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The Bostonians

henry james

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From Boston's social underworld emerges Verena Tarrant, a girl with extraordinary oratorical gifts, which she deploys in tawdry meeting-houses on behalf of 'the sisterhood of women.' She acquires two admirers of a very different stamp: Olive Chancellor, devotee of radical causes, and marked
out for tragedy; and Basil Ransom, veteran of the Civil War, with rigid views concerning society and women's place therein. Is the lovely, lighthearted Verena made for public movements or private passions? A struggle to possess her, body and soul, develops between Olive and Basil.

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1886
Places
boston massachusetts, 

This edition

Format
512 pages, Paperback
Published
July 23, 1998 by Oxford University Press
ISBN
9780192834423
ASIN
0192834428
Language
English
Characters More characters

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About the author

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henry james

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Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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100 reviews All reviews
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Drewgoza
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Well that was depressingly familiar. It’s weird & tragic to see that one of the basic relationship moulds between queer women hasn’t been updated in hundreds of years. Every other gay girl I know has been Olive once. But poor Verena. Basil Ransom can choke on his own dick.
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Paperluwu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is one of those books i’ll continue to ruminate on and most likely decide my thinking was awry, maybe often. I have a difficult time believing Verena - i guess what i mean is suspending my disbelief for her. How anyone could live a couple of decades and apparently not develop any predilections, any thoughts of her own, even about herself? She is presented as a pure vessel (empty?) gifted with a divine afflatus of enthusiasm, and the capacity to engage any audience.

“The worst of the case was that Verena was sure not to perceive this outrage - not to dislike them in consequence. There were so many things that she hadn’t yet learned to dislike, in spite of her friend’s earnest efforts to teach her.”

This is classic James wit, but also speaks to Verena’s lack of an opinion; sadly, the humor wouldn't work if we thought she had one. She has a certain unformed and vanishing quality which for me was much more difficult than any of the crusty, selfish, atavistic behaviors of Ransom, the goofy nihilism of Adeline or the austere, obdurate Olive. Verena’s desperation to please whomever she’s facing, to take the shape of the container she’s offered - the soft, attractive, fluffy girl/woman contrasted with the rigidity of the hyperintellect Olive - may be the point. I hope not. I would like to think James made Verena so malleable, albeit unrealistically so, as she had been reared to do this - be a source of funding for her much less talented sleazeball mesmerizing parents - to be able to speechify about anything. I prefer to think this rather than think James was really against suffrage.

“... said Ransom, smiling as men smile when they are perfectly unsatisfactory.”
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soron
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Мне казалось, что феминистское и суфражистское движение в защиту прав женщин зарождалось в рабочей среде, среднем классе или в интеллигенции, близкой к низшим сословиям, из которых вышли Роза Люксембург и Клара Цеткин. Поэтому, эта книга открыла для меня то, что в высших классах женский вопрос, причем связанный не столько с оплатой труда, но и, в целом, прав, также будоражил умы, причем задолго до того, как женское движение приобрело такой размах.
Роман хорош. Характеры постепенно раскрываются, показывая нам сложность их натур, где под лицемерием скрывается ум и преданность делу, под галантностью и внешней привлекательностью эгоист и жестокий человек, под красотой и одаренностью колеблющаяся юная дама, склонная к истерикам и предательству. Надо отметить, что роман изначально задумывался, как насмешка над феминистическими устремлениями, и вообще всей политической жизни тогдашнего Бостона. Тем ценнее эта книга, поскольку показывает проблемы восприятия новых идей о женском равноправии через призму неприятия, а значит, это рассказ без преувеличений.
Роль женщины высшего общества сводилась к тому, чтобы быть зависимой от мужчины, жить за счет доходов, добываемых им, угождать мужу и очаровывать. Я допускаю, что достаточно современных женщин стремятся именно к этому, низводя на нет все достижения феминизма. Верина обращается к собравшимся послушать ее джентльменам, что они никогда не были в клетке, и понятия не имеют, какие чувства испытывает женщина, находящаяся в ней.
По мнению Джеймса, в романе побеждает любовь и возвращает женщину в лоно семьи. Но я задаюсь вопросом, что, кроме харизматичной внешности может предложить ей южанин, потерявший свое состояние? Нет, если продумать, что же было потом, Верина под экономическими условиями должна вернуться к борьбе за права женщин, возможно, начать работать – в те времена, женщине из общества было практически невозможно найти работу и она всецело зависела от мужчины, а может, позже она бы бросила Рэнсона. Поэтому, принятие решения выйти замуж по любви за бедного в те времена тоже было смелым и феминистичным решением.
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clarkr
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The Bostonians is one of James’ finest 4-5 novels.

Just -and this is perhaps temperamentally determined – I also found the novel somehow lacking. True, James is a psychological novelist, while The Bostonians is clearly more social than psychological novel; or, better, one of those works where social reality is not adequately supported by characterization. The most impressive character is Olive, as repellent & delusional she may be; Basil Ransom, while we nod in agreement with most of his utterances, is a sketchy cartoon (James didn’t know how to write about manly men who had passed through the crucible of suffering (in Ransom's case, the Civil War); Verena is pretty & empty, an innocent young woman who is just “feeling” & passive.

Inadequacy of the novel is similar to Thackeray’s Vanity Fair– a satirical novel’s characters are basically 4th rate people who do not invoke in us deeper reverberations.

Also, the ending is anti-climactic: Basil goes off with Verena & James informs us that she had shed tears- these were not the last tears she was destined to shed (quoting from memory). So- anything but a happy ending.

