This is a novel of education, but it is education which is forced upon an independent mind: Isabel Archer learns the interplay of moral systems and natural systems. She is immoral in her continual rejection of conventional, systematic solutions for her life, both the male ideals of the British Lord W and the American O.G. But her life is also the problem of evil, in a curious way: not that she is really Eve, for she is anti-Eve, anti-seduction; but that she is woman, even though she tries not to be. She fights what she is, as both conventional and natural inheretrix of womanhood, but her knowledge is not sufficient--not God's, or Fate's, perhaps--to face the problem of evil on her own. She is prey to the most profound threat to her independence. Osmond is an unnatural male; he is the solution to Isabel's rejection of the natural subordination of womanhood through sexual passion: Osmond is sexually passionless. But he is convention itself in his desire to subordinate her, "Osmond possessed in a supreme degree the art of eliciting one's weakness" (497, S.C. ed)
In Ch. 26, Osmond articulates his intent to "sacrifice" Isabel's "ideas"; that is, James discloses universal evil, an evil which Isabel has no way to deal with. Isabel's "generosity" assumes, at the start, sincerity at least, from her top-of-the-heap moral position, based on her arrogant intellectual comprehension. Through the novel she confronts a villain with no extentuating moral qualities, who is blind to her generosity--not to mention her womanhood.
In Ch 16 she says to Goodwood, "Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?" And he, "Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice." Isabel, "There is no generosity without sacrifice. Men don't understand such things." Isabel knows she is sacrificing something in her marriage to Osmond, but she does not at that point know she is sacrificing her womanhood.
Isabel's "ideas" are to be understood more in the context of continental philosophy, not American: they are part of her direction, her intention. She sacrifices herself to conventional evil in order to avoid a universal subjection born in her as woman, the dependence on passion and subjection to male. Isabel chooses to be, finally, a lady, but not a woman. She loses her arrogance, but also her moral appeal. She sacrifices her womanhood for her "personal independence," which turns out to be morally inadequate for happiness.
But perhaps Feminism has changed that, made independence adequate for happiness?

Ora poi, incorniciata com’era dal vano dorato della porta, fece al nostro giovane l’effetto di un magnifico ritratto di signora.

E magnifico davvero è il ritratto che Henry James fa in questo romanzo.
La giovane Isabel Archer parte da una delle tante città americane, Albany, per intraprendere un viaggio in Europa a seguito della zia. Il suo desiderio più grande è quello di studiare la natura umana e conoscere il mondo. Non è la più bella delle sorelle Archer, ma è la più brillante. Entusiasta, aperta, moderna, affascinante… tanto che nessun uomo che incrocia la sua strada riesce a resisterle.
A dirla tutta, nella prima parte del romanzo sembra vivere in una bolla di felicità, e a me è risultata anche un po’ antipatica.

Tra gli uomini ammaliati c’è suo cugino Ralph. Gravemente malato sarà l’unico a non corteggiarla, ma sarà colui che più influenzerà il suo destino. Farà in modo che riceva una cospicua eredità perché non sia costretta a sottostare a prosaici calcoli economici e sia libera di scegliere cosa fare della sua vita, libera di seguire la sua immaginazione. Il “dono” di Ralph, come spiega a suo padre, non è del tutto altruistico. Egli è felice di osservare la cugina e si riserva per sé la gioia di vederla andare a vele gonfie.
E così Isabel sarà libera di scegliere e di conoscere il mondo e di sbagliare.

Attorno ad Isabel ruotano una schiera di personaggi, alcuni molto interessanti. La trama, non troppo complessa, riesce ad avvincere e a riservare anche qualche sorpresa. La prosa di Henry James è ricca, elegante, ironica. Il finale aperto ha un suo fascino, anche se devo ammettere che se non avessi avuto il libro in mano, con le pagine tra le dita ormai finite, avrei pensato che mi mancasse un pezzo…

I'm not sure why it took Henry James 3x as many pages to tell a very similar story here to the one he told in Washington Square. Basically: give a woman her freedom and she will choose poorly.

Up until midnight finishing this exquisite superstar. Ah! The pleasures of lying on the couch with a muglet of alcohol-free wine, a series of nibbles, and a sexy Oxford Classic as evenfall descends and time melts into irrelevance. Is there more to life than this? Not much more. (And that suits me fine).

