I had many wonderful moments while reading this book, moments when the writing halted the reading, when I had to pause and admire and wonder.
Moments when the book seemed to speak to my own experience as if it were written expressly for the girl who was me at twenty-two, causing me to wonder how Henry James could have guessed so well the presumptuous ideas I had about life and love at that early stage.

All of that is very personal, of course, and not necessarily of interest to other readers, but there were other moments in my reading of The Portrait of a Lady that better merit mention in a review. I had read this book before, about twenty years ago, so although I knew the bare bones of the story, I remembered few of the details. I certainly had no recollection of reading a particular scene from early in the story, the one in which Isabel Archer meets a stranger in her aunt’s house.
And yet there was something about the lead-up to that scene that caught my attention this time: the house is very still because Isabel’s uncle is dying. Out of the silence comes the sound of someone playing the piano. Wonderingly, Isabel makes her way toward the source of the harmony.
Those six words were like a bell ringing in my mind. I felt a sharpening of interest, an awareness of how pivotal this moment would be in the story. I remember thinking: I've been reading this book with all senses on alert and this is my reward; I've sensed the author’s excitement at the turn his story is about to take.

There was another scene later in the book when I had a similar feeling of change about to happen: Isabel sits up late one night in Rome pondering a difficult decision, indeed pondering all the decisions in her life so far. The reader watches with her and wonders how she will act. And wonders again when she finally does.

There are other major shifts in the narrative but none stood out for me quite the way those two did. In fact, Henry James purposely avoids describing the most significant shift of all, by skipping a three-year section of Isabel’s life completely—which is a very effective narrative device of course, introducing both surprise and suspense in a story that has only a six-year span in total.
As a reader I appreciated both strategies: the emphasis he seemed to place on some scenes and the complete omission he allowed to others. It was all very wonderful.

In fact this book has revised my idea of what ‘wonderful’ means. 'The Portrait of a Lady' is vying for a place as the highlight of my Henry James reading year even though The Ambassadors was already firmly camped in that position. I've decided they can be the joint highlight—they have a lot of wonderfulness in common.

When I finished 'The Portrait', I turned to HJ’s 1906 appendix and found a paragraph about his concerns for the reader. He writes that he has purposely piled brick upon brick for our benefit, carefully including the details that will enable us to grasp the totality of his creation. And among those details, he mentions two in particular, keystones in the building of the story as it were.

The first is the piano scene I described earlier. He speaks of the rare chemistry of that scene in which Isabel recognizes that a huge change is about to happen in her life. I felt really validated as a reader to have been aware in advance of the significance of what I was about to read, and so I wasn't surprised when his other pivotal scene turned out to be the one where Isabel sits up late into the Roman night, pondering her decisions. This is the sixteenth Henry James book I've read in six months. Perhaps I've learnt something of the way his writer’s mind works!

More confirmation of that possibility came when he began to discuss the shape of this novel. He continues to speak in terms of bricks and architecture and proportions, and he says that of all his novels, 'The Portrait' is the best proportioned with the exception of a novel he was to write twenty-two years later: The Ambassadors. Alongside a certain ‘roundness’ in shape which they share, he finds they also share a kind of supporting beam or rib that runs through them. This rib is made from two minor but key characters, Henrietta Stackpole and Maria Gostrey. Both seem extraneous to each story at first glance yet both are central to the architecture of their particular story. I remember noting that Maria Gostrey was the thread that allowed me to find my way through the labyrinth that was 'The Ambassadors' so it was wonderful to hear Henry James confirm that, and underline the links between the two books as well.
I was also reminded that I had begun to look at his books in terms of architecture while reading The Wings of the Dove, so I really appreciated his architectural metaphors.

In fact the appendix left me amazed and wondering at every turn. In the updates, I quoted part of a paragraph on his theories about the ‘house of fiction’. I'd like to quote the whole thing here because it is really worth reading—and it provided me with huge insights into some Gerald Murnane books I've puzzled over in the past, The Plains and Inland, and offered a strong desire to read Murnane's Million Windows:

The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million—a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will. These apertures, of dissimilar shape and size, hang so, all together, over the human scene that we might have expected of them a greater sameness of report than we find. They are but windows at the best, mere holes in a dead wall, disconnected, perched aloft; they are not hinged doors opening straight upon life. But they have this mark of their own that at each of them stands a figure with a pair of eyes, or at least with a field-glass, which forms, again and again, for observation, a unique instrument, insuring to the person making use of it an impression distinct from every other. He and his neighbors are watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the other sees small, one seeing coarse where the other sees fine. And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open; “fortunately” by reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range. The spreading field, the human scene, is the “choice of subject”; the pierced aperture, either broad or balconied or slit-like and low-browed, is the “literary form”; but they are, singly or together, as nothing without the posted presence of the watcher without, in other words, the consciousness of the artist. Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell you of what he has BEEN conscious. Thereby I shall express to you at once his boundless freedom and his “moral” reference.

…………………………

This book is the final one in my 2017 Henry James season and I can't think of a better title to finish on. But in every ending there are beginnings—'The Portrait' has led me to another book: Henry James says he took the slight ‘personality’, the mere slim shade of an intelligent but presumptuous girl and created what he called ‘an ado about Isabel Archer’. That reference has prompted me to go back to Shakespeare and read Much Ado About Nothing.
I do love when one book leads to another!

I made my way to the strange and lovely The Portrait of a Lady (1881) via a series of James’s earlier novels and novellas: Roderick Hudson (1875); The American (1877); Daisy Miller (1878). That made an appealing approach route. There are strong thematic continuities among all these fictions, so you have a sense of James working through the same concerns from a variety of different angles. At the same time, Portrait seems a clear advance on the earlier novels and a kind of consummation or climax, perhaps a breakthrough: an indisputable masterpiece, in any case.

