The Portrait of a Lady

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?

The ancient Greek tragedian Euripides popped up in my mind while reading Henry James' (1843-1916) masterpieces Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady. (*) Readers of Euripides’ work have to ask themselves whether Euripides was a misogynist or if he showed true sympathy for the Athenian women who suffered from the rigorous patriarchy in Athenian society. I, on my part, was astonished by Euripides’ portrayal of women and their oppression and I came to the conclusion that Euripides indirectly criticised Athenian male society. Having read the mentioned two works by James, I’ve had the exact same feeling. The way he describes Isabel Archer’s succumbing to moral and social conventions is compelling and leaves the reader with an uneasiness that I have seldom encountered in Victorian Literature. In James’ notebooks from probably late December 1880, early January 1881 he writes:

“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 Portrait of a Lady is first and foremost a psychological portrayal of an "intelligent but presumptuous girl” (p. 634) of the 19th century whose decisions differ greatly from what the reader (at least the modern reader) would expect from a lady with such characteristics. Even though the romantic settings in Florence and Rome are inspiring and enthralling they are not really important to the story and the plot itself is far from being spell binding. James notes in his preface to the New York Edition of 1908: "The result is that I’m often accused of not having a “story” enough. I seem to myself to have as much as I need – to show my people, to exhibit their relations with each other; for that is all my measure.”

Having said that, it requires the mastery of one Henry James to make his readers stick to the more than 600 pages without hesitation. The omniscient narrator carefully describes Isabel’s marriage without being melodramatic and its presentation is therefore much more realistic and modern than in other Victorian novels, such as those by Charles Dickens for example. I was deeply touched by James’ awareness of women’s struggle in those days. When I mention ‘women’s struggle’ I have to point out, however, that Henry James’ portrays exclusively women of his social class (at least in the two books I read) and I can imagine why: One cannot describe a social and cultural milieu with such perfection without observing meticulously the immediate environment one lives in. In my opinion he knew exactly what he was writing about (James apparently took his inspiration for Isabel’s character from his cousin Milly Temple) and he showed immense respect and sensibility towards his literary characters, not only towards Isabel, but also towards minor characters who are all portrayed with care.

This work goes straightforward to my ‘favourites shelf’ and deserves my highest rating. It is an outstanding masterpiece by an outstanding author and I am eager to read more by him.

(*) I choose the Penguin Classics Edition for my reading of The Portrait of a Lady edited and with an Introduction and Notes by Philip Horne. The text reprinted in this edition is the book edition of 1882 and not that of the revised 1908 New York edition.

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.

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.

This is the sexiest novel of all time. You’re screwing up your face right now, I can tell. It is though, it’s sexy as fuck. People often want to tell you that Henry James’ greatest flaw was his lack of passion. Nabokov, if I recall correctly, labelled his work blonde. I don’t think he meant that in the way that modern readers would understand it i.e. as a synonym for dumb, but rather as one for bland. Katherine Mansfield once said of E.M. Forster that he was like a lukewarm teapot [ha!], and that description also seems to nicely sum up the prevailing attitude towards James. It’s wrong though, that attitude; I’ve read numerous Henry James novels and I am of the opinion that he was a firecracker, a sexual viper.

Read the first 100 pages of Portrait of a Lady and then try and convince me that the male characters don’t all want to bash Isabel’s doors in; and that she, likewise, wants them to, or enjoys giving the impression that she wants them to. You won’t succeed. I’m serious. If you can’t see it then I conclude that you can’t recognise extreme sexual tension when it’s under your nose. The flirting is outrageous! You might think all this is cute, like 'oh [P]’s being theatrical.' I say again: I’m serious. It’s not as though I consider all so-called button-down and stuffy lit to be, in reality, hot shit; I mean, I’ve never claimed that Pride & Prejudice is really all about rimjobs and teabagging. There’s something about Henry James’ work, and this novel in particular, that seethes, writhes with unspoken frustration and desire. James’ art, the one thing that makes him stand out for me, is in how he somehow suggests, hints, implies but never outright tells you the juiciest bits of his story. It’s pretty magical really. I don’t know how to explain it; there’s a whole world beneath the surface of his work. In Portrait of a Lady I believe that world to be a sexual one. Why do all the male characters fall for Isabel? Because she is charming and pretty? Is she really all that? No, it’s because she gives the impression of being up for it; she’s, to put it more politely, sensual. She has great sex appeal, which is why she was not right for Lord Warburton, who is a bit of a sop and would make a conventional woman of her; by conventional I do not mean that he will not allow her to be herself, that he wishes to clip her emotional and intellectual wings, but that the match he is offering is conventional i.e. he is rich and handsome and terribly nice, and only a fool would turn him down.

