june 2022
Turn of the Screw

Once again, why use a simple adjective when a string of more "erudite" terms will prove the reputation?

The stories on artists are especially good. I read this one in the series last year, currently reading his earliest stories in same series, but could not find it on the system. His style got more complex later, but the early stories are great fun. Some are maudlin, or just silly, but it's interesting to see how his style developed. I like his mature works better, though they can be troubling. Had a hard time falling asleep after reading them!

Contains the stories:

Nona Vincent
The Real Thing - 4/5 - what to do with the unproductive British aristocracy in the modern age?
The Private Life
Lord Beaupre
The Visits
Sir Dominick Ferrand
Greville Fane
Collaboration
Owen Wingrave
The Wheel of Time
The Middle Years
The Death of the Lion
The Coxon Fund
The Altar of the Dead
The Next Time
Glasses
The Figure in the Carpet
The Way It Came
The Turn of the Screw
Covering End
In the Cage

Henry James is a classic author and his short stories are stylized, but he creates his own world, and I get lost in it.

The fourth of five volumes of the complete works of fiction at short story or novella length does not disappoint. Here James evolves into his late phrase of writing, where the narrative is more elusive and more fluid to discern than in most traditional fiction, especially until his time.

If you think of how the Impressionist movement in painting mystified traditional artwork with suggestiveness rather than concrete answers, you will understand the point of what James is striving to achieve here. Whereas many great short stories end with an emphatic point that reinforces the themes and changes within the main character, and James himself often does the same, in this volume the questions raised by the denouement of the narrative are often enigmatic and cause for much deeper thought. While James's characters always spur discussion past the ending of their narrative, here the stories seem to demand repeat reading in order to glean new details. In other words, whereas James seems to leave clues as to the arc of his characters until sometime in the mid 1880s, by the end of this volume those endings are open ended and much more enigmatic, sometimes open ended to the point of an unlimited debate.

As usual, James is primarily preoccupied with the dance of marriage suitability as well as the mystery of artistry itself, and continues those obsessions here. "The Turn of the Screw" appears in this volume, though I personally am shockingly cold to that story, having read it three times now in my life and still not overly impressed. Perhaps the treatment of the supernatural is what doesn't quite connect with me. However, there are plenty of other superb studies of human behavior and psychology and character gleaned through the testing grounds of money, interpersonal suitability, social standing, and defects of character that impinge on happiness. There's a reason he is called the master. As I have written before, his syntax is very much at high level so it takes a little bit of training or a high reading level to arrive at a fluid discernment of his intricacies. But there is a reason he was nicknamed "The Master" and each one of these stories proves it time and again. Superb and cultivated prose with exquisite character insight. Highest recommendation especially for those with the patience to stick with sentences of complicated length that say much more than they appear to at first.

How many people and how much concentration must he have had to illustrate so many different human types? His powers of observation must have been right up there with Shakespeare's.

Mobilizes the English language with the precision of a surgeon... The stories exhibit a common tendency to balloon in tension as the plots advance; paradoxically, they are plots where little happens... rather, James works subtly with the various levers of human circumstance and situation, adding and subtracting slightly here and there--showing that, ultimately, it is the space, the tentacular complexity of relations between people that--rather than the essences of individuals themselves--underscore the meaning-giving activity of human living.

The Turn of the Screw ***** 5 Jul 21

The Death of the Lion ***** 25 Jul 21

The Middle Years ***** 6 Jul 23
The novelist Dencombe achieves his best work as he succumbs to mortal illness while still hoping for an "extension" to do more, appreciated and witnessed by Doctor Hugh. Source of the great manifesto: "We work in the dark– we do what we can – we give what we have."

Volume four in the Library of America edition of the complete stories of Henry James.

"The Aspern Papers" -- I think Nabokov was taking notes on this before writing 'Pale Fire.' The transparent quest of a.....(lips curl) literary critic...to gain access to some scholarly valuable papers, at all costs. You get the sense that critics were essentially paparazzi back in the day.

"Georgina's Reasons" -- Truth, thy name is woman. Another story for the he-man woman hater's club.

I have read "Nona Vincent" through "The Altar of the Dead." Each story was fascinating and enjoyable. Most of these stories deal with the struggles of writers and artists to realize their artistic aspirations. Despite his deliberate and genteel style, James writes with amazing urgency and conviction, and the stories tend to end with stirring crescendos. They have great emotional effect, and as I began each new one I thought to myself, "Brace yourself, here we go." I particularly liked "Nona Vincent," "Sir Dominick Ferrand," "The Death of the Lion" and "The Coxon Fund." I plan to finish the volume soon, and to continue to the 1989-1910 set.

"The Altar of the Dead" and "Glasses" UWM Libraries Great Books Roundtable Discussions 2020-21.