The introduction to my edition (Oxford World’s Classics, ed. Roger Luckhurst) points to analogies between James’s Portrait and Sargent’s oblique, evocative, “hauntingly incomplete” female portraits, citing especially the compelling 1882 group portrait The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, which James praised in an essay. I found that parallel hugely suggestive. In his introduction to Portrait for the New York edition (1908), James draws on architecture as an analogy when speaking of his novel, yet Sargent’s portrait, with its elliptical framing and free, sketchy handling of paint and air of suffused mystery—and sheer beauty—worked better for me.

The plot of The Portrait of a Lady is somewhere between sentimental education and tragedy, in classic sense of great man, or great woman, brought down by a fatal flaw. We are supposed to fall in love with the heroine, Isabel Archer, I think, as does just about every man in the novel, not to mention its author. I’m not sure I did, exactly, but she is certainly absorbing, and she grew considerably in stature for me as the novel progressed.

The surrounding characters are also very successful in the main, although I shared James’s later reflection there is a little too much of Isabel’s bustling lady journalist friend Henrietta Stackpole. I especially loved Ralph Touchett, Isabel’s witty, wise, brave, cousin, who spends the entire novel gradually dying of consumption. In Jane Campion’s 1996 film, Ralph is styled in a way that recalls Sargent’s wonderful 1885 portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson. I’d love to believe that Ralph was James’s own portrait of Stevenson, but the two writers didn’t meet until 1885, so I guess I will have to abandon that theory.

Two novels I was strongly reminded of while reading The Portrait of a Lady were Les liaisons dangeureuses, for certain details of the plot (Jane Campion cleverly underlines this subtext by casting John Malkovich, who played Valmont in the 1988 film of Laclos’s novel, as Gilbert Osmond), and Middlemarch, for the character and predicament of Isabel, who has quite a bit of the Dorothea Brooke in her literary DNA. Her surname, Archer, for me, recalled the tradition of the huntress goddess Diana and her free-spirited nymphs. Isabel, too, has a kind of restless, free-wheeling, huntress spirit at the beginning of the novel; she wants to do something and be something, other than the romance heroine whose sole possible plot line leads inexorably to marriage. That is part of her resemblance to Dorothea, as is her fatal naivety and her disastrous taste in men.

Among James’s own novels, one that I kept thinking of as I read Portrait—apart from the 1870s works mentioned above—his much later The Spoils of Poynton. As in Spoils, houses and art collections and object collections feature very large in Portrait, similarly infused with desire and entangled with human relations and human identities. Among the houses, the Touchetts’ idyllic Gardencourt is beautifully evoked, as is Gilbert Osmond’s exquisite, over-curated hothouse of a Florentine villa.

In an important exchange early in the novel, Isabel professes disdain for the appurtenances of a discarded suitor—she doesn’t care whether he lives in a castle or an ugly townhouse—and her worldly new friend, Madame Merle, lectures her instead on the importance of externals in defining our identity for others (“I’ve a great respect for things! One’s self—for other people—is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s garments, the books one reads, the company one keeps—these things are all very expressive.”) As in Spoils, James shows himself morally wary of this investment in “things,” even as he polishes them up as the sumptuous settings of his novels. Madame Merle’s stated credo of artful self-staging gains a dire dramatic irony as the novel plays out.

This is my first James (not counting his little book on Hawthorne and scattered essays on French novelists), and I started it out of a sense of dutiful curiosity. I was not prepared for it to be such an engrossing masterpiece. There so much good stuff here: the psychological portraiture, the descriptive scene painting, the simple human energy of the plot.

James is such an odd bird because he was so steeped in the 19th century French fiction, was a social intimate of such Continental wellsprings of modern fiction as Flaubert and the Goncourts, but he doesn't really resemble them. The need to nimbly and precisely render the meaningful trifles of physical appearance and gesture that you find in Flaubert, and in his faithful heirs Joyce and Nabokov, is nowhere in James. He can evoke and scene-paint with the best of them (Osmond's Florentine villa, Isabel's melancholy wandering around Rome), but it's not his obsession. In his essay on Turgenev, James spends many pages almost chuckling at the energy and time Turgenev spends visually distinguishing and individuating his characters. James is, in that way, backward: by which I mean that his fictional aesthetic is very 18th century, aiming not at visual peculiarity and novelty, but at what Johnson called "the grandeur of generality." The style too is very redolent of Johnson and Gibbon in its rounded, formal pomp, in the pageantry of its circumlocutions. This backwardness may be one significantly "American" trait of James. Henry Adams, George Santayana and Van Wyck Brooks in various places point out that New England intellectual life remained firmly fixed in the 18th century well into the 19th. Johnson, Gibbon and Pope were the household gods of the colonial elite circa 1776, and they remained so long after the American Revolution. In Hawthorne, James actually singles out Hawthorne's vestigially "Augustan" style for special praise. In a book so mindful of American deficiency, the preservation of Britain's 18th century literary aesthetics is viewed as one of the new country's few cultural strengths.

So James's descriptive forbearance makes the vividness of the characters all the more spooky. I can't put my finger the device that does it. It's certainly well hidden (as Walpole said in praise of Gibbon, he is strong but doesn't show off his muscles). Maybe it's the close attention to how a voice quavers or modulates in emotionally significant ways throughout the course of conversation, or the pictorially vague but atmosphere-altering metaphors. I'm impatient to reread this novel, to become acutely conscious of its magic. I can count on one hand the number of times James tells you what Madame Merle is wearing or how she's moving, but she's as alive and embodied as the more closely drawn Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina. I mention Merle in connection with Flaubert's and Tolstoy's heroines and not Isabel because, after this reading at least, I prefer Isabel as a foil for the more interesting Merle, with her deceptively amiable social masks (Merle is a very 18th century figure as well--her scenes always made me think of Lytton Strachey's descriptions of the ready wit, the tact, the armored poise and smooth sociability of ancien regime manners). My interest in the book actually lagged for a month, after Isabel's marriage to Osmond--that is, when Merle was out of the picture. Not that I'd want Merle as the heroine--no, she's a secondary character, and like Ralph Touchett, like Pansy, she goes away having but insinuated or at most only partially revealed her private history. Poignantly mysterious is how I like it.

