A Momentary Taste of Being

The Bostonians 125th Anniversary Hard to believe that anything by James would spark a scandal.  Edith Wharton, yes, James, particularly of this period. . . well, not so much. In his inimitable way--this is what Twain had to say on the matter: Mark Twain famously declared that “I would rather be damned to John Bunyan’s heaven than read [ The Bostonians ].” Later critics developed a keener appreciation.

The Custom of the Country reviewed and considered It's interesting, I never thought of this as a particularly large book--but that may have been that almost nothing looms large in the immediate shadow of The Golden Bowl   which I had read before my Wharton spree. The Golden Bowl is most interesting: it took me forever to read, it lingered in memory, and lingers in memory for years afterward and I recall it as being a sort of disembodied Opera.  My impression while reading it was that none of the characters ever really had a setting even when they did.  It seemed like six people suspended in some sort of bubble in the social continuum.  Things happened around them, but it was their own twisted interconnections that defined them and kept them out of the bubbling stream of ordinary human interaction.

One Turn of the Screw The second turn of the screw And the House of Usher falls

A point so often made and so often ignored. from Paris Review Interview of Truman Capote, 1957 INTERVIEWER Are there devices one can use in improving one's technique? CAPOTE Work is the only device I know of. Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself. Even Joyce, our most extreme disregarder, was a superb craftsman; he could write Ulysses because he could write Dubliners . Too many writers seem to consider the writing of short stories as a kind of finger exercise. Well, in such cases, it is certainly only their fingers they are exercising. Precisely.  Joyce could write Ulysses because he could write Dubliners . At his very best Capote approaches Wilde in his aphorisms, see the final sentence.

The quintessential Jamesian sentence

A review of What Alice Knew by Paul Marantz Cohen The James Gang (Henry, William and Alice) track down Jack the Ripper. via Books Inq.

How rare to find a person who loves Henry James as much as I have come to.  I am fortunate because my early repugnance has kept me away a long time and now I have nearly the full opus to savor at my leisure--having dispatched only a few of the more prominent works. But go here to read a review of Wings of the Dove and understand why those of us who love him do so.

Start here to see the posts today at Ulysses Seen for a taste of Bloomsday And then join Biblioklept for a guide on how NOT to read Ulysses Please pay especially close attention to point 1--critical in actually enjoying the book the first time around. An appreciation of Ulysses And one must wonder why Ulysses comes up again and again at the list of top novels of all time.  And it isn't just the academics that list it here.  There are many, like myself, who have not an inkling of Academic interest in the matter (although my first awkward acquaintance was made in the groves of Academe).  To quote the King of Siam, "Is a puzzlement."  And will remain so.  I don't bother to examine why, I just accept the fact that when someone asks for a favorite, this is the novel that leaps to mind and comes sharply into focus. Via UD an LA Times article on Bloomsday

Of the Henry variety. from The Ambassadors Henry James Her mother gave it, no doubt, but her mother, to make that less sensible, gave so much else besides, and on neither of the two previous occasions, extraordinary woman, Strether felt, anything like what she was giving tonight. Little Jeanne was a case, an exquisite case of education; whereas the Countess, whom it so amused him to think of by that denomination, was a case, also exquisite, of --well, he didn't know what.

By Way of Comment on My Present Read  on April 25, 2008 1:30 PM I have, of late, had the sometime pleasure of the company of a young American woman of my acquaintance at luncheon. While the venues, cuisines, and surroundings of our après-midi repast were variable and dependent upon the circumstances and opportunities available to us, they have always been of the greatest pleasure and entertainment to me. Miss Archer is at once a very determined young lady, but one also tinged with the streak of independence set firmly in the ground of a graceful and enhancing naiveté, which conduces to my enjoyment of our conversational aperitifs.   I've grown somewhat concerned because whereas her talk was mostly of the many men who saw her and implored her favors while she remained on the Touchett family estate, more and more I am hearing of a person of interest who seems to have netted our pretty little bird without her own knowledge. And the more I hear of Osmond, the more concern...