Remember when Jim Morrison of the Doors berated the Discrete Charms of the Bourgeoisie as a hell "carefully refined and sealed over?" It's funny. I have always vainly aspired to a life just like those winners.

I was like poor Hans Castorp.

When I was 20, I wrote in my diary, "oh, for a more solid gift of ataraxy!" Living my life with any kind of sophisticated aplomb was always out of reach. I was a clumsy oaf.

And yet that's exactly the kind of life Isabel Archer sees in Ralph Touchant and she aspires to it, too!

Reading this in the cold autumn of 1970 - on the hot isle of Barbados, of all places, where the hoar frost of Autumn is nonexistent - I was recovering from my violent coming of age, and craved what I also saw as the immaculate self-possession of the Touchants.

Alas.

That esteemed aplomb was the prevaricating tip of a Monstrous Iceberg!

Yes, I'm serious, folks. Looks like Jim Morrison was right, in the more perfect hindsight that this Plague Year, fifty years later, affords.

It's a grim world, guys.

Only now we KNOW it. We have seen Medusa's face and have been frozen into place by our Fear And Loathing.

The world's not safe anymore.

Bottom line, of course, is Ralph Touchant LIED to Isabel...

And, as she later discovers, Life's not REALLY a Bed of Roses.

??? 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...

8.5/10

This won’t get written the way I wanted to write it, as life has taken as many turns, in the past 6 weeks, as Henry James has commas ... and I can’t be spending much time reviewing — in writing, at least. More’s the pity since I had a lot to say on this one, this time ‘round.

I’ve become a bedside sitter, attendant, to a family member who has been, is, quite ill, ... and so while my time is spent in reading, I’m not sure I'm taking in all that much.

The end of this novel brought me to the beginning of the real life illness, and so Ralph and Isabelle’s last interview brought me to my (emotional) knees, as only those who have read this can appreciate. Hence no spoiler warnings necessary.

Not to turn this into a FB moment, which I loathe, I felt I just wanted to explain to my nearest and dearest goodreaderly friends that I haven't done a runner on you or my reviews, I’m just in a bit of a fog at the moment, from which I hope to emerge soon, and re sharpen my tongue for more irony and sarcasm laden reviews.

I’m sadly missing Ovid’s Metamorphoses group, in which I longed to participate, but the personal metamorphosis which is taking place at the moment is proving to be more transformative than even Ovid could hope to influence on me.

Still reading all your wonderful, witty, charming, insightful, inspiring ... and, most gratifyingly acerbic, reviews. They provide such a joyful, sustaining moment in my day.

Isabelle Archer will have to wait another day for my critique; but as she is the very Queen of Procrastination... and even perhaps Prevarication (since she seems to be so good at lying to herself, if nothing else), she won’t mind at all, as she sits through the night, watching for its end, as we all must do, have done.

Henry James would probably get on well with Thomas Hardy The Portrait of a Lady is a tragedy almost of  Tess of the d'Urbervilles proportions.

Character study novels are extraordinary things, the plot is mostly fairly mundane but when you get to really know the characters when they resonate with you, the personal crises they go through become fascinating because they are like people you know. It has that lovely fly on the wall appeal for nosey parkers like myself. However, it takes an immense talent to create vivid and vibrant characters that the readers would care about; this is a gift Henry James seems to have in abundance.

The story, in a nutshell, concerns a young American lady, Isabel Archer (the subject of the titular portrait), comes to England to stay with her aunt, she soon receives a vast amount of inheritance from her uncle, is proposed to by three men, and proceed to choose the absolute worst of the three. From then on her life is a 24/7 misery. If anybody shows me this micro-synopsis and ask me if I would want to read the book I’d probably tell them to eff off (in the nicest possible way of course). However, the simple storyline belies a psychologically complex and endlessly fascinating book.


Nicole Kidman Isabel Archer

At the beginning of the book, Isabel is described as “a young woman of extraordinary profundity”. Certainly, she seems to be an intelligent, lively and charismatic young lady with a strong sense of independence and seemingly indomitable will. She also has an infectious enthusiasm to experience what the world (which is her oyster) has to offer. That several men fall at her feet and practically worship her is not hard to believe. What is harder to believe is how—in spite of her wit and intelligence—she allows herself to be manipulated into marrying a total poseur. The book is an account of how her vibrant sense of independence seeps away during the course of her awful marriage. We follow Isabel’s thought processes, feeling swept along with her enthusiasm for life and crash-land with her when things go south. As Henry James puts it in his intro:

“The idea of the whole thing is that the poor girl, who has dreamed of freedom and nobleness, who has done, as she believes, a generous, natural, clear-sighted thing, finds herself in reality ground in the very mill of the conventional.”