The language is unbelievably exceptional…..
the power - the seduction - the story - the characters - [complex yet translucent and comprehensible] ….was brilliantly written.
My enjoyment was plentiful….
….the themes about freedom, choice, searching for one’s own identity, marriage, resistance of victimization, sexual equality, how people behave, relationship entanglements, manipulation, drama…
it’s all there ….
and….
Isabel Archer was a fascinating- innocent, intelligent, personality of a protagonist!

“The danger of a high spirit was the danger of a high inconsistency”.

“There are only two types of class…
….people I trust…
And
….people I don’t…
Luckily Isabell fell into the first type of class”…..

“Isabell‘s originality is that she gave the impression of having independent thoughts totally of her own”…..

“She had effaced herself when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than there really was”.

“Don’t make me out too old, Isabel patiently answered.
You come back to that very often, and I’ve never denied it. But I must tell you that, old friends as we are, if you had done me the honor to ask me to marry you I should have refused you on the spot”.

“This subtle modulation marked a momentous discovery—the perception of an entirely new attitude on the part of her listener. Madame Merle had guesssd in an instant that everything was at end between them, and in the space of another instant she had guessed the reason why. The person who stood there was not the same one she had seen hitherto, but was a very different person—a person who knew her secret. This discovery was tremendous, and from the moment she made it the most accomplished of women faltered and lost her courage. But only for that moment. Then the conscious stream of her perfect manner gathered itself again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only because she had the end and you that she was able to proceed. She had been touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in her not betraying herself. She resisted this, but the startled quality of her voice refused to improve—she couldn’t help it—while she heard herself say she hardly knew what. The tide of her confidence ebbed, and she was able only just to glide into port, faintly grazing the bottom. Isabel saw it as distinctly as if it had been reflected in a large clear glass. It might have been a great moment for her, for it might have been a moment of triumph. That Madame Merle had lost her pluck and saw before her the phantom of exposure—this in itself was a revenge, this in itself was almost the promise of a brighter day. And for a moment during which she stood apparently looking out the window, with her back half-turned, Isabel enjoyed that knowledge. On the other side at the window lay the garden of the convent; but this is not what she saw; she saw nothing of the budding plants and the glowing afternoon. She saw, in the crude light of that revelation which had already become a part of experience to which the very fragility of the vessel in which it had been offered her only gave an intrinsic price, the dry staring fact that she had been an applied handle hung-up tool, as senseless and convenient as mere shaped wood and iron. All the bitterness of this knowledge surged into her soul again; it was as if she felt on her lips the taste of dishonour. There was a moment during which, if she had turned and spoken, she would have said something that would hiss like a lash. But she closed her eyes, and then the hideous vision dropped. What remained was the cleverest woman in the world standing there within a few feet of her and knowing as little what to think as the meanest. Isabel’s only revenge was to be silent still—to leave Madame Merle in this unprecedented situation”.

Written in 1881…..
understandably a classic masterpiece.

This is only the second Henry James novel I’ve read …
I read “Turn of the Screw”, years ago….
I’m thinking about “The Golden Bowl” …. for my next Henry James novel…but not immediately….

It’s clear Henry James books could be read and re-read —
….that to absorb all in one reading is highly unlikely.

Well this I found depressing. I don’t know why really because I’ve loved books with similar themes such as those by Edith Wharton. I just didn’t really take to Isabelle or her fate.

For my dear friend Jeffrey Keeten: I would not have read it if it were not for you. Thanks!

Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady touched me deeply. Since I finished this novel a few days ago, I could not seem to stop thinking about it as I tried to organize my feelings. That I was mesmerized by it, there is no doubt. So much that the search for its understanding has occupied practically all my free moments. And to fully grasp it I could not do without Henry James masterful help, so forgive me if you find I quote him too often. Oh, but this is a work in progress, so forgive me again for any inaccuracy or inconsistency.

1. The complexity of Isabel Archer
n  

"Millions of presumptuous girls, intelligent or not intelligent, daily affront their destiny, and what is it open to their destiny to be, at the most, that we should make an ado about it? The novel is of its very nature an ado, an ado about something, and the larger the form it takes the greater of course the ado. Therefore, consciously, that was what one was in for—for positively organising an ado about Isabel Archer."

n
Portrait of a Lady is the story of a young American woman, Isabel Archer, and her voyage of self-discovery. I loved getting into Isabel's conflicted mind, her doubts and her confidence, her wishes and her choices. I went even further and identified thoroughly with Isabel Archer. I could relate to her conflicted mind, her dreams and ultimate choices. She was a pleasure to know, because she is so extraordinarily complex, complex in a way that fictional people seldom are.

From the first we learn how Isabel valued her freedom, in a dialogue with her cousin Ralph:
n  

"‘Adopted me?’ The girl stared, and her blush came back to her, together with a momentary look of pain...
‘Oh no; she has not adopted me. I’m not a candidate for adoption.’
‘I beg a thousand pardons,’ Ralph murmured. ‘I meant...
‘You meant she has taken me up. Yes; she likes to take people up... but,’ she added with a certain visible eagerness of desire to be explicit, ‘I’m very fond of my liberty.’"

n
The secondary characters are there to explain Isabel Archer, as Henry James tells us “they are there, for what they are worth… the definite array of contributions to Isabel Archer’s history. I recognized them, I knew them, they were numbered pieces of my puzzle, the concrete term of my ‘plot’.”

