I loved getting into Isabel's conflicted mind, her persuasions and her light switches turning on and off for reason. I can relate to that. I get goosebumps, or the shivers, when I can get that feeling outside. Like a soullish thing rubbing up against my skin. Ever feel like there could be ghosts? The freedom in already having lost feelings. Don't know what to do and need to get out, like Isabelle. I don't know what I think about the ending. Henry James could give judgementaly prickish endings to his stories. That gives me a panic attack. Oh well. I'm in it for the long haul-ass with Isabelle. Henry James is a terrific writer and also bad for my soul sometimes. Wanting something and finding out it is wrong. Turning over the new leaf and there's a big ass roach underneath it. Hatefulness...

Nota: 3.5

“Retrato de Uma Senhora” (1881) é considerada a obra central do legado de Henry James. A mim serviu de porta de entrada, ficando a conhecer o mesmo, mas apesar de alguma admiração suscitada, deixou-me sem motivação para o continuar a ler. James realiza um trabalho soberbo de análise dos processos da consciência humana, na senda do que já nos tinha dado Balzac e Dostoiévski, capturando a nossa atenção ao longo de páginas e páginas de escalpelização dos mundos interiores dos seus personagens. Diga-se que James era irmão de William James, um dos grandes pioneiros da psicologia. O problema surge no conteúdo, nos personagens trabalhados, pela pertença à aristocracia, ou a uma burguesia muito próxima, que torna aquilo que se conta muito pouco interessante.

Existem temas interessantes, como a liberdade e o destino, nomeadamente no campo feminino, mas diga-se que é tudo muito estéril. A senhora, Isabel Archer, que veio dos EUA, dedica-se a passear pela Europa, diz querer ser livre, mas apenas busca alguém com quem casar. O primo, Ralph, que vive há muito em Inglaterra, aparentemente por ser doente, dedica-se a respirar, e como tem de respirar, passeia um pouco menos. Já a tia, vive em passeio pela Europa, enquanto vai maldizendo deste e daquele. Para o resto, existem criados e serviçais, mas desses não é preciso falar. Segundo James, os seus personagens vivem vidas muito complicadas, carregadas de decisões pesadas, que os impedem de desfrutar livremente das belezas de Veneza e Florença. Assim, o livro arrasta-se ao longo de centenas de páginas, pondo à prova a resistência dos mais pacientes, ainda que no final exista uma reviravolta que anima um pouco todo aquele universo.

Reconheço que independentemente da classe social em que se vive o ser humano arranja sempre forma de viver angustiado. Veja-se o caso exposto em “La Familia Grande”. Mas quando se escreve uma obra com esta dimensão, 700 páginas, e com um aprofundamento psicológico deste calibre, espera-se que seja com o objetivo de ilustrar algo relevante para quem lê. Verdade que em 1881 só a alta burguesia e aristocracia deveriam ter tempo e literacia para se dedicarem à leitura. Mas a seguir por este caminho, James castrou o interesse das suas obras, o que me ajuda a compreender porque apesar do seu nome surgir amiúde em textos de análise crítica, as suas obras são bastante menos lidas e citadas que as de outros autores da mesma época.

Entretanto descobri que John Banville gosta tanto de Isabel Archer que passados 140 anos resolveu escrever uma continuação da história da heroína de James — “Mrs Osmond” (2017). Não me admira, já que não fiquei propriamente impressionado com o seu “O Mar” (2005) que ganhou o Booker.


Publicado no VI:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

I made it 40% of the way through this monstrosity before I had to finally throw in the towel. Apparently no one ever told James "show don't tell" judging by the complete lack of action in this book. In fact nothing ever happens. It just drags on and on in an annoying narrative voice that is too fond of metaphor and long descriptive phrases that frequently cloud more then they illuminate. The characters are complete twits, without a single redeeming quality among them. Judging by the way he writes his female characters, Henry James either was never actually exposed to women, or the ones he met were given lobotomies at age 7. There is no sympathy for the main female character or any of her cohorts, not even amusement at their foibles. In fact if you were stranded in a life raft, you'd be chucking them overboard within minutes, the whole useless pile of them. You would see the rescue ship as a dot on the horizon and pray you could drown them in time.

Save yourself the agony and go read something else.

An odd choice while in a prolonged reading slump, but this one did the trick !

The Portrait of a Lady (as the title would suggest) is an astute rendering of the psychological life of Isabel Archer, a woman who reckons with two opposing needs: preserve her independent mind or conform to societal conventions of the 1860s.

I don’t usually read classics, but this one captured me within the first 40 pages. The observations are so intimate, I don’t think I will ever be able to say men don’t know how to write women because Henry James truly does. I am in awe of his documentary style observations of the human condition. The language is breathtaking and the characters are so well fleshed out you won’t even mind that the plot lags slightly in the middle. It’s well worth pushing through for the revelations of the last 50 pages.

I will ponder this book for a very long time.

**spoilers**
Portrait is a beautifully written novel that exhibits Henry James unique writing style and addresses the social customs and differences in Americans, the English, and continental Europeans. Isabel Archer is a young American lady, for whom the novel is titled, who is adventurous and very independent. She turns down two marriage proposals in the 1st half of the book to preserve her independence, one from Casper Goodwood, a young wealthy American, and one from Lord Warburton, a wealthy English aristocrat. When her English uncle dies, she inherits a large sum of money and travels with her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, to her Italian villa where she eventually meets, falls in love with, and marries Gilbert Osmond. All of her family and friends try to dissuade her from this, but to no avail, and she finally learns that Osmond doesn't love her, married her for her money, and to own her as another of his possessions. Obviously there is a lot more intrigue to the story and the enjoyment for me came from the wonderful writing of James.

