Henry James was a bottom.

With this apercu in mind, you needn't get fussed up as to why Isabel Archer returns to Osmond. ~~ With the exception of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's illuminating criticism ("Epistemology of the Closet," 1990) there hasn't been any fresh Jamesian crit in over 50 years.

As the French would say, he's "de trop."

It's tempting to think that very little happens in a Henry James novel. However, in terms of the Isabel Archer's moral development and growth in awareness, there is a wealth of material. This is a beautiful, but tragic novel. I sometimes wonder if Gilbert Osmond (the most memorable character) is a blackened self-portrait of James - fastidious, tasteful, brilliant, and yet entirely empty and wicked. I also wonder whether there is a feminist bent to this novel, as Isabel Archer is a beautiful and brilliant woman who is ultimately trapped by her grasping suitors. James is a wonderful novelist, though certainly not for everyone.

Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady is considered to be one of the first American novels to make full use of social and psychological realism as European authors - such as Flaubert, Balzac and George Eliot - were already practicing in their works. Considered to be his biggest accomplishment along with The Ambassadors, Portrait added Isabel Archer to the company of great fictional heroines - as the likes of Elizabeth Bennet, Becky Sharp and Jane Eyre - and, in a century marked by unsatisfied bourgeois wives and adultery in fiction - Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina come to mind -, it was a breath of fresh air to accompany and delve into James' protagonist's thoughts and inner feelings.

Starting with a very slow pace, the narrative contains long and elaborate descriptions. It feels James is painting a richly detailed picture for every scene. As we arrive in Gardencourt - the Touchett's English country estate where our story opens and closes -, we encounter Mr. Touchett, his son Ralph and a family friend called Lord Warburton. Among other things, they discuss how Mrs. Lydia Touchett is in America and will bring along her niece called Isabel Archer to visit Europe.

Isabel is a young woman, from Albany, New York, who accepts her aunt's offer to initially stay with her in Gardencourt and then later travel through the continent, eager to explore and be enriched by the places she's never been before and experience life at its fullest. Upon her arrival, we begin to learn what her ideals and plans are, along with her hopes and dreams.

Since the beginning, her cousin Ralph seems to have been as curious as we were to see what Isabel would make of her life. In a way, we almost could say Ralph was conducting an experiment: Isabel had an independent mind, she was emotionally and psychologically self-sufficient - didn't seem inclined to get married for the time being, which was different for a girl of her age at the time. She was thirsty for knowledge first and foremost: “I don’t want to begin life by marrying”, Isabel asserts to Ralph. “There are other things a woman can do." But without money, how far could she go with her unattached ways? She was probably bound to eventually getting married. Her cousin, then, arranged it and she became financially independent as well. Certain that he was doing Isabel a good deed, Ralph convinced his father - who was very fond of Isabel - at his deathbed to leave her an impressive amount of money. Now she had all that was necessary to decide her destiny without any barriers or anyone to hold her back. The experiment was on.

After traveling for over a year, the now wealthy Isabel Archer is in Florence, where her aunt lives. A friend she greatly admired, Madame Merle - Mrs. Touchett's close friend who Isabel got acquainted with some time after she arrived in Gardencourt - skillfully introduces her to Gilbert Osmond: an American expatriate widower who's lived in Italy for years. Isabel is very impressed with his refinement and intelligence and thinks of him as having a beautiful mind. Despite her family and friends complaints about this relationship, Isabel - after having declined two previous suitors - accepts Osmond's marriage proposal.

The story then jumps in time and there's a narrative shift: for a bit, James leaves Isabel and Osmond in the background while he focuses on Pansy Osmond - Osmond's young daughter - and Edward Rosier - Isabel's childhood friend who's in love with Miss Osmond and is trying to get Madame Merle to help him marry his darling girl. Through their story, we still have glimpses of Isabel's life and we learn that she's been now married for two years and that she lost a son who died six months after his birth. Isabel and her husband seems to disagree about everything and we learn she's unhappy.

Henry James, who once conducted a very slow paced - almost contemplative - narrative, gradually started to accelerate it, adding drama and a sense of urgency to his words.