Mrs. Touchett, her aunt, brings Isabel to Europe but is indifferent and unfeeling; Ralph is initially amused by her and helps her to inherit a fortune, only to guarantee her choices and the freedom to follow them (he probably is the only one that thoroughly loved Isabel); Madam Merle manages her meeting with Osmond and makes sure they end up married; Osmond thinks of her as one more item for his collection; Mr. Goodwood is persistent and never loses interest in her life (coming back again and again to see how she is), but seems to offer nothing more; Lord Warburton is a fair aristocratic friend to Isabel, but was he truly in love with her or merely looking for a trophy wife?; Henrietta Stackpole, is a true friend and probably an antithesis to Isabel; and Pansy, the artless creation of her husband, depends on Isabel as the only person who throughly loves her. So everyone, including the reader, look upon her, judge her decisions and contemplate as she takes each of her fateful steps into her destiny.

Oh, there is much more about Isabel, and I hope I will be able to know her better once I am finished.

2. The images and metaphors of Isabel Archer’s life

To discuss this I first I want to tell you about a recurrent dream I had for a very long time. Sometimes, I dreamed that I was walking down the corridor on my home and discovered a door I had never realized existed; deciding to explore I would open it and it led me to a new, endless row of rooms, all grand with high windows and sunny, overlooking majestic gardens that I had never observed existed before. As I opened each door amazing new discoveries were revealed to me. My feelings were of exuberance, of happiness to have discovered so much beauty inside my home. But there was a variation to these recurrent dreams, or worst, there were also nightmares. In these I also discovered new places never visited before, however they would be dark and looked nowhere. As a result of this oppressive atmosphere I used to feel like I was in an endless prison inside my own home. I rejoiced in the first and feared to revisit those nightmares.

So, when I started reading The Portrait of a Lady, it was fascinating to read how Henry James uses symbolic or metaphorical architectural spaces and places to tell us about Isabel Archer and her life. This was something I knew and it remitted directly to my dreams and my deepest self.
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"Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out of the window. She was not accustomed indeed to keep it behind bolts; and at important moments, when she would have been thankful to make use of her judgement alone, she paid the penalty of having given undue encouragement to the faculty of seeing without judging."

n
We first meet Isabel at Gardencourt,
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"Her uncle’s house seemed a picture made real; no refinement of the agreeable was lost upon Isabel; the rich perfection of Gardencourt at once revealed a world and gratified a need. The large, low rooms, the deep greenness outside, that seemed always peeping in, the sense of well-ordered privacy in the centre of a ‘property’—...much to the taste of our young lady, whose taste played a considerable part in her emotions"

n
By marrying Osmond Isabel ends up enveloped in a palace dark and suffocating:
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"She could live it over again, the incredulous terror with which she had taken the measure of her dwelling. Between those four walls she had lived ever since; they were to surround her for the rest of her life. It was the house of darkness, the house of dumbness, the house of suffocation. Osmond’s beautiful mind gave it neither light nor air; Osmond’s beautiful mind indeed seemed to peep down from a small high window and mock at her."

n
There, she seeks refuge or consolation on the ruins of Rome, for her a symbol of hope for despite their long sufferings they are still standing.
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"She had long before this taken old Rome into her confidence, for in a world of ruins the ruin of her happiness seemed a less unnatural catastrophe. She rested her weariness upon things that had crumbled for centuries and yet still were upright; she dropped her secret sadness into the silence of lonely places, so that as she sat in a sun-warmed angle on a winter’s day, she could smile at it and think of its smallness."

n
But, ultimately, she seeks refuge once more at Gardencourt.
n  

"All purpose, all intention, was suspended; all desire too save the single desire to reach her much-embracing refuge. Gardencourt had been her starting-point, and to those muffled chambers it was at least a temporary solution to return. She had gone forth in her strength; she would come back in her weakness, and if the place had been a rest to her before, it would be a sanctuary now."

n
3. Isabel’s choices and freedom

Isabel's ability to choose, and the choices she makes are the thread that is carefully woven throughout the novel, and it raises her stature as a fictional heroine, in my opinion, to the level of that of an Anna Karenina or an Emma Bovary. For better or for worse.
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"‘I’m not bent on a life of misery,’ said Isabel. ‘I’ve always been intensely determined to be happy, and I’ve often believed I should be. I’ve told people that. But it comes over me every now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way; not by turning away, by separating myself.’
‘By separating yourself from what?’
‘From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer.’"

n
The moment Isabel inherits starts the process whereupon she loses some of her freedom…
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"There’s one remarkable clause in my husband’s will,’ Mrs Touchett added. ‘He has left my niece a fortune.’
‘A fortune!’ Madame Merle softly repeated.
‘Isabel steps into something like seventy thousand pounds.’
Madame Merle’s hands were clasped in her lap; at this she raised them, still clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom while her eyes, a little dilated... ‘Ah,’ she cried, ‘the clever creature!’"

n
And around Isabel there is always a sense of danger:
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"‘I try to care more about the world than about myself––but I always come back to myself. It’s because I’m afraid.’ She stopped; her voice had trembled a little. ‘Yes, I’m afraid; I can’t tell you. A large fortune means freedom, and I’m afraid of that. It’s such a fine thing, and one should make such a good use of it. If one shouldn’t one would be ashamed... I’m not sure it’s not a greater happiness to be powerless.’"

n
But was she really free or were her choices not as free as she dreamed? Or was it all inevitable to some degree? It seems that Isabel Archer's life was to some extend inescapable and this fact was not totally unknown to her. However, she thoroughly recongnizes how misguided she had been in her choice of husband.
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"It was as if he had had the evil eye; as if his presence were a blight and his favour a misfortune. Was the fault in himself, or only in the deep mistrust she had conceived for him? This mistrust was now the clearest result of their short married life; a gulf had opened between them over which they looked at each other with eyes that were on either side a declaration of the deception suffered."