The ending is a little too ambiguous for my taste, James seems to like this kind of WTF ending, his novella  The Turn of the Screw has an even more infuriatingly ambiguous ending which I found so aggravating I wanted to write him for a refund (hampered by the fact that I got the book for free, and James is pushing up the daisies). The ending of The Portrait of a Lady is ambiguous to a lesser degree and leaves an interestingly melancholic aftertaste.

So, yeah, read it, it’s pretty great!

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Notes
Read mostly in audiobook format, narrated by the extremely wonderful Elizabeth Klett in her melodious and expressive voice (download link). I often wondered why so talented a reader would only read free Librivox books, it turns out that she has also narrated many contemporary books for the decidedly not free Audible.com. Still, that she has read so many books gratis, for the public domain is amazing.

__________________________

The following footnotes are inspired by my dear friend Cecily. I find it very difficult to review a character novel, because I want to talk about the characters and why they are interesting. The trouble is I feel like I would have to introduce each of the character I mention, and that would be a drag for me and— I imagine—the review reader. If you have an opinion on this issue please let me know in the comments section. Anyway, Cecily has suggested several ways to integrate the character bits, which I will do in future reviews but for this one I can’t think of a suitable entry point so I’ll just shove them here in the footnotes, and I won’t introduce any of them!

Thoughts on some of the main characters

Gilbert Osmond: I wonder if he has big, bright teeth like most of the Osmonds I have seen. In the 1996 film he is portrayed by John Malkovich who doesn’t look much like an Osmond. I reckon Gilbert is not deliberately evil, I am not even sure he misrepresented himself to Isabel, she just saw some nobility in him that is not there. Silly cow.

Ralph Touchett: Capital fellow, he is the only one who loves Isabel selflessly. He is very wise, observant and witty. Shame about his health.

Lord Warburton: Nice bloke, a bit of a snob. Looking for a trophy wife I suspect.

Caspar Goodwood: Hate him, stupid stalker bastard. I don’t think leaving Osmond for him would be much of an improvement.

Madame Merle: Awesome kickass villainess who doesn’t even kick any ass and is not really all that bad. It’s not actually her fault that Isabel decides to marry that poseur, she only introduced them, she did not force the girl to marry the cad at gunpoint.

Pansy Osmond: Tragic silly kid, a total doormat.

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.

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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.

The Portrait of a Lady has to be my favourite of the fifteen or so Henry James books I've read. The crowning achievement of James' middle period, when he had honed his powers of observation to perfection but had not yet slipped into the long-winded obscurity that makes his later novels so hard to read, it is in my opinion one of the most perfect novels of the nineteenth century. Very little actually happens in it, but what little does happen is described so exquisitely that you hardly notice it's a whole lot of nothing spread out over 600+ pages. That's masterful story-telling for you.

The Portrait of a Lady centres on Isabel Archer, a young, lively and intelligent American who is taken to Europe by her eccentric expatriate aunt. In Europe, she is courted by eligible bachelors who appreciate her independent-mindedness and wish to see where it will lead her, but for all their attentions, she ends up marrying a cold-hearted bastard who treats her like an ornament and all but breaks her spirit. The rest of the book revolves around the question whether Isabel will stay with her husband out of a sense of duty or live up to her old ideals of independence.

As I said, there's not an awful lot of story here (the above paragraph is a near-complete summary of the plot), but James makes the most of it. With his powerful observations and descriptions and superb characterisation, he paints a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century womanhood and the institution of marriage, of love, loyalty and longing, of purity versus artificiality, of betrayal, of the differences between Americans and Europeans (a recurring theme in his oeuvre) and of major themes in life: duty, honour, commitment, freedom. Isabel Archer is a likeable heroine whose dreams are quite recognisable to the modern reader, so while James keeps his distance from her, analysing her as a case study rather than as a flesh-and-blood human being, the reader feels for her; it's quite torturous watching her go and make the mistakes which will ruin her life. Both Isabel's struggles and the other characters' are described in elegant but sharp and incisive prose. The result is a big book that is subtle yet dramatic, understated yet powerful, and that ranks among the best things James ever wrote.

review to come!