What I love about this edition is that the James expert in the introduction cites all the flaws that were so glaring to me in the beginning of the book: Ralph and his father's constantly applauding Lord Warburton for his fine conversation, the father telling Lord Warburton not to fall in love with his niece (I didn't see that coming!), one of them mentioning how amusing the other is (hahaha). It was just intolerable how heavy-handed the dialogue was. Nor did I find it cute how much of a caricature Isabel's friend, the woman journalist, was or acceptable that Mme. Merle's conversations with Isabel were "edited" by James so that the former spoke in a seeming monologue for three pages. But once the characters' choices spoke for themselves and Osmond was introduced, it did become fascinating. And from that point on, it was impossible to stop reading, however devastating it was.

This is the first major work by James that I have read. It reflects a number of James’s preoccupations, freedom, betrayal, responsibility, destiny and the contrasts between the old world and the new (with the new coming off worse).
The central character in the book is the lady in question Isabel Archer, an American who comes to Europe at the invite of her aunt who lives in England. The novel is set in England and Italy. Inevitably it is beautifully written with lots of interiority and reflection. I don’t propose to detail the plot although it appears to be mostly about who Isabel is going to marry and how, when she does, it all goes horribly wrong. Like many books of that time (1881) it concerns “the woman question”. James wrote this in reaction to Middlemarch saying he wanted his works to have “less brain than Middlemarch, but they are to have more form”. James also writes about the upper classes pretty much exclusively. (Unlike Eliot).
I really didn’t like this and I am aware that I am in a minority as this novel appears to be well loved. It felt to me like James was saying that women like Isabel Archer could not be trusted to make decisions about who they should marry as they were bound to make poor choices. Of course, having made those choices they were bound to stick with them. Here is Isabel reflecting near the end:
“She had a husband in a foreign city, counting the hours of her absence; in such a case one needed an excellent motive. He was not one of the best husbands, but that didn’t alter the case. Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were quite independent of the quality of enjoyment extracted from it.”
Of the men Isabel had to choose from, and there were a few, she rejects the one who loves her passionately, she rejects position and opts for someone who is cruel and abusive. What she doesn’t do is opt to stay unmarried even though that is the position she starts from. There is a disconnect between the initial characterisation and behaviour. James also portrays Isabel as passive and essentially a parasite. She is left money and she does nothing with it. She doesn’t get involved in anything political (suffrage for example) and doesn’t seem to pursue any intellectual pursuits, she seems to be an empty shell. I could go on. I beginning to think I might even prefer Dickens to James!

Honestly? Isabel Archer isn't extraordinary at all. So I take this book as kind of a comedy about how a bunch of English pranksters messed with a bland American girl, pretending she was amazing to see what would happen, and then felt pretty bad about it when it turned out wrong. Which is actually pretty close to the real plot, too. The "honest simple faithful guy" found here was way too similar to the farmer guy in "Far From The Madding Crowd" to me, and I guess that's just a stock character. I don't really like this time period in literature at all. If you do you'll probably like it.

why won't the men leave isabel alone

I've been reading a lot of Anthony Trollope's books recently and the stories, characters and writing is so much superior to this that I just can't get into it. "Frothy" is a word that comes to mind, also "was he paid by the word?" like Dickens.

I finished the book, finally. It was a chore. I did not find James' portrayal of a woman's personality convincing. That even though she had the financial power which was the reason why her husband had married her, she would still allow herself to be physically and emotionally abused and humiliated. It seemed to be a very conventional view of a woman, that eventually she would give in to her Lord and Master. A woman with an ounce of independence (she did have an ounce, maybe even two) at the beginning would not be the sad creature she was at the end. Marriages were made in light of money and status in those times, in this book, she had both, he had neither, there had to be some sort of mental shift that that would allow her to pretend that these were her husband's and she was in the lower and grateful position. But James didn't write it, so 'Portrait' really didn't make sense.

None of the characters, evil, good or milk-water gained my sympathy. Pansy, the daughter, nearly did, but I wanted to shake her and say 'how could you have lived all these years and not suspected who your mother is? Your father has palmed you off on the nuns all these years, what's with this unquestioning obedience? Its your step-mother has the money, not him, she's the one who can help you, would help you,not your daddy who just wants you to achieve his own social-climbing ambitions'.

I just don't see James as a man who understood women enough to write about them from any but a man's perspective.

I watched the Nichole Kidman film of the book and although Kidman did her best to flesh out the character she was no more rounded than in the book. And Poppy's submissiveness and ignorance were even more unbelievable. Obviously, to James, the main characteristic he associated with women and interpreted thusly by the director, was submissiveness.

Henry James may have deserved his reputation as a Grand Old Man of (American) letters, but not through this book, it just didn't do it for me.

masterpiece. best of James

??? 2000s: this was the ‘middle’ i read of 3 henry james i read one summer several years ago, though it is known as late 'early'. : 'early' The American, The Portrait of a Lady , and 'late' The Ambassadors i remember how impressed i was by the creation of isabel archer, how alive she seemed, how good, kind, smart- basically wonderful- and how annoying i found her pyrrhic victory at the end. she is one of the few women characters i have read whom i could believe being in love with. she is just that real, that good, though i do not know how much the effect was by james’ writing, and how much was the complex character imagined. i never felt i knew what she would do, she was not a plot function, a cliche, a stereotype. i could recognize the consistency of her sacrifice for the love of the girl pansy, even facing osmond…

i detested osmond but perhaps was more against madame merle for making him seem better than he was. i also read the interesting essay of this edition which explained how henry james had deliberately created a strong woman who was unique in letters of that era, in that she is not destroyed for presuming to have her own life and desires. the comparisons were with anna karenina and emma bovary. good critical work. great book...