n
Subsequentely, Isabel remains too proud to show it to the her friends. But despite all her efforts to conceal her misery, she cannot camouflage it from Ralph and Caspar:
n  

"‘Watching her?’
‘Trying to make out if she's happy.’
‘That's easy to make out,’ said Ralph. ‘She’s the most visibly happy woman I know.’
‘Exactly so; I’m satisfied,’ Goodwood answered dryly. For all his dryness, however, he had more to say. ‘I’ve been watching her. She pretends to be happy; that was what she undertook to be; and I thought I should like to see for myself what it amounts to. I’ve seen,’ he continued with a harsh ring in his voice, ‘and I don’t want to see any more. I’m now quite ready to go.’"

n
Sorrowful and heartbroken, that's how this passage made me feel. But she is never to be pitied, she always stands upright despite doomed adversity.

Yes, I suspect there is a sense of inevitability (what choices did she have, where her other suitors conductive of real happiness? I think not!) which could have made Isabel Archer’s into a tragedy. But she is far from it, she still has choices. Nevertheless, James’ work is not merely that. It is a reflection upon the ideal of a relative freedom and a play with its execution in a woman’s life; the actions, its struggles and the consequent decisions taken by choice. This is what James has achieved with this work; that liberty is not only an ideal but a responsibility too. Though the reader may not approve of all her choices at the end, keeping in mind the betrayal of trust brought about by Madam Merle and Osmond, they were all freely taken or the result of her own will. A will which comes not merely from the limitations imposed by society, but by a newfound maturity, result of all her suffering, and above all from the vow to remain true to oneself.

4. Henry James gives the reader plenty of room to imagine

There’s something about Henry James’ work, and here in particular, that flares, tosses back and forth with unspoken frustration and desire. James’ art, the one thing that makes him stand out for me, is in how he somehow implies, suggests, hints, but never outright tells the reader the ins and outs of his story. He even skips years, and it only adds to its enjoyment. If you want to live along with Isabel Archer, and I felt like I did, is to be conquered by infinite possibilities. Here we are not mere spectator or bystanders but may live everything along with her, if we want to. It is a hard reading that requires effort, but if we invest in it we can grasp the possibilities the whole world that exists beneath the surface of his work.

5. Her ultimate choice

Isabel falls for Gilbert Osmond, to my mind, partly because he does not mindlessly adore her, does not fawn over her. He takes his time in the courtship, he (with the help of Madame Merle) has a clear strategy and it works. He is mysterious, indolent; and there is the hint of a darker side. He appears to be tired of everything, simply bored, so Isabel feels like for once she is helping somebody. That her inheritance has a meaning, a destiny. She seems to feel recompensated and fulfilled.
n  

"...‘What has he ever done?’ he added abruptly.
‘That I should marry him? Nothing at all,’ Isabel replied while her patience helped itself by turning a little to hardness. ‘If he had done great things would you forgive me any better? Give me up, Mr Goodwood; I’m marrying a perfect nonentity. Don’t try to take an interest in him. You can’t.’"

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And we are not the only ones to be surprised by her choice to marry Gilbert Osmond. Ralph was appalled:
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"‘I think I’ve hardly got over my surprise,’ he went on at last. ‘You were the last person I expected to see caught.’
‘I don’t know why you call it caught.’
‘Because you’re going to be put into a cage.’
‘If I like my cage, that needn’t trouble you,’ she answered.
...‘You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty beyond everything. You wanted only to see life.’"

n
But she still has another choice ahead of her. Her ultimate choice is whether or not to return to Osmond after she goes to Gardencourt to visit her dying cousin. Again Henry James gifts us with a superb image that could not translate better the pervading dread of what she is about to do:
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"There was a penetrating chill in the image, and she drew back into the deepest shade of Gardencourt. She lived from day to day, postponing, closing her eyes, trying not to think. She knew she must decide, but she decided nothing; her coming itself had not been a decision. On that occasion she had simply started."

n
And at last we understand her ultimate decision, although such resolution is not easily reached.
n  

"There were lights in the windows of the house; they shone far across the lawn. In an extraordinarily short time—for the distance was considerable—she had moved through the darkness (for she saw nothing) and reached the door. Here only she paused. She looked all about her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the latch. She had not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a very straight path."

n
In the end I recognized a worthier and more mature Isabel Archer, and I think that she comes out of her sufferings stronger. I would like to imagine Osmond would be surprised by her when she gets back to Rome, and that she would be able to change her standing. Their roles perhaps altered. Although there should certainly be more anguish ahead of her, given what she is going back to, I imagine there is always the possibility of happiness.
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3.25 stars

“A large fortune means freedom, and I’m afraid of that. It’s such a fine thing, and one should make such a good use of it. If one shouldn’t one would be ashamed. And one must keep thinking; it’s a constant effort. I’m not sure it’s not a greater happiness to be powerless.”

