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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Basil Ransom moves to New York some time in the 1870s because, following the civil war, he can no longer own slaves on his family's cotton plantation. Unhappy and deeply dissatisfied with the world, he visits a cousin, Olive Chancellor, in Boston, who is a Suffragist. While with Olive, he meets Verena Tarrant, a beautiful and charming young woman, who is a public speaker, advocating for women's right to vote. Basil Ransom is deeply conservative and reactionary, but becomes obsessed with Verena, and starts to follow her and demand her attentions.

To a modern reader, it seems that Basil is a terrible and jaded man, who cannot stand seeing a woman who is self-possessed and does not need him, and therefore becomes obsessed with owning her. He is clearly in the wrong at all times, and reading his thoughts and conversation is infuriating. However, I'm not sure this is James' intention: James is also highly satirical in his descriptions of the suffragists, and he seems to believe that their position is wrong-headed. However, it's hard to believe he's in sympathy with Ransom, either. Verena's impression of Ransom, for example, is not complimentary: She knew he was an intense conservative, but she didn't know that being a conservative could make a person so aggressive and unmerciful. She thought conservatives were only smug and stubborn and self-complacent, satisfied with what actually existed; but Mr Ransom didn't seem any more satisfied with what existed than what she wanted to exist.

There's also an element in the novel that suggests that Olive Chancellor is a lesbian, and her attachment to Verena Tarrant is a romantic one. An early description of Olive made me smile, because while it comes across as satirical, it's also an excellent 19th century code for "this is a lesbian": There are women who are unmarried by accident, and other who are unmarried by option; but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry. It's interesting to read this book as a love triangle, and it increases the sense of tension, but also makes the conclusion even more tragic.

This is, overall, a difficult book. The first 200 pages are often dull or full of irrelevance, and, while the rest of it is more engaging, it's also depressing and enraging much of the time. I struggle to know what to make of this: its ultimate meaning is illusive, and probably more conservative than it initially seems. It's also very sad, but it is a James novel so that's no surprise.

I love Henry James! I have read eight or nine of his novels, some more than once, and I always fall into the rhythm of his verbosity and revel in his social commentary. I would recommend, however, to those new to this nineteenth-century author that they start with the shorter works. This book, The Bostonians, is long, drawn out, and filled with words. James’s descriptions are marvelous, his insight into the characters is amazing, and his detachment from the story, i.e. “this author shall…”, underlines his determination to satirize and comment on the society customs of that time but also sort of sets him apart, as in “don’t blame me; I’m only reporting what I saw.” At times, James can be hilarious as well, pointing out the foibles of his characters. Here we meet Olive Chancellor, a young woman destined to be an old maid; her new friend Verena Tarrant, a malleable young woman with a talent for public speaking; and Basil Ransom, a Mississippian who no longer has the funds to support the place in society he was born into, having gone through the Civil War and lost his inheritance. The plot element that propels an unusual love triangle is the burgeoning Women’s Rights movement. Olive hates men (and thus hates Ransom,) Verena speaks eloquently in public about women’s issues, and Ransom is firmly on the other side, the one that proposes women should be seen but not heard. What makes the love triangle so intriguing is that both Olive and Ransom vie for Verena’s love. Olive is clearly a Lesbian, although, because of the time in which the book was set and written, we see her wanting an exclusive friendship with Verena, who is blind to the fact that Olive wants her exclusively for other reasons. This reading of the Olive character can easily be explained by the fact that James was a closeted gay man. Even after his death and letters to other men came to light, James’s family denied they were anything more than friendship letters. With that we see the parallel between Olive and her author. The Bostonians is a dense novel, ultimately satisfying with its tug of war story, but don’t expect a happy ending. That, I lament, was the lot of gays of lesbians of the time.

One part of me likes this book, I suppose the romantic side of me, the part that believes that words can stay waiting in a person once they have been said, and that true feelings are never really urgent.
But there is another side of me which was really bothered that he makes quite a caricature of convictions. Why is it that believing in something can be such a bad thing? why is it that someone who is a feminist has to be a hard person with no sense of humor, why Olive Chancelor?
I loved it anyway, even if his opinions seem very outdated to me, who cares really, when he paints such a pretty picture with whatever theme he chooses to write about?
I love this man Henry!!

Jeez. This book was long-winded. Be that as it may, I enjoyed seeing James tackle feminism and, only slightly more obliquely, lesbianism. I also liked seeing him attempt to make sense of the legacy of the Civil War, at least on a personal level.

Of course, James doesn’t seem genuinely interested in either the politics or the psychology of the women’s liberation movement. In fact, his take on feminism reminded me of George Elliot’s Daniel Deronda. Did her character really depict the passion of a genuine Zionist?

So James doesn’t get beyond a cartoonish version of the women’s struggle. (I think I’m following James’ biographer Gorra here). But there’s something entertaining about the love triangle at the core of the book. The book makes the resulting jealousies seem both tragic and comic somehow, and that sounds about right.

Anyhow, I’m working my way across the vast landscape of Henry James’ work. I’ll rank what I’ve read so far accordingly.

1. Washington Square.
2. What Massie Knew.
3. Turn of the Screw.
4. The Portrait of the Lady.
5. The Bostonians.

So many novels to go!