DNF. Sadly, having picked this book up cheap as a punt because it is a classic and because it was something different to what I usually read, it proved to be too different for my tastes. What essentially is an interesting premise - the life of a young girl as she is passed between her divorced parents, told from her incomplete and immature POV - was so mired in James' convoluted long (and poorly constructed) sentences, it was rendered a labour to read. Yes, in complete silence and given an uninterrupted few days to slowly toil through it, reading each line three times to better understand it, a reader may get all of the intended enjoyment from what is probably a witty and well observed piece, but I didn't have that luxury and wasn't getting much enjoyment from it.

Club Read

Purely from the perspective of plot mechanics, 'What Maisie Knew' centers on the plight of an innocent girl and her mute pain and confusion suffered at the hands of the parents and their surrogates. In conversational exchanges throughout the novel, James stages the young Maisie interacting with the Beales, Ida and the weak Sir Claude, contrasting the heartful earnest qualities of the young girl with the calculating, self-involved motives of the conceited adults. When Maisie expresses the cautious hope that the Ida's trip to South Africa will include the watchful, loving presence of the Captain, the mother lashes out: "Him! -- the biggest cad in London!...you're a dreadful, dismal, deplorable little thing." The equally, unloving father gets off no better: Says Beale, 'Don't you understand when (Sir Claude and Ida) have made you as horrid as they can, they'll just simply chuck you?" Harsh words ringing on the contemporary ear.

Still, as the story evolves, the heartbreak of this psychological abuse quickly becomes eclipsed by the pathos of Masie struggling to understand her place and function in a forever-changing, indifferent adult world. James means to explore this major theme -- unaided by first-person narration -- from the point of view of the child, Maisie's 'angle of vision' cocked, at the outset, surveying only behavior, never its logic or origins. At the beginning, the author lays it out for us: 'Her little world was phantasmagoric -- strange shadows dancing on a sheet'. Maisie starts as a tabula rasa -- 'what' she knows is almost nothing. But at key intervals in the story, Maisie gradual enlightenment emerges, and despite the maddening lack of chronological detail demarcating the early/middle/late stages of her childhood, we feel her angle of vision widening. And so it is, in a meeting with the Captain, she reveals an understanding beyond her years, empathizing with the position of her Mother relative to men and imploring the Captain to love Ida 'not only for a little..but always'. Later, her grasp of her situation still imperfect but growing, Maisie knows enough -- and has matured enough -- to condition Claude's plan to 'give up' Mrs. Wix on Claude's 'giving up Mrs. Beale'. Here, as in the final chapter in which Maisie finally clarifies her safe harbor as the unappealing, strict, but faithful guardian, she becomes not just a searcher for truth but its agent. 'What Masie Knew' is not finally source material for the case worker, but a a strange kind of mystery story in which the child comes of age by sleuthing the dark recesses of what passes for morality in the adult world.

Though there are lapses and over-reaching, I would argue that James' abstract, ruminating narrative style and focus effectively supports this theme. If we are on a quest for knowledge, then we have passages that are structurally influenced by the examination of ideas, as when the narrative personna renders, spot-on, a child's mind struggling to parse the weird geometry of the amorous pairings on her life: "It was a matter of sides..Maisie was on nobody's; Sir Claude had all the airs of being on hers. If therefore Mrs. Wix was on Sir Claude's, her ladyship on Mr. Perriam's and Mr. Perrriam presumably on her ladyship's, that left Mrs.Beale and Mr. Farange..Mrs. Beale clearly was on Maisie's, and papa, it was supposed on Mrs. Beale's. Here indeed was a slight ambiguity, as papa's being on Mrs. Beale's didn't somehow seem to place him quite on his daughter's". Even when the prose is in the service of routine, behavioral descriptions, there may be an idea emerging, still faithful to Maisie's angle of vision but carrying extended meaning: "Her visits were as good as her outfits...She (Ida) was a person addicted to extremes -- sometimes barely speakng to her child and sometimes pressing this tender shoot to a bosom cut, as Mrs. Wix had also observed, remarkably low. She was always in a fearful hurry and the lower the bosom was cut the more it was to be gathered that she was wanted elsewhere." (It's another adult-behavior conundrum for Maisie, the logic of decolletage and visitation time, expressed here with a humor channeled from Dickens). Less successful and entertaining, of course, are those passages suffering badly, as readers have remarked, from vague antecedents to an earlier text or, conversely, references in a first sentence that cannot be completely understood until you have read the second ( a reason why so many readers, including myself, feel the need to re-read). I don't mind looking up words like 'titivate' and 'animadvert' but there are sections of Chapter XVII that I still don't get after multiple re-readings. As Yoda might have said, "Syntactically challenged is he, Mr. James!"