The Portrait of a Lady focuses on a young American woman, Isabel Archer, who comes into a large inheritance. Even before Isabel becomes financially independent she was unwilling to fulfil the responsibilities and obligations her gender thrusts on her. To restrict herself to the role of wife would not only be oppressive but it could hinder her journey of self-discovery. It is because Isabel craves to experience the world—free of wifely and motherly constraints and duties—that she declines some rather promising marriage proposals.
Ralph Touchett, Isabel’s newly acquainted not-quite-American cousin, perceives in Isabel a latent potential for greatness. Believing that his cousin is meant to “rise above the ground”, Ralph decides to provide Isabel with the means to do so: a lot of money. It just so happens that Ralph’s father, Mr. Touchett, possess a vast fortune. Ralph convinces his sick father to bestow on Isabel a large part of his estate. During their conversation Mr. Touchett asks his son the following question:
“Tell me this first. Doesn’t it occur to you that a young lady with sixty thousand pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunters?”
As with Chekhov's Gun, the fact that ‘fortune-hunters’ are mentioned pretty much insures their appearance. The story that follows sees Isabel predictably falling into the path of two wannabe Machiavellian American expats.
Set against a European backdrop, the narrative contrasts the values and customs of the New World against the ones of the Old. This juxtaposition of New vs. Old, America vs. England, English-speaking countries vs. the rest of Europe, serves as a backdrop to the exploration of themes such as personal freedom, duty, ambition, wealth, art, self-sacrifice, and morality.

“She lost herself in a maze of visions; the fine things to be done by a rich, independent, generous girl who took a large human view of occasions and obligations were sublime in the mass. Her fortune therefore became to her mind a part of her better self; it gave her importance, gave her even, to her own imagination, a certain ideal beauty. What it did for her in the imagination of others is another affair.”

The first ‘volume’ of this novel introduces us to the various players of the story. The narrative, which occasionally slips into a first-person point of view, presents Isabel Archer as its central figure, often affectionately referring to her as “our heroine”. This switch between perspectives and seeming self-awareness, brought to mind Middlemarch. Contrary to popular belief, James’ writing is far from stale. While it would not be wholly inaccurate to describe his prose as being the antithesis of concise, the fact that he seems to lose himself in long-winded observations and digressions does not mean a lack of clarity on his part. In fact, his narrative has a really nice flow to it. His refined use of the English language gives his prose an almost polished quality.
While James' narrative is not as effervescent as the one of Edith Wharton in
The Age of Innocence (which also happens to have an Archer as its protagonist), he is nevertheless able to inject his portrayal of this upper society with a subtly oppressive, and very Whartonesque atmosphere.
Money and class do not necessarily provide his characters with happiness or love...if anything they seem to make them all the more miserable. In spite of her attempts to carve her own path Isabel is still a woman, one whose financial independence does not result in actual personal freedom.
I really enjoyed the character dynamics that were explored in this novel's first volume. The characters were nuanced and compelling and it was interesting to hear their views on America, England, and Europe. Given their contrasting beliefs, they are all eager to influence Isabel one way or another. Isabel’s resolve, admiringly enough, does not waver. Even if she unsure what she is ambitious for, she remains firm in her desire not to marry, opting instead to travel and to gain some life experiences.

The second volume of this novel was tepid at best. Our heroine is pushed to the sidelines, with the narrative focusing instead on Gilbert Osmond, his “attractive yet so virginal” daughter Pansy, and her self-pitying suitor, Edward Rosier. These three characters were annoying and uninteresting. Gilbert was presented as some sort of clever manipulator but he struck me as a half-unfinished caricature of the fastidious and cold husband (Casaubon’s less convincing descendant).
Isabel’s sudden character change was almost jarring, especially if we consider until that point James had taken his sweet time exploring her sense of self and her various ideas. Worst still, Ralph and Isabel suddenly became martyrs of sorts. Isabel in particular spends the remaining narrative doing Mea culpa...which struck me as quite out of character.
Gilbert and Madame Merle are presented as this morally-devious duo, the typical fox and cat who try—and often succeed in—tricking our hapless and helpless protagonist. Which...fair enough. I have been known to enjoy villainous duos (such as Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde in
The Woman in White)...Gilbert and Madame Merle however seemed to lack purpose. Their characters do not seem to be as important or as profound as they are made to be. Later on other characters (who have no reason to defend them or forgive Gilbert and Madame Merle) make it seem as if these two have their own valid feelings, of tortured variety, so it would be unfair for us to judge or dislike them or their actions.
I was so irritated by the story’s direction and by Isabel’s character regression that I was unable to enjoy the remainder of this novel.
My interest was sparked only when the characters discussed their cultural differences. As an Italian I always find it vaguely amusing to read of the weirdly incongruent way Italy is portrayed by non-Italians during the 19th century. James’ clearly appreciated Italy’s history and its landscapes, but throughout his narrative a distaste for Italy’s ‘present’ state (Italians are regarded as lazy and somewhat primitive). I also appreciated the way in which James' depiction of masculinity and femininity challenges and questions established norms (such as the qualities that the ‘ideal’ man and woman should posses). However cynic, his depictions of love and marriage could be deeply perceptive.

“The real offence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to be his—attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park. He would rake the soil gently and water the flowers; he would weed the beds and gather an occasional nosegay. It would be a pretty piece of property for a proprietor already far-reaching.”

Having now read one of James’ novels, I’m not at all surprised that his work has gained him a reputation for wordiness and digression. Yet, his logorrhoea aside, I’m puzzled by the dislike his work seem to entice, especially in other writers (Mark Twain, Jonathan Franzen, Virginia Woolf, Arnold Bennett, Jorge Luis Borges...you can read some of their comments here:
Writers on Henry James).
One of my favourite ‘harsh’ comments was made by Lawrence Durrell: “Would you rather read Henry James or be crushed to death by a great weight?”. Although many of these writers/readers make rather exaggeratedly disparaging observation about James and his writing, some of them hit the nail on the head. Oscar Wilde, for instance, wrote that: “Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible ‘points of view’ his neat literary style, his felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire.”
I, for one, was not annoyed or deterred by Henry James’ prolixity. However, as noted by Wilde, I do think that James occasionally overworked certain passages and that his story/characters never seem to reach their full potential. And while I am not entirely sure why Vladimir Nabokov called Henry James a “pale porpoise” (alliteration?), I do agree with him when he says that James’ writing has “charm . . . but that's about all”.

