If there is any writer in the history of American literature who is a testament to the fallacy of category, it's Henry James. During a 50-year career in which he tackled the art of the novel, short story and essay with religious fervor, he established a persona that meant many things to many people, but nothing that anyone has able to peg upon him convincingly. Too often his detractors partake in sloppy, self-indulgent reading that is synonymous with the decline in the literacy of the times. Yet too often his defenders trot out tired cliches in defense of him, ("Art for art's sake," "Style works as form," etc. ) marginalizing James profound and introspective search for human nature and character in the process. Yet again, I take umbrage with the scores of second-rate novelists who throughout history thought they were crafting their own "Bostonians" and "Ambassadors" by putting a half a dozen commas and semi colons in every one of their sentences (with a sprinkle of bad psychological analysis in between).
So am I writing you with any definitive answers about who many believe to be the leading man of American letters? Hell no. But from reading five of his novels, two books of essays, and two short story collections, I have my opinions and reasons why I consider myself a Jamesophile.
To me, reading James is taking a glance of the limitless possibilities of the English language. The beauty of his prose doesn't come from a cohesive whole, but sentence to sentence, sometimes terse and concise, sometimes extending to a half a page. Yet his style wouldn't have as much meaning if it didn't augment his sophisticated theories on fiction. James established a detached, high flown literary style that gave him a distance from his characters, which in turn enabled him to give them numerous ambiguities, shades of personality, and depths of thought. The result is a highly powerful and wildly imaginative brand of realism exemplary of the power of great fiction. Although I haven't read all his oeuvre, Washington Square is a great introduction to James, showing the full range of his creative powers.
Article comments
1 - wawan eko yulianto
thanks for the review. i'm reading washington square myself, and in agreement with most of the things you write here. to me, almost each of the characters in the novella has the quality that makes me clench my first in anger: dr. slopper's always-wanna-see-perfectionness, catherine's passiveness and innocence and naïveté, morris' too cultivated yet deceitful manner.
however, what makes me angry the most is the fact that catherine's blindness to see through the morris. she's just too unsuspecting yet stubborn.
i feel there's some kind of gap here. and i'm trying to reveal it. anyway, thanks for sharing your invaluable thoughts...
2 - Farnoosh Brock
Excellent review of Washington Square. I just finished this amazing, mesmerizing, supremely well-written novel and finished writing my book blog post on it but before doing so, I did a search and came across your website. I think Catherine is why I kept reading and reading. Excellent story really! Jamesophile you say? I like it! :)!