That said, this novel is brilliant in its satire of the Boston Craze & certainly the most courageous of all James’ novels, especially considering the theme of lesbianism as probably one of the leading motives of early feminist movement.

What remains unsatisfactory is that James, it seems to me, does not know what to do with it all. He sees clearly that the craze of spiritualism, feminism, positive thinking, social radicalism, early versions of New Thought … leads nowhere. But a traditional society also is not a solution, especially when times are changing.

James, ever a spectator, couldn’t decide where he stands.
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meeebro
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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We all must do things that we don't like and reading Henry James is definitely one of them. I don't know what it is about his writing style, but it can be incredibly dull. I have read several of his books and every time I am very hopeful and every time I am disappointed.

So this book is about Olive, a feminist and suffragette in 1870's, her cousin Basil a Southerner who thinks that women belong in the home, and Verena, a young woman who has a gift for public speaking. She is new in the suffragette cause and very beautiful. James tells us this over and over again. Both Olive and Basil are captivated by her.

James makes Olive very creepy and possessive. It's supposed to have vague undertones of lesbianism, but it's just weird. She's very controlling and disapproving, but she has the money to back her up. Basil wants her in the usual way. He wants to marry her, have children with her, and trust her to get the groceries.

Verena is vapid. Every conversation with her is full of syrup and empty thoughts. The only thing that I can gather is she's a good speaker. But that doesn't seem like enough to become obsessed with this woman over. Maybe when this book was written, the audience was able to grasp deeper meaning, but for me it needed to be more spelled out.

And the end sucked. It is very dramatic - Verena choosing Basil over Olive, but that completely negates the character that Verena was supposed to be through the whole book. She looks like even more of an idiot and Basil looks like a total jerk. Which I think we were supposed to get from him.
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Tsukoyomi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I found The Bostonians repulsive on so many levels. Where to even begin...

James is creating a world where it seems he wants you to find certain things repulsive, and you do, as a 21st century reader, although not necessarily quite as he hopes. The novel opens with Basil Ransom, a gallant Mississippian, paying a visit to his Boston cousin, the austere but still young spinster Olive Chancellor. Olive has invited Basil north in the hopes that he will become interested in her widowed sister, Mrs. Luna, and that they will marry. Instead, Basil attends an evening salon featuring an impassioned oral recitation by Verena Tarrant, the young, beautiful daughter of a cheesy mesmerist, Selah Tarrant. This is one of those 19th century scenes where the father must place his hands on the daughter's head in order to stimulate her gift for speechifying. Basil finds the whole thing ridiculous, but is intrigued by Verena and slowly begins to fall in love with her. Olive is a fierce feminist and brings Verena under her wing. Olive is most likely a lesbian, which James hints at. She is also a sick, controlling, manipulative fuck, extracting a promise from Verena that Verena will never marry and will devote her life to the feminist cause. She expends much energy trying to keep Verena hidden from Basil.

I don't know if it's a lack of imagination on the part of James, or on the part of the 19th century in general, that feminism, the emancipation of women, had to be such a harsh, man-hating enterprise. Along with Olive's manipulativeness, this is part of what makes the novel repulsive. Olive writes a big check to Verena's parents in order to have Verena come live with her. She's buying Verena. A friendship does develop between the two, although given Olive's possessiveness and Verena's relative innocence, it's obviously not a partnership of equals. Nor is Basil, though appealing on some levels, exempt from the disgust a modern reader will feel; he is deeply anti-feminist, feeling that any gifts a woman has should be used in the home, for the husband's exclusive benefit. (Including Verena's gift for speechifying before large audiences...) Verena never loses her affection for Olive, but she begins to feel the pull of Ransom, and the novel concerns itself with who will win Verena.

I found the first 100-200 pages tough going, because everyone was so profoundly unappealing. However, in the last chapters it was hard to put down.

I see that A.S. Byatt finds a "blithe wit" herein. For her the novel is "wildly comic." I found it not a funny novel at all. Maybe it's hard to be disgusted and amused at the same time.





Oops, I bought this forgetting I already owned it. I do that sometimes.
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Sairenn
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ο Τζέιμς μου αρέσει πολύ! Έχει μια μυστηριακή γραφή κ είναι εξαιρετικός στη σκιαγράφηση των χαρακτήρων. Το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο το ήθελα καιρό αλλά η θεματολογία του δε με είχε κερδίσει οπότε δεν το αγόραζα. Το πήρα λόγω 50% έκπτωσης κ είπα να του δώσω μια ευκαιρία.

Το ξεκίνησα προκατειλημμένη έχοντας διαβάσει χλιαρά σχόλια. Παρ’ όλα αυτά η αρχή του με ενθουσίασε… μέχρι τη μέση. Από κ έπειτα άρχισαν τα δύσκολα. Τα πολύ δύσκολα. Μια φλυαρία που εμένα δε μου φάνηκε χρήσιμη ούτε βοηθούσε στην εξέλιξη της ιστορίας. Επίσης, ήταν αρκετά φεμινιστικό για τα γούστα μου.

Λαμβάνω υπόψη μου πως για την εποχή του είναι ένα ρηξικέλευθο ανάγνωσμα κ το σέβομαι όμως, στα δικά μου μάτια παρουσιάστηκε μονόπλευρα.
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aiden9
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Although I am passionately fond of Henry James' writing, I did not love this novel. I was put off by the satire of the women's rights movement. Also bothered by James' unsympathetic treatment of the tacitly lesbian relationship. His style is faultless, however.
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