As for Mrs. Wix, the occasional lapses into the tough-love Church Lady notwithstanding, I'll take her over the rest of this crowd any day of the week. Even as she remains vulnerable to the charms of a younger man, her actions and point of view are perfectly within character. Without her, James lacks the necessary dramatic voice to denounce these shameful proceedings, sealing the verdict, perhaps, that the Brits do indeed hate thier children.

Never has a child so precious, has ever been written in literature like Massie and Henry James may be the only writer who has ever understood and expressed a child's innocence so beautifully. Most people do not understand what it is to be a child being stuck between grown ups and their dilemmas. Henry James has shown how a child tries to understand and perceive these dilemmas to the best of their abilities, to a level that it overwhelms the reader.

"וראשיתו של ההבדל הייתה כמובן בכך שכולם, ובכלל זה מייזי, פנו אליה מאותו היום ואילך בשם מרת ביל, לבקשתה המפורשת. בכך בעצם הסתכם השינוי, שכן זולת העובדה שהילדה יכלה כעת להרהר בכך שיש לה ארבעה הורים בסך הכול, ושאחרי שלושה חודשים נישא במעלה המדרגות אל אוזני הילדה הרוכנת על המעקה רשרושן המהוסה של התפתחויות רגישות יותר, הכול נותר כשהיה, כמדומה."

אחרי גירושים מכוערים, בית המשפט קבע שמייזי , בתם הצעירה של איידה וביל פרא��ג', תבלה חצי שנה אצל אביה וחצי שנה אצל אימה. מייזי הצעירה (כנראה בת 6 בתחילת הספר), מתחילה את נדודיה בין הבתים ההרוסים כשהוריה משתמשים בה כדי לחבוט אחד בשני וכדי להעביר מסרים מכוערים ונוראיים אחד בין השניה.

למייזי ישנן 2 אומנות: הגברת ויקס המוזרה והגב' אוברמור היפה. שתיהן מקדישות לה זמן ואהבה שאינה מקבלת מהוריה. אך העלילה מסתבכת כאשר אימה שלה נישאת למר קלוד ואביה נישא לגברת אוברמור שבאקט מוזר ומשונה מאמצת את שמו הראשון כשם משפחתה.

אז הנאמנויות של מייזי נקרעות בתוך הרביעיה שהולכת ומסתבכת גם בתוך עצמה כאשר הוריה הביולוגים בוגדים בבני זוגם החדשים ולבסוף מר קלוד וגברת אוברמור, אימה החורגת של מייזי שעתה נקראת הגב' ביל, פוצחים ברומן ונוטשים את בני זוגם כדי לחיות יחד. כל האירועים המזעזעים האלה מתרחשים תחת אפה של מייזי הצעירה שמנסה לנווט את דרכה במסתרי עולם המבוגרים.

כאשר לבסוף, הוריה שניהם בוחרים להתנתק ממייזי מסיבות שונות ומשונות (שכרוכות בבני זוג חדשים), מייזי נותרת תלויה במר קלוד. אבל גם הוא לא תמים, הוא מעוניין לקחת אותה לצרפת יחד עם גברת ביל. מייזי נאלצת להכריע האם להישאר עם האומנת הנאמנה שלה הגב' וויקס או להגר עם מר קלוד וגברת ביל.

על ביל פראנג', אביה של מייזי אנחנו כמעט לא יודעים דבר כי הוא אינו בתמונה. הוא מפסידן חסר כסף שנטש לא רק את מייזי, אלא גם את אימא החורגת גב' ביל. הוא מנהל רומן אהבהבים עם הרוזנת האמריקאית המתוארת ככושית מכוערת מעיניה של מייזי. מניעיו לרומן מתבררים כאשר הוא סומך עליה שתשלם עבור המרכבה של מייזי ותתמוך בו כלכלית.

אידה פראנג' אגואיסטית נרקסיסטית. היא נוטשת את מייזי לפרקי זמן ארוכים ואז מטיחה בה האשמות שאינה בת מסורה. בל נשכח שמדובר בילדה בת 6.

היא מעורבת אינטימית עם מגוון גברברים מאחורי גבו של בעלה ובזמן שבתה נטושה. לחלק מהגברברים מייזי נחשפת. למרות שהקורא אינו נחשף לכלל הגברברים בחייה של אידה, ניתן לקבל רושם על סוג החברה המועדפת עליה: צעירים ועשירים.

באתר מסויים המבקר מתאר את איידה כג'ק המרטש של המונוגמיסטים הסידרתיים. אני יכולה להזדהות עם התיאור הזה. איידה פשוט לא מסוגלת להפסיק את החיפוש אחר הגבר הבא, היא חולה במובן זה.

