I found this much more engaging and absorbing than my last encounter with James, reading n  The Wings of the Doven a few years ago. Compared to that more meandering and foggy book, in which I found my interest flagging at times, the events in this book were way more gripping. I cared about what was going to happen.

Perhaps part of my increased interest in the story here had to do with the subject: Strether's extended summer-holiday midlife crisis in Paris, his growing sense that he’s let his youth and his life pass him by. As I enter midlife myself, I certainly could relate.

I also appreciated the emphasis on the unnamed but all-important source of wealth, for Chad, for Mrs. Newsome, and, ultimately, for Strether himself: A small, probably embarrassingly quotidian household item, manufactured in Woollett, Massachusetts. That humble item, and the immense wealth it produces, sit at the gravitational center of the book, silently exercising an immense force on the events and characters in the book, sucking them all--esp. Chad, Strether--into its vortex, bending their experiences and priorities like light and space are sometimes bent at event horizons. Considered in the light of the effect that item and the wealth it produces have on the characters in the book, the refusal of the characters or the narrator to name it takes on a kind of taboo quality: It's too holy and powerful to be named.

It's true that, at times, the reader's patience can wear thin as James takes forever to just set out something relatively simple. (H.G. Wells once described James's baroque style of taking forever to say the simplest things as akin to a "magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost, even at the cost of its dignity, upon picking up a pea.") There are times when this method is effective, especially in the conversations with hinted-at suggestions, pregnant silences, meaningful trailings-off, etc. between, say, Strether and Ms. Gostrey; but other times, with lesser characters, and less-significant interactions, the effect of the languid pleonasm can be exhausting.

But there’s definitely something to be said about getting lost in James’s style, in the pillows and clouds of circumlocution. A queer quiet settles over the reader as he gets lost in the vague, diaphanous clouds of prose, where there are no sharp edges, and few pithy aphorisms.

That said, for James, especially in his late period, this was action-packed, even mildly shocking at times.

n  He had spoken in the tone of talk for talks sake, and yet with an obscure truth lurking in the loose folds…n

One would think that, of all the people living on this good green earth, I would be especially prone to loving this particular work of literature. After all, it is about a young American who moved to Europe, fell in love, and then resisted his family’s entreaties to come back and make more money. If you know anything about me, you will know that this has a special resonance. I am also, as it happens, a lover of fancy prose and classic novels. Clearly, in my case, the book’s prospects were extremely favorable.

It is with mild surprise, then, that I report that my feelings are mixed. This is not a novel that one can easily love. It is, rather, a product of James’s infamous late style, which divided critics at the time and has continued to do so ever since. There are many ways to characterize this style—dense, laborious, obscure—but I think that the keynote here is vague. Both in his descriptive passages and his dialogue, James maintains a kind of studious vagueness that can be either delightful or infuriating, depending on your mood and taste. In everything from his sentence structure, to his dialogue, to his descriptions, to his plotting—vagueness reigns.

To indulge in highfalutin terminology, I would say that this is an aesthetic triumph at the expense of humanistic value.

First, the triumph. James, at his best, achieves something like that achieved by the impressionist painters. The strokes of his pen are suggestive rather than illustrative. He asks much of the reader; and this means that the reader becomes an active part of the story. Virtually nothing—not the book’s resolution, nor the personality of the major characters, nor even the meaning of some knotty sentences—is unambiguous, which means that each reader can make the book her own. In other words, James’s late style is quite like the Ostomachion of Archimedes: a set of puzzle pieces that can be assembled in a myriad of ways.

I say that this is an aesthetic triumph because James achieves an effect that is unique, distinctive, novel, and demanding. He creates, in other words, his own aesthetic realm. The cageyness, the uncertainty, the self-referential quirks of this book—we can clearly see, in retrospect, that James was paving the way for literary modernism. And like much of modernism, I think that this aesthetic triumph comes at a great cost to humanistic value.

To simplify matter somewhat, you can describe this loss at the emphasis of form over content. The novels of Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Elliot, Tolstoy—say what you will about them, but they have an awful lot of content. Putting aside whatever explicit messages these novels may carry, they introduce us to concrete places, to remarkable individuals, to unforgettable stories. They capture, in other words, a human reality; and in so doing they help us to come to grips with life itself. Now, do not get me wrong: all of these authors also have aesthetic merits. If they did not, they would not be artists at all—merely columnists. My point is that their artistic style was entirely compatible with a definite view of the world, a view that is communicated in their works. This I call their humanistic value.

My main criticism of this book, then, is that James’s remarkable aesthetic sense overpowered whatever message he wished to transmit. Based on a straightforward reading, the intended message is this: American culture is narrow and materialistic, and it leads people to give up enjoyment for superficial, conventional reasons. We are, thus, presented with a cast of characters who embody this difference. Strether and Chad are exquisitely sensitive to the charms of Europe, and improve under its influence; while other Americans, such as Waymarsh, insistently stay within their narrow horizons.