Some people say that Portrait of a Lady is about freedom, and I agree, it is. But I think that involves sexual freedom also, although, of course, as stated, that is not made explicit. There’s a lot written in the beginning of the novel about Isabel’s independent spirit, about how she does not want to be tied down. Before she takes up with Gilbert Osmond the novel is strongly feminist in tone. This is because Isabel regards marriage as an impediment to her freedom, she rejects marriage [literally, she receives two proposals early on] as a barrier to her gaining experience [what kind of experience, huh? Huh?] and knowledge of the world. However, I would argue [as I am sure many would argue to the contrary] that the second half of the book, and by extension the whole book obviously, is feminist, because Isabel makes her choice, the one to marry Osmond, freely. It does not matter that it may be a bad choice, the important thing is that she rejected more beneficial matches in favour of the one that most pleased her. In fact Isabel says at one stage ‘to judge wrong is more honourable than to not judge at all.’

Isabel is one of the most fascinating characters I have ever encountered, because she is so extraordinarily complex, complex in a way that fictional people seldom are. She is strong-willed, arrogant, and yet thoroughly nice; she is perceptive and yet makes poor choices; she is warm and charming and yet sometimes stunningly cold. Indeed, her rejections of Lord Warburton are flawless examples of smiling iciness, of jovial dismissiveness. Isabel falls for Gilbert Osmond, to my mind, partly because he does not mindlessly adore her, does not fawn over her. He is mysterious, indolent; there is the hint of a darker side. He appears to be tired of everything, bored of everything, and so that he is interested in Isabel seems like a huge coup; it speaks to her ego. It’s pretty straightforward psychology to want most the thing that appears to be able to live without you with the least trouble. Isabel also credits herself with an original intelligence, therefore one could perhaps say that she likes Osmond, sees something great in him, precisely because others do not. However, the irony, the tragedy of their union is that Osmond is himself utterly conventional and tries to force Isabel to be so; Osmond, out of an anti-conventionality sentiment, demands that she be the most conventional wife.

Madame Merle, who first earmarks Isabel for Osmond, is often regarded as one of literature’s great villains, which is not really the case, because James’ novels don’t contain true villains. Having said that, however, there is something vile about her, despite her never really doing anything to deserve the charge. It’s James’ great art again; he makes Madame Merle a masterpiece of quiet menace. 'You are dangerous,' the Countess Gemini declares, as they chat together about the prospect of Osmond and Isabel uniting, and you quite well believe it, even without the accompanying evidence. Her entrance into the novel, her unannounced [to Isabel] presence in the Touchett’s home is strangely chilling. She is first encountered, sat with her back to Isabel, playing the piano; she strikes you as almost girlish, initially, despite her age. It made me shudder, and I don’t think I can express why that is. Ralph describes his aversion to her as being due to her having no 'black specks', no faults, and one understands that what he means by this is that only bad people appear to be perfectly good.

If Portrait of a Lady does not have a true villain, in the Dickensian sense of that word, it does at least have someone who it is very easy to hate [which is, of course, not quite the same thing]. As Isabel herself admits, Gilbert Osmond does not do a hell of a lot wrong – he does not beat her, for example – but there is certainly something disquieting about him, something not right. One only has to look to how he treats his daughter Pansy; he sees her as a kind of doll, one that is absolutely submissive to his will. She is entirely artless, which is interesting because Osmond approaches her like a work of art, as something that he has created, has formed out of his imagination; it is not a coincidence that Osmond is both an artist and a collector [he creates Pansy; he collects Isabel]. Pansy is, for me anyway, a little creepy; she is so in the way that dolls themselves are, in that they give the impression of being human, of being alive, and yet are lifeless. It is fair to say that while he may not be a wife-beater, Osmond’s attitudes towards women are suspect; he is a kind of passive-aggressive bully, a subtle misogynist.

Amongst other things Portrait of a Lady is a classic bad marriage[s] novel. The earliest indication of this is the relationship between Isabel’s Aunt and Uncle; the Uncle lives in England, and the Aunt in Florence. What kind of a marriage is that? Then there is, of course, Isabel and Gilbert. Isabel, as stated, marries Osmond, I believe, because she thrills to think that such a man might pay court to her, might be interested in her, when he takes so little interest in the world at large; she finds his attitude heroic, and his interest in her, therefore, as a boon to her sense of self-worth. Osmond, on the other hand, sees in her something that will do him credit, both financially and socially. He appreciates her, for all that she will benefit him, rather than truly loves her. This appreciation does involve admiring certain qualities she possesses, but he wants those qualities to work on other people, not on himself; for himself he would like her to be another Pansy [i.e. entirely submissive] and appears to think he can train her to be so. He enters the marriage, in a way that a lot of people do even now, believing that he can smooth her rough edges, make her perfect for him, instead of accepting and cherishing what she is. Finally, there is the courting of Pansy by Rosier and Warburton; Warburton as a Lord is, obviously, favoured by the girl’s father, but Pansy does not love him, she loves Rosier. While I won’t give away the outcome of this little love triangle, what is most interesting about it is that it again raises the question of whether one should marry to make the best match, or for love; should one use one’s head or heart when making the decision? Isabel used her heart, and came a cropper, but perhaps that was still for the best; it is better to choose with your heart and fail, than to choose with your head and benefit from it.