למרות התכנים הנוראיים של הספר, כשמייזי המסכנה מטלטלת בין הוריה המנוולים שמזניחים אותה, בין חברים של הוריה (המאהבים של אמא שלה והחברים של אביה) וחייה במציאות כאוטית בה אין שום עוגן יציב בחייה, הספר אירוני ומשעשע. הספר כתוב מנקודת המבט של מייזי המנסה לפענח את המציאות הנפתלת הנגלית לעיניה ולחשב את תוצאות האירועים עבורה. נקודת מבט זו, למרות שהיא חסרה הן בתפיסת האירועים בכללותם והן בפרשנות האירועים, יוצרת סיטואציות מגוחכות ואירוניות להפליא.

מייזי אומנם מתקשה לפרש את המסרים שעוברים דרכה ואת האירועים במציאות סביבה, אך הקורא מצליח לאסוף את המידע ולהגיע למסקנות. מייזי מוצאת את עצמה במרכז קרבות אפיים כשאהבה, שינאה ובגידות הם כלי נשק קטלניים:

הוריה נלחמים על המשמורת עליה. אחר כך הם נלחמים לא לקחת אותה.
גברת ויקס וגברת אוברמור נלחמות על אהבתו של מר קלוד. הן גם נלחמות על כך שמייזי תצטרף אליהן.
מר קלוד נלחם על איידה מול המאהבים שלה ואז נלחם על כך שמייזי תצטרף אליו ולגב' אוברמור לצרפת.

פשוט מלחמת הכל בכל ובמרכז מייזי.

אהבתי את הספר, את האירוניה השזורה בכתיבה ואת המורכבות שבו. הנרי ג'יימס מייטיב להעביר את הביקורת החברתית והמוסרית על הדמויות גם כאשר הדמות שמעיניה נמסרים האירועים היא ילדה צעירה. מורכבות הכתיבה של הנרי ג'יימס בונה את האירועים לקראת שיאם באירוניה משעשעת שנפרשת בפני הקורא באחת.

הדמויות הערמומיות ונוקטות מהלכים ומהלכי נגד להטעות את "האויבים" והמתחרים שלהן. רק בתום המהלך כולו, מסתברת מטרתן וכוונתן של הדמויות כמו במקטע הבא:

"לכך התכוונה כשדיברה על הסרת המכשולים בפני העברתה לבית ספר; נוכחותה של הילדה לא נדרשה עוד בבית כבת־לוויה קטנה — כפי שניסחה זאת בהיתול מרת ביל עצמה. ההתנגדות ליורשת לעלמה אוברמור נותרה על כנה; וזו, למען האמת, התבססה על טיעון של מרת ביל, אשר טענה, באופן אבסורדי לחלוטין, שהיא מחבבת מדי את בתה החורגת ולא תוכל להפקיד אותה בידיה הגסות של רודפת בצע כלשהי."

הספר מומלץ בחום.

Over the years, critics have pointed out that it isn't entirely clear exactly what Maisie knew. She intuits a lot. She learns to recognize when grown ups are being untruthful. She understands the importance of appearing ignorant or remaining silent when being grilled for information best held in confidence. And she accepts that her parents and step-parents are selfish, amoral, and unreliable, if also often predictably so.

Perhaps what Maisie knew - and that James himself may not have at the time - is that her story is the final draft en route to the novella that would soon come after this novel, and which is superior in every way.

"...but Mrs. Wix, ...her feet were firm in the schoolroom. They could not be loosened by force: she would 'leave' for the police perhaps, but she wouldn't leave for mere outrage. That would be to play her ladyship's game, and it would take another turn of the screw to make her desert her darling."

Mrs. Wix contains both Mrs. Gross and (toward the end of this book) The Governess. Maisie, although resourceful and moderately untouchable like Flora, exhibits the charm and precociousness of Miles. Mrs. Beale (nee Overmore) and Sir Claude, when sapped of attractive qualities and viewed with suspicion, readily lead to Miss Jessel and Peter Quint.

The Turn of the Screw is shorter, darker, more varied, and the stronger recommendation for those thinking about tackling Henry James.

It's interesting how literature changes through the ages - the structure and meat of the stories can all probably be pegged into various eras by how they're written. So I did find this one a wee bit of a slog to get through. Not that the content was hard to understand - it was well put out. No - it was the structure of the language that I found -for the lack of a better word- difficult. Often jumbled and sentences very complex - you really had to read slowly - or reread entirely - sentences, so you could pick up the gist of what Henry James was trying to get across. Plus, writting a story through no particular character makes you an observer and it really slows the pace down, while you absorb what it is that is being imparted to you. Dialogue - when it occurs - become gems and really race you through the situation and then helps to clarify what it was you just were shown before.