Why did I read a book that was authored by someone who has gained such an unappealing reputation? Curiously enough, part of me wanted to ‘read for myself’ whether James’ style was as frustrating as some made it out to be. What finally convinced me however was that his name kept popping up in the introductions to Edith Wharton’s novels. Having now read a novel by James’ I find myself wondering why his name needs to feature in so many reviews and articles discussing Wharton’s works...yes, he could certainly write well, and they do explore similar themes, but his work is far less insightful, engaging, and memorable than Wharton’s.
Sadly the clarity and nuances demonstrated by James' narrative in the first half of The Portrait of a Lady are then obscured by a predictable storyline. With the exception of busybody Henrietta Stackpole (easily my favourite character), the characters become shadows of their former selves (I could not see why Isabel fell for Gilbert) and I no longer felt invested in their stories.
Given that this novel is considered one of James' best, I'm unsure whether to try reading more of his work...perhaps I will give his novella The Turn of the Screw a try.

"I'm so tired of old books about tea," said my friend Lauren recently, and I hope she stays the hell away from snobby constipated Henry James. Here he is with the least engaging first sentence in literature:

"Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."

Many of the other sentences are also about tea. But it's not all tea; while they drink tea they talk! And talk, and talk. James reminds me of your shitty coworker who makes a lot of excuses. He spins words upon words explaining what's going on, what he's thinking, what his plans are, how his personal affairs have affected his performance, and it all sounds very convincing but at a certain point you're like but what have you done?

It's an apt title because it's a portrait. A beautiful one, full of detail and shading - "recessed and deferred complexities," James Woods calls it - but it doesn't move much. Henry James himself was aware, when he wrote its preface, that it "consisted not at all in any conceit of a 'plot'." And he makes this bizarre decision: when plot arrives - when Isabel chooses a husband, and again when she marries him, and at a momentous later decision - he skips ahead. We don't get to be there for the crucial moments of her life. It feels like looking at a mountain range wreathed in clouds; we see them going up, and we see them coming down, but we never get to see the peaks themselves. He writes between the lines, and omits the lines.

This is frustrating, and yet: I feel like this is one of those books that will be closer in the rearview mirror. It has a distinctive voice and feel. James has insight into how people work. In Colm Toibin's fictionalized biography The Master, he quietly suggests that James benefited from his closetization: he carefully pretended to be someone else throughout his life, and he got very good at pretending to be someone else. He certainly does get deep into Archer's head, and several others.

Not that he shows you everything. He shows you some things in great detail; others stay shrouded. In a way it's a psychological novel; in another way it's more like a mystery, where the crime is her life. The experience of being mystified by Isabel is frustrating; with time, though, I suspect the mystery of Isabel will stick in my head.

So, four stars. Three stars for the experience of reading it; five stars, I'm predicting, for having read it. Full of recessed and deferred complexities it is. It might also be one of those books that get better with re-reading. But the question is, how much tea can I stomach?

Klasika yra klasika ir aš ją ne tik mėgstu, bet ir jaučiu pareigą skaityti. Ne vieną po kitos griaužti, bet karts nuo karto paįvairinti savo skaitymo meniu. Henry James "Moters portretas" priklauso būtent šiai kategorijai, o be to paskutiniu metu mane tiesiog užvaldžiusios storulės, tai aš tam norui jas skaityti per daug nesipriešinu ir skaitau vieną po kitos.

Naratyvas paprastas - jauna, daili amerikietė Izabelė atvyksta į Senąjį žemyną. Čia ji apsuka galvas daugumai. Visi ja žavisi, tad natūralu, kad jauna moteris sulaukia pasiūlymo tekėti ir net ne vieno. Deja, niekas jos širdies nepaliečia taip, kad ši ištartų lemtingąjį "taip". Miršta Izabelės dėdė ir palieka jai didžiulę sumą pinigų, tačiau jis net nenumano, kad toks jo poelgis iš esmės sugriaus Izabelės gyvenimą.

Pasakojimas, manau, patiks tokių kūrinių kaip "Forsaitų saga", "Ponia Bovari", "Belgravija" mylėtojams. Centrinė figūra, nieko nenustebinsiu pasakydama, - Izabelė. Tipiška amerikietė, bent jau kaip tai įsivaizduoja britai. Sako ką galvoja, svajoja, na ir, aišku, ta jos nepažabojama laisvė. Izabelei atvykus į Europą tarsi susiduria dvi kultūros - amerikietiška bei europietiška. Pasakojimas dalinai pastatytas ant šios įtampos. Kitas atramos taškas - jaunos moters vidinis pasaulis ir laimės paieškos.

Kiek keistas man pasirodė vidinis Izabelės posūkis nuo laisvės ir noro keliauti iki moters, kuri uždaryta, kuri turi atsiklausti dėl kiekvieno žingsnio ir kuri net nenori ištrūkti. Pasakysiu atvirai - arba aš nesupratau arba autoriui nepavyko pagrįsti kodėl įvyko toks didžiulis posūkis.

Mėgtu aš tokias knygas. Suprantu, kad nepatiks visiems, bet čia, kaip sakoma, my cup of tea. Gana lėtas pasakojimas, kuriame vidinis vyksmas daug svarbesnis, o dar ta aristokratišką aplinka mane galutinai nuginkluoja. Patiko, bet vis tik liūdna, kad su tokiu polėkiu startavusi Izabelė, kaip įkvepianti jauna moteris, mano vilčių nepateisino.

Ugh.


If I could describe this book in one word it would be "Laborious."

If I were allowed more space, which apparently I am, I would go on to say that in addition to being deathly slow and horrifically boring it is also a little brilliant, a little impressive, and, if you have the patience to look for it, more than a little interesting.