The problem is, again, the vagueness. James is vague on every detail. How exactly is life in Europe more liberating than life in America? And how exactly have Strether or Chad improved? These may seem like superficial questions, but the entire weight of the plot hinges on them. We cannot come to any moral conclusion without knowing the details. Indeed, James is so impressionistic in his portrayal of the main characters that we can hardly come to any conclusions at all. Do we even like these people? What are they like? Even the ending is veiled in vagueness. Will Chad return to America? And why does Strether decide to return? And is his return a failure, or a success, or what? It is simply impossible to answer these questions.

Perhaps I would have been able to stomach all of these irresolutions if I had absolutely adored James’s style. But I do not. Indeed, I confess to finding James’s prose quite ugly—laborious, convoluted, and dry. There is hardly a passage in this book that one can read aloud without sounding like an alien. The following is entirely typical:

Nothing could have been odder than Strether’s sense of himself as at that moment launched in something of which the sense would be quite disconnected from the sense of his past and which was literally beginning there and then. It has begun in fact already upstairs and before the dressing-glass that struck him as blocking further, so strangely, the dimness of the window of his dull bedroom; begun with a sharper survey of the elements of Appearance than he had for a long time been moved to make.

A few sentences of this may be fine; but pages of it are painful. Granted, James is capable of quite lovely writing. I was enchanted, for example, by his description near the end, of Strether’s venture into the French countryside. Yet, all too often, the book is like this passage: opaque. His dialogue is only slightly better—readable, and yet still plagued by the strained and unnatural cadences of James’s prose. Besides this, James’s characters have the same tendency to vagueness as James himself, and never spell out what they mean.

Obviously this will come down to taste. I like things to be clear and unambiguous. That is my taste. James clearly did not agree. That I liked this book in spite of this divergence is a testament to James’s aesthetic power. He was an artist in the highest sense of the word.

Books read & reviewed: 8️⃣2️⃣

American man overthinks in Paris.

[2.5 stars] Oy Henry James - you duped me! Because I loved Portrait of a Lady and liked The American, I stuck with The Ambassadors to the bitter end. I tried listening to both the audio and reading the print version of this novel, but still had trouble comprehending the convoluted prose.

Random sample sentence:
"If Strether had been sure at each juncture of what --with Bilham in especial -- she talked about, he might have traced others and winced at them and felt Waymarsh wince, but he was in fact so often at sea that his sense of the range of reference was merely general and that he on several different occasions guessed and interpreted only to doubt."

In addition I found Strether, "the ambassador," to be an unappealing, bland character and struggled to stay interested in him and his cohorts. My rating is rounded up to a generous 3 stars even though it was a laborious reading experience. I wonder - perhaps if I had been more patient and more open minded, I might understand why this novel is considered a masterpiece.

This was without a doubt the most difficult book I’ve ever read stylistically. After the first couple chapters I had to take a serious moment of reflection and ponder whether I had the energy, determination, and vigor to devote myself to actually understanding what James was saying. After deciding to stick with it, the experience gradually evolved into a fascinating daily trip into the immense complexities of the human mind and the relationships it forges. Make no mistake, the style is bewildering, overloaded, and smashingly frustrating (“smashing” in the sense of making you want to smash the book against the wall). Think the totally opposite pole of Hemingway (ironic considering Hemingway and late James occupy different facets of the modernist movement). For me, the style serves as a helpful harbinger for whether you’re really fit for the experience of reading this novel. If after Book IV or so, you’ve tried your darndest to decipher it and you’re still lost, put the book aside and go grab something else. It’s not the right season of your life to be reading this. But it was around that point where I started to savor the insights, perceptions, and nuances of James’s scrupulous literary talents; and beneath the unkind surface emerged a brilliant world that begged to be entered.

You’ll hear many critics opine that this style is one of the, if not the earliest incarnation of stream-of-consciousness, and I do find it hard to disagree. James attempts to emulate the exceedingly convoluted workings of the psyche through his diction, and if you read it as a flowing gauge of the character’s internal clockwork, you may find it easier to digest. This prose is not so much about sumptuous lyric passages (though when James treats us to them, it’s ecstatic) but meticulously-stacked mountains of words that, once you take the time to scale them, treat you to expansive views of gorgeous, panoramic landscapes. There are a couple particularly memorable chapters technically, including one where the main character envisions the scene taking place within a painting. That has to be one of the most lovely stretches of writing I’ve read lately. It’s futile to try to understand every last sentence in an initial read-through; I recommend trying to keep a consistent pace and pausing only when something really strikes you as worth lingering over. I’m sure there are legions of details I missed, but that’s what rereads are for. What I enjoyed most was getting underneath the exterior to glean wonder and bemusement from the richness of James’s construction. There is a lot of droll, even sardonic humor throughout (especially in the dialogues) that is oftentimes even uproarious. It’s as if Austen’s witty social banter took on an entirely new psychological depth. The best writers expose elements of the comic within ideas that are apparently unremarkable, and those who read, and really read James will be rewarded with many things, hearty laughter among them.