An Independent Woman
24 October 2015

tWell, I have to say that I finished this book the day after Back to the Future Day (which is probably not the best way to have celebrated that day, though it was quite interesting to note that my Facebook feed was flooded with news stories of how Marty McFly was arrested in multiple locations). In fact I probably wasted that day because I ended up going to work, and when I got home I didn't watch the Back to the Future Trilogy (though I suspect it would have been impossible to get at any of the video stores that still happen to exist – I don't have Netflix) but rather spent my time writing blog posts. Anyway, we are going to be talking about this book at bookclub on Sunday, and I had left it a little too late to read anything else.

tAnyway, here is a portrait of a lady:



tand another one:



t(I hope posting a picture on Goodreads isn't considered a commercial use, but then again I'm not making any money off of this post, though Amazon probably is), and another one:



tActually, I could probably go on ad-infinitum (and that is with pictures that don't show certain bodyparts) though I'm sure after three people are probably going to start to get a bit sick of this. While I could say a few things about portraits (and how I tend to find them pretty boring) I will refer you to my travel blog (as opposed to my philosophy blog, though I can't help but write such things in my travel blog as well) where I write about my experience at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Instead I will write a few things about this particular novel.

tAnyway, I have to say that I am not a huge fan of 19th Century Romanticism namely because the novels tend to be long, boring, mainly about women who spend the entire time crying 'oh woah is me, I can't find myself a husband so I will marry this absolute creep', and then come to an end. Oh, they are also incredibly verbose in that almost every detail about the scene is intricately described. So, when my Mum handed this book to me saying 'you should read this, every detail about the scenes are intricately described' I politely smiled, and proceeded to put it on my 'may get to one day in the future' bookshelf and promptly forgot about it until my bookclub decided to make it the October read.

tSo, the question is, have you ever met one of those really amazing women that seem to be really intelligent, and incredibly capable, and is simply not interested in you (I'm sure there is a male version, but since I'm a heterosexual male I'll won't try to speculate on what I simply can never know)? Well, this book is about one of those women. Mind you, in my time wandering around this Earth I have quickly come to discover that those type of women tend not to be worth it, though it is clear that poor Goodwood doesn't actually wake up to this fact because even though Isabel always rebuffs him, he just doesn't seem to get the picture.

tI think I have jumped a bit ahead of myself though. Portrait of a Lady is basically what the title of the book says it is about – it is the story of a lady named Isabel, and the portrait aspect comes out because James goes to great length to give her as deep and complex a character as possible. Basically she comes to England from America, meets a couple of people, but isn't interested in settling down just yet because she 'wants to see Europe' (I'm sure many of us hopeless romantics have recieved similar excuses, though funnily enough I'm now the one spurting out such rubbish). Anyway, she gets to see Europe, meets another man, marries him, and discovers that he is an absolute prick. However when she returns to England (without him knowing) she discovers that Goodwood is still in love with her, and wants her to divorce this cretin. She doesn't, and then the book ends. So much for a happy ending (but then again 19th Century Romanticism, especially in the vein of Flaubert, as this book is written, generally don't have happy endings).

tI guess it once again raises the question as to why women like Isabel always seem to end up with the creeps, and also why they continue to stick with the creeps. I suspect because of her character. We are made aware that she has this strong independent streak, and to be honest with you such a person is simply not going to be interested in a hopeless romantic. Sure they may be really nice people, but the thing is that Isabel isn't interested in a nice person – they're boring. She is interested in, well, an interesting person – it's just a shame that this really interesting person is a real jerk. However, as one friend pointed out to me once, the fact that she won't leave him has little to do with a sense of loyalty, or even with the fear of being alone, but more to do with the bond that she has formed with him. He suggested that this bond is actually a really strong bond, one doesn't necessarily equate to loyalty, or a fear of being alone, but rather a spiritual bond that ties people to others (though I won't necessarily say together because this bond does have a nasty habit of working only one way).

tAnyway, I'll finish off here and simply say that as I suspected, this wasn't really one of those books that interested me all that much, though I have discovered that they are actually really easy to speed read, namely because they happen to be incredibly verbose, and go into details that we really don't need.

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.

Todos querem casar com a Isabelinha que é rica e bonitinha...
Lord Warburton: — Isabel, quer casar comigo?
Isabel Archer: — Não. Eu quero ser independente.
Caspar Goodwood: — Isabel, case-se comigo.
Isabel Archer: — Não. Eu quero ser livre.
Ralph Touchett: — Eu gostava de me casar com a Isabel, mas não lhe vou dizer nada porque sei que ela não quer.
Gilbert Osmond: — Isabel, tem de casar comigo.
Isabel Archer: — Hum... agora que já passeei um pouco bem que podia casar...

É assim o Retrato de Uma Senhora. Quem quer casar. Quem não quer casar. Quem casa. Quem não casa. Quem queria casar e não casou. Quem casou e não gostou.
650 páginas disto...e estou a pensar que me casaria com Henry James: um chato do piorio mas extraordinariamente fascinante e envolvente.

A história não vale um caracol; as personagens (muito bem caracterizadas) são umas criaturinhas muito insípidas; o prazer da leitura reside totalmente na narrativa.

Tiro uma estrelinha para fazer dois parzinhos...


(Knut Ekwall, Proposal)