There's a LOT in here. James wanted this novel to be the antidote to the Jane Austen romance. He wanted to show life as it is- money as a burden, marriage as a trap, and people as egotistic, petty, manipulative, and kind.

If I told you how disappointing the ending is, though, you wouldn't want to read it, so I won't mention that.

If you have the patience, it's worth reading, but not unless you read it closely. I recommend a Norton Critical Edition.

n  The writing style of Henry James elevates the book, I can’t imagine anyone else writing this story and having such control over the narration as Henry James had.n
It’s a remarkable, stubborn work that requires the reader’s full attention, concentration, and engagement throughout the whole reading process.

In many ways, the character of Isabel Archer is a modern, new kind of heroine: The American girl. Her personality is strongly ruled over by curiosity, intelligence, and free spirit. The beauty in Isabel lies in her liberal nature, the inner qualities that make her magnetic to all of the observers in the novel, they make her a sort of a celestial body pulling and maintaining her satellites in their orbit.

The impression that the reader has of Isabel, the one which James is presenting, can be seen as a collection of individual experiences that the characters have with Isabel. Just like, Lord Warburton, Ralph Touchett, Caspar Goodwood, Henrietta Stackpoole, Gilbert Osmond, Madame Merle, etc. observe Isabel and paint their Portrait of a lady, so does the reader.

We see Lady Isabel Archer through multiple points of view, left to draw our own impression on her character. There is no concrete, fixed idea of who Isabel is, even the characters change their opinion of her as the novel progresses. Henry James managed to present one life seen through many people around it and still it not being an accurate representation of that life.

n   “We see our lives from our own point of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us all.”n

In that context, the true antagonist of the novel wasn’t Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond with their manipulative scheme, but the cold, dispassionate, lifeless aestheticism.
Both Osmond and Ralph are avid collectors of art, relatively young, rich, and with no distinctive career, both have a similar fascination with Isabel, one wishes to possess her and the other to observe her, the main difference is that Ralph gains the sympathy of readers because he feels the guilt of his actions that lead Isabel to the life she otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance to live. Both belong on the same scale on different ends, framing Isabel as a work of art, not an individual.

On the other hand, Isabel has only one goal – to reach independence and to live freely. Clearly, social expectations put certain pressure on her, but her true problem is her tragic flaw: her immaturity and inexperience. She doesn’t know of the existence of people as Osmond, Mme. Merle. She is attracted to Osmond because he presents something new, unseen, left to be filled with substance. He draws her in with his surface appeal of independence and mystery.
A characteristic of Isabel is that she wants to live and experience everything on her skin, she reaches independence on the closing pages of the novel – her decision is left to be carried out outside the sight of any perceiver, the reader included.

n   ‘‘Do you know where you are drifting?’’ Henrietta went on, holding out her bonnet delicately.
‘‘No, I haven’t the least idea, and I find it very pleasant not to know. A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see—that’s my idea of happiness.’’n

The conclusion of the novel echoes just as loudly as the closing of the door at the end of Ibsen’s Noora, both women are left to do with their lives what they want, achieving liberty.

A forte of Henry James is the brilliance of the form, the stylization of the language, the beauty of a wide array of words, phrases used in the novel.
I believe that if one would read this novel, read it carefully, they would understand life closely – more intimately than before.

n   "The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams. You’re not enough in contact with reality––with the toiling, striving, suffering, I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you. You’re too fastidious; you’ve too many graceful illusions. Your newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be interested in keeping them up.’

Isabel’s eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. ‘What are my illusions?’ she asked. ‘I try so hard not to have any.’

‘Well,’ said Henrietta, ‘you think you can lead a romantic life, that you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You’ll find you’re mistaken. Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it––to make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you can’t always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you’re very ready to do; but there’s another thing that’s still more important––you must often displease others. You must always be ready for that––you must never shrink from it. That doesn’t suit you at all––you’re too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views––that’s your great illusion, my dear. But we can’t. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all––not even yourself.’n

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n  Update: 15.12.2021.n I tried writing a review for the book and failed, Henry James has me stupefied by his greatness, I haven't stopped thinking about Isabel Archer ever since I finished this novel - which is the highest praise for any book.
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n   The absolute perfection of a novel!n

I admit it took a while(more like 200 pages) for me to really get into it, but I am so glad I continued reading - such a pleasant surprise, definitely will be thinking about this book in the next few weeks(my book is full of annotations) or so.
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O carte la superlativ. Avem una din cele mai bine conturate eroine din istoria literaturii dar si personaje secundare pe masura. Isabel Archer este frumoasa si inteligenta, cu o viziune independenta si aspiratii feministe, insa, ca un joc al destinului, dar si al propriilor actiuni, ajunge practic sclava unui barbat parvenit: Osmond.
Consider ca tandemul Osmond - Madame Merle este unul dintre cele mai malefice din cate am citit iar impreuna sunt in stare sa faca cele mai atroce si nemiloase lucruri. Sunt atat de legati in rautatea lor incat singuri par pierduti fiind dependenti unul de inteligenta si iscusinta celuilalt.
Osmond este unul din cei mai cruzi si cinici barbati dar aceasta trasatura a sa nu are nimic romantic sau atragator, el pur si simplu fiind meschin, introvertit si prea putin stralucitor.
Desi cartea este din toate punctele de vedere una reusita, mai ales prin prisma descrierilor si a stilului lui Henry James, nu a putut sa imi trezeasca nicio emotie. De foarte mult timp nu mi s-a mai intamplat sa nu ma atasez de niciun personaj, pur si simplu neatragandu-ma niciunul dintre eroi.
Cu toate ca romanul a fost ecranizat, cu Nicole Kidman in rolul protagonistei, eu recomand ca mai intai sa fie citita cartea si abia apoi sa fie vizionat filmul - poate chiar deloc, pentru ca nu se ridica la valoarea cartii.