Thematically, The Ambassadors is a marvel of exploration. The classic way of reading James’s work is as a “conflict between the Old World and the New,” but this seems quite a grotesque oversimplification in this case. This book is about the conflict between generations, between ideals, between worldviews, between expectations, between experiences, and between human beings. It’s about the choice between a life of material success and sterile contentment, or one of hedonistic pursuits and radiant pleasure. Of course, we can go deeper by integrating the “Old World vs. New” theme into such dichotomies. But treating it as such tends to relegate it to a bygone era. These are struggles which are as applicable as ever to today. But you don’t need me to tell you what meanings and morals to take away from it, if indeed you do decide to roll up your sleeves and take the leap into James’s world. Those will come naturally as you read, and once they hit you, they will leave you sitting in rumination for hours. Instead, enjoy the incredible talent and delicacy of James’s impressionistic portrayals. Be amazed at how James gets you to know people who you’ve never met more intimately than those that you have. Ponder the significance of James’s aesthetic, and if the choices, consequences, and ideas of his world correspond to the truth of our own perceptions. But, if I haven’t cautioned you already and you’re still determined, two additional warnings: (1.) do NOT make this your first James novel (yes, I made this mistake, and I feel like I need at least a year before reading something else by him. If anyone wants to suggest a good next James novel to read, I would love to hear what you would recommend). (2.) After reading and understanding James, other novels seem severely watered-down and simplistic in comparison. If you’re the kind to compare apples and oranges and don’t want to be disappointed by your favorite books every time you revisit them, stay far away from James!

Lambert Strether, the needy editor of a little New England literary magazine, is sent to Paris by his patroness, wealthy Mrs. Newsome. His mission as "ambassador" or emissary for the Newsome family is to fetch the wayward heir Chad and return him to the USA to work in the family business. Strether's presumed reward upon successful completion of his mission, would be marriage to his rich patroness.

During a stopover in England, Strether meets Maria Gostrey who acts as a guide for the innocent American about to confront the strange ways of Europe. However, once in Paris other guides emerge, including Chad's expat artist friend, Little Bilham and a sophisticated French woman, Chad's mistress.

Strether soon falls under the spell of Paris and his charming new companions. In fact, Chad and company play Strether the way Heifetz played the violin, but Strether is a more than willing "victim". As he says to Little Bilham, "Live all you can; it's a mistake not to." Strether having failed in his mission, Mrs. Newsome arrives with ambassadorial family in tow to ratchet up pressure on delinquent Chad.

A masterpiece of James's late period, it's the sort of book readers either love or hate. There's no middle ground with an uncompromising artist like Henry James.

SPOILER ALERT:

In the end, Chad decides to return to the USA and go into business. What is it that convinces Chad to abandon Paris and all its culture, sophistication and old world charm? The modern American art and science of advertising! Priceless.

THE WOOLLETT MASS. MYSTERY: What do the Newsome's manufacture in Woollett? Clue: it's small, and no one seemed to want to say exactly what it was. Many guesses as to the nature of this mysterious product have been made since the book was first published.

I always find reading James an ordeal, although ultimately I can sort of see why Leavis championed him. To quote Frances Wilson, writing in the Telegraph, "[James's] middle period produced The Bostonians, and The Princess Casamassima, among the least satisfactory of his novels, while the “late style” of The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl and The Ambassadors – which HG Wells compared to a hippopotamus laboriously attempting to pick up a pea that has got into a corner of its cage – sealed James’s reputation as The Master."

I've been reading enough Henry James. now, to know I do not care for his works post 1900- the late period. Too interior, too opaque, and too much work to follow storyline, character, and place. Irritating as hell and unfulfilling read.

The Ambassadors is not a charming book, though it is full of charm. The syntax is notoriously difficult in places, though not beyond the pale of what was being done by more emotionally direct authors like Proust. The plot is simple and almost classical in its staging, with an elegance that is absent in the stereotypically sprawling, 'loose, baggy monsters' of 19th and early 20th century fiction. From one angle, this simple, almost predictable story (a predictability that James addresses in one of his characteristically rich but baffling prefaces) is a fault, and could be said to rely on the progressive contrasting of cliches in the form of characters that ultimately stand in for entire civilizations. From another angle - the one I see things from - the elegant simplicity of the plot allows the narrative to take on the enormous weight of James' psychological observations, while the risk of cliches is surmounted by his ability to portray the ambiguity of emotional relationships.