Anyways, that being said, I did enjoy the story. The long and short of it to me was that kids always are smarter than you ever give them credit for and they can sum things up in short order, with less fuss than the average adult - without the emotionalism. They speak from the heart. This book also speaks to the ends that people will go to in order to hurt another, at the expense of children - not understanding the actual lessons they impart by doing so. A sad reality whos existence has become very common place in our day in age. No wonder we have so many confused, unhappy, and angry people out there.... that are just generating more.

I think this book is one that would be best read in a group to get the most out of it. It's one that you'll want to be able to discuss after, what different people's interpretations were. It would only enhance the story more.

Superb plot and a great ending!

What an astonishing book! A masterpiece!! 5 stars hardly does it justice. It is James at the very peak of his powers! How did I put this off for so very long….

Arabeschi.

Ho faticato molto, durante la lettura di questo romanzo, a riconoscere l'Henry James che tanto amo.
Si riconoscono il guizzo, la sua ironia e a volte anche l'elegantissima prosa, ma spesso la stessa è talmente avvitata su se stessa da far perdere il senso del racconto e da rendere faticosa la lettura.
Da un punto di vista psicologico, direi di sì, che è efficace e moderno, anche se la psicologia è caratteristica propria di Henry James e si evince dalla lettura di tutte le sue opere (parlo di quelle che ho letto, ovviamente), ma da un punto di vista letterario qualcosa mi ha respinta.
La scelta di raccontare attraverso gli occhi della piccola Maisie (attenzione, proprio attraverso quello che Maisie vede e le si mostra, non attraverso le sue parole), i cambiamenti che avvengono nella sua vita dal momento che i due vanesi e superficiali genitori decidono di separarsi, dando così via a un sontuoso minuetto di corte in cui, proprio come nella danza, si scambiano e si alternano di continuo nuovi amanti, istitutrici e mariti (e naturalmente mogli), e persino le abitazioni, è sicuramente un'intuizione geniale, ma...
L'ho trovato più ostico, meno incline a mostrare la bellezza della sua scrittura, più attaccato all'idea che alla forma, più involuto; se così si può dire considerando che invece fa parte della produzione più vicina al Novecento e quindi successiva a quella dei suoi scritti più famosi; forse più sperimentale, ecco.
Ma certo, bisognerebbe leggerlo in originale.

Nisam baš neki poseban fan Henry Jamesa niti njegovog stila pisanja ali mi je ovdje tema bila jako interesantna. Što s djecom u slučaju razvoda roditelja? U ovom slučaju se radi o jednom djetetu koje je nažalost neželjeni "prtljag" svojih roditelja i koje sazrijeva prije vremena.

Good gods what a mess of a writing style! Is this supposed to represent good writing? Really? I felt almost like a helpless first year student of English all over again - the confusion, constant rereading of sentences, the slight panic at the edge of understanding and all... The sentences in this book love to confuse, the meaning is like a distant star on the horizon, so near yet so far. I hate when this happens, when writers think themselves smart and sophisticated but all they produce is a book that only hardened veterans of literature find sufficient energy to tackle and straighten out. It is a short book but gods above! did it drag. I hated every character, too (or didn't care what happens to them which amounts to the same thing - it's hard to even hate them when you don't truly know them), so no redeaming qualities here.

Maisie, the titular character we follow, is a little girl when her parents divorce - a shocking event at that time in history - but to make matters worse, they have to share custody. Of course they decide to use the child to fight it out and the girl learned to pretend all the time, chirping what they wanted to hear. In fact, even when she grows up a little, the only thing you can expect of her is to follow the last person she spoke to. She makes complete turns in her opinion, always liking the person she talks to best, or at least the people she percieves as pretty, rich and sophisticated. From the descriptions of her education (or better yet, lack thereof), I'm surprised she knows how to read. Oh, but she thinks herself smart, she knows 'things'. What these things are is a mystery. I'd say she learned that every person around her can be taken advantage of. Considering they are mostly swindlers, adulterers, and what else... I didn't particularly care. In fact, we get so little sense of the motivations of these people that I'm not sure I can make firm judgements on their character. Suffice to say, I didn't like the book and I think the writing style is at fault. If the writer intended the readers to feel te confusion the child most likely felt in this strange and toxic environment, then he suceeded with flying honors. Too bad that doesn't make good reading. Ah well...

Thanks, Henry James, for writing such a terrible book that I literally struggled to read this. I hated to pick it up, loved to put it down, had to check it out beyond the number of times allowed by the library, finally settling for becoming overdue, and now have something like $10 in library fines.

The only way we're even is if you send me my $10.

Another reviewer says: "Apparently, Lawrence Durrell posed this question: "Would you rather read Henry James or be crushed to death by a great weight?"" And I can tell you what I would choose. This was mind-numbingly boring. I read Hark! A Vagrant recently, and one of her comics features a synopsis of What Maisie Knew. Here it is, and sorry if this ruined the book for you: