no less worth waiting for.

2006-04-06 | reader/writer/musician (Baltimore, MD) | Helpful Votes: 18 | Rating: 4

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The Pupil

Description

The Pupil is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Henry James is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Henry James then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

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Customer Reviews

"He had given himself away to a band of adventurers." (p.34)
This longish short story tells the tale of a young teacher hired by a "...housefull of bohemians that wanted tremendously to be Philistines." He's quite taken with his pupil, a young man who returns the affection of his teacher and sees through his parent's social climbing ways.

It is the usual world of Henry James, monied turn of the centry Europe, although in this instance the Ameicans abroad are not-so-innocent and not-so-monied. And while there is a reasonable amount of action in the story, no one is going to confuse it with Dashiell Hammett. Perhaps Proust on one of his less verbose days.

The strength of the story is nuance. The negotiations between the mother and the teacher are especially strong and a classic Jamesian quote is contained in the only point of view change from the teacher's that I recall in the story: "If Mr. Moreen hadn't have been such a man of the world he would have perhaps have spoken of the freedom of such neckties on the part of a subordinate."

2001-07-23 | wdury (Glenview, Illinois USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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"He had given himself away to a band of adventurers." (p.34)
This longish short story tells the tale of a young teacher hired by a "...housefull of bohemians that wanted tremendously to be Philistines." He's quite taken with his pupil, a young man who returns the affection of his teacher and sees through his parent's social climbing ways.

It is the usual world of Henry James, monied turn of the centry Europe, although in this instance the Ameicans abroad are not-so-innocent and not-so-monied. And while there is a reasonable amount of action in the story, no one is going to confuse it with Dashiell Hammett. Perhaps Proust on one of his less verbose days.

The strength of the story is nuance. The negotiations between the mother and the teacher are especially strong and a classic Jamesian quote is contained in the only point of view change from the teacher's that I recall in the story: "If Mr. Moreen hadn't have been such a man of the world he would have perhaps have spoken of the freedom of such neckties on the part of a subordinate."

2001-07-23 | wdury (Glenview, Illinois USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Unusual James
This is a great tale from James' middle period. It's also, from my experience of James (Portrait, Wings of the Dove, and about a dozen short novels and stories), not what I expect from him. The family of the eponymous pupil is a great grotesque creation, comic and unfortunate, and the child himself is vividly drawn. Enjoy.

2000-03-26 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Henry James : Collected Travel Writings : The Continent : A Little Tour in France / Italian Hours / Other Travels (Library of America)

Description

Observant, imaginative, rich with literary allusions and historical echoes, James's travel writings are both literary masterpieces and unsurpassed guidebooks, here together for the first time in one authoritative set (in two volumes: Vol. 1, Great Britain and America: English Hours, The American Scene, Other Travels, and Vol. 2: The Continent: A Little Tour in France, Italian Hours, Other Travels), including four books and 32 essays, most previously uncollected. From a radically changing New York to Provence, Tuscany, and Rome, James visits all the places still on the traveler's itinerary, capturing radiant impressions of French countryside, the hauntingly desolate Suffolk coast, Florentine masterpieces, Venetian color and light. Joseph Pennell's exquisite drawings are reproduced from the original editions.

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Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece of perception, understanding, and interpretation
Henry James' travel writings on France and Italy are a case study in fine arts perception, understanding and interpretation. He treats each new locale as a new horizon to be engaged, absorbed, and internalized through a hermeneutic of analogical interiority. Roaming within the halls and chambers of French and Italian architecture opens, through the text, new conduits for an understanding of the vast interiority that exists within the self-examining-self. James is a master at relating the space of each location with the thoughts, instincts, relational perceptions and education of the observer. Reading these texts is like engaging each site oneself and discussing with a learned and trusted friend about what one is experiencing, not just what one is seeing. The art work of Joseph Pennell is an amazing addition to these works and masterpieces on their own. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will be a cherished addition to your collection and a book you will pick-up time and again to walk with the "Master" through France and Italy as you discuss, reflect and remember literary events that where home to these marvels. If you happen to be planning a trip to either France or Italy, take this along to add a level of historical and cultural depth to your experience. Some of what you will read has disappeared into history, but what remains is a beautiful historical and cultural continuity with Henry James as your guide.

2006-12-18 | Reader (Pasadena, CA) | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

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