The satisfaction of the novel is to be had in the appreciation of these relationships, and the uncertainty as to what they are based on, what they amount to, and where they are going. As with much of James' other fiction, he is escorting us into a world inhabited mainly by women, in which the male characters do their best to find their way. Unless you find yourself falling in love with Madame Vionnet, or Maria Gostrey, and hoping that Strether will, too, your interest will probably not carry through to the conclusion. And if you don't admire the fact that at the height of the Gilded Age, James made his main character an unsuccessful middle-aged has-been, or that in a deeply sexist period he chose for his heroine an older, unhappily married woman who loves a younger man, you probably just won't get James.

From the start, James' book comes across as a sort of a deliberate experiment, almost a formalist exercise. His intent from the beginning is to tell his tale of an older man's late blooming solely through the mind of the man himself as recounted by an unobtrusive narrator. That imposes restraints, which ultimately generate some impressive results, but which are also constraining. While the first scene of the more conventional Portait of a Lady employs more conventional Victorian prose to describe an inviting English setting, The Ambassadors begins with one man wondering if he wants to meet another man when his ship docks in port: not particularly sexy. As the story progresses, however, James can't help but generate interest, partly because he begins to run lines of erotic tension between almost all of the characters, and partly because he can't help but charm the reader with loving depictions of a rainy night in London, or a cafe table in Paris. What is there not to like? That is precisely what James asks both his characters and readers throughout the book. Lambert Strether does his best not to succumb to these charms, but James sees to it that he does, and gives ample evidence for why he ultimately should.

James' rigor in keeping within the bounds of Strether's skull, however, exacts a price. Though an enormous amount happens in The Ambassadors, it happens in thought bubbles that have become so large, in effect, that for long stretches of the narrative they block out the scenery. The lyrical moments on Parisian boulevards, the masterful evocations of private spaces or the French countryside, charged moments of dialogue between characters who sense that their mutual feelings extend well beyond what they are willing to express, all of this is frequently squeezed to the margins of what often reads like the self-conscious chatter of college roommates. It's useful again to draw a contrast here with The Portrait of a Lady, where by admission James spent much more time building out a world of concrete description with which to surround his characters. Here, much of that description is gone, and instead we are in the mind of Lambert Strether and his lady interlocutors as he tries to comprehend the irrepressible emergence of his inner slacker.

There is some precedent for this: the book is a story of persuasion, as exercised primarily by ladies upon the men in their lives, as concerns the delicate interrelations of money and marriage. Jane Austen hovers like a muse through all the pages of the book, a muse disavowed by the author, but determined to trespass. As with Austen, this muse is verbal. It is preoccupied with social nuance and the constant jostling of relationships. It is, fundamentally, feminine. Whatever 'happens' will not be concrete; it will probably be a new arrangement of social relationships. Hemingway said stories end with either death or marriage. The Ambassadors can be credited as original for ending with neither.

That may be, in fact, the source of its modernism, and James' success. Beyond the offbeat characters and the unseemly relationships, the novel offers little resolution other than the unraveling of a number of lives. The freedom they achieve comes with a large dose of uncertainty. Yet I would argue that the conclusion is unworthy of the characters it treats, and that Maria Gostrey in particular is woefully neglected, if not shamefully used as a narrative device. We never learn about Maria, Strether's confidant and fellow psychological ruminant; she simply humors him with her wit and moderate bohemianism. Her promising personality is the most tragic victim of the confinement of the story to Strether's head. And by turning away from Maria's ever-more explicit declarations of affection, Strether not only strains credulity, he approaches the Puritanical, New England stereotype that James has supposedly spent 500 pages criticizing.

For all that, The Ambassadors is a brilliant achievement.

Truly, I wish I could learn to enjoy the "stream of consciousness" style; however, James navigated this type of writing remarkably well comparatively. I appreciated the inner reflection and internal conflict within Strether. I think we all at some point in our lives experience the isolation and the condition of alienation from a society not designed for us. This feeling of aloofness and yet a simultaneous desire to fit in causes a greater feeling of being an outsider. And yet, I think we are created to have this juxtaposition of feelings for a more spiritual reason. Looking forward to reading more psychological commentaries within novels by Henry James!

Holy Christ, this thing took me forever. Not sure if I just don't have the attention span I used to, but I remember reading Portrait of a Lady in college and kind of enjoying it. At least being able to understand it. Now, I love reading Proust from time to time, so I'm no stranger to run-on clauses that split apart and spiral away and take you far away from where the sentence began, but I just could not keep up with whole pages of this book. I liked the interesting twist on the coming of age tale, and I can't say that I really hated it, I just never seemed to find its rhythm.