Right after an unsettling argument with Osmond one evening, Isabel, now feeling more distraught than ever, starts pondering and analyzing the many circumstances she finds herself in. The author immerses us in a deeply personal and intensely psychological account of her thoughts and emotions. Among the things Isabel reflected upon for a long time were the conclusion that her husband must hate her and the realization that Osmond had gained total control of her - the once independent and strong witted woman was now a subjugated spirit; the woman who once seemed to be against doing what was expected of her was now conforming to her husband's decisions. "When the clock struck four she got up; she was going to bed at last, for the lamp had long since gone out and the candles burned down to their sockets."

Complicating things even further is the revelation Countess Gemini - Osmond's sister - makes to Isabel of a long time secret, that leaves her completely shaken. This only comes to deteriorate even more her relationship with Gilbert. Now, fully aware of the situation she was put in through manipulations and schemes, Isabel is faced with a big decision: her cousin Ralph is dying in Gardencourt and her dictatorial husband is completely against her visiting England. Showing the old Isabel may still be somewhere locked inside of herself, she confronts her husband and leaves to be with her cousin.

The Portrait of a Lady, through its length, presents a number of opposites, but the most striking ones are the battles between freedom vs. destiny and affection vs. betrayal. In the book's final moments, we witness that Isabel is offered a way to go back to where and to whom she was when she first came to Europe: "The world's all before us - and the world's very big", she is told. She could once again explore life and fill herself with hopes - but declined the opportunity: "The world's very small", she answered. With a much talked about conclusion that has both fascinated and infuriated - another battle of opposites? - readers, James' ending remains open to a lot of interpretations.

It's disturbing to watch an unhappily married woman with an opportunity to leave it all behind - and the means to do it - simply not choosing freedom. Did Osmond finally accomplish to shatter her spirit? Another theory is that maybe marriage was an unbreakable vow and she felt she had a moral duty to her husband. Or was she trying to be protective of Pansy - who was mirroring Isabel's unhappiness and was another example of a woman who seemed to think that she was obliged to follow other's decisions even if it made her unhappy - and determined to stand by her side and not let the same happen to her step daughter? Innumerable possibilities...

James has been known for structuring his novels with a series of circles surrounding a center. With that in mind, a hopeful interpretation of the book's ending is that, in order to complete that circle, Isabel must return to her husband, properly end her marriage so she could once again be able to start anew and free her spirit once and for all.

Rating: for such an interesting and comprehensive analysis of freedom, human consciousness and ultimately, existentialism: 4 stars.

Un grande romanzo come non se ne scrivono più con un eroina, la giovane americana Isabel che rimasta orfana, giunge nella vecchia Europa, animata da una grande voglia di vivere, di conoscere il mondo, di imparare a guardare dentro se stessa e gli altri, in compagnia della zia già da diverso tempo stabilitasi in Inghilterra con l'anziano marito. La sua progressista visione della vita tuttavia si scontrerà ben presto con la realtà continentale gretta e avida e nonostante i continui avvertimenti e consigli delle persone a lei più vicine, soprattutto l'emancipata amica Henriette Stackpole e il fedele cugino Ralph Touchett, pagherà duramente lo scotto del suo romantico apprendistato e della sua purezza d'animo rischiando di cadere nella subdola rete abilmente architettata da due anime "perdute". Fino all'ultima pagina, partecipi lettori della protagonista, ci si chiede se Isabel, nonostante tutto, riuscirà a sfuggire, grazie al suo insolito acume e alla freschezza del suo intuito, alla trappola così bene intessuta ai suoi danni, combattuta com'è tra senso del dovere e voglia di "volare". Una trama perfetta abilmente raccontata da un grande della letteratura.

Wyborny mistrz amerykańskiej prozy – Henry James ze swoją najlepszą powieścią, bez dwóch zdań.

Portret damy, portret kobiety drugiej połowy XIX wieku. Majętnej i młodej, zabezpieczonej i niezależnej. Kobiety, która wpada w sidła mężczyzny, który chce zdusić jej wolność. Henry James niczym największy feminista swoich czasów, czujny obserwator ludzkich relacji po obu stronach oceanu, kreuje bohaterkę, która popełnia fatalną decyzję. Inteligentną, oczytaną, pełną życia, która z podmiotu przekształca się w przedmiot, akcesorium swojego wyrafinowanego męża. I świadoma jest konsekwencji swoich wyborów. Ba, ona celowo godzi się na swój los, by wypełnić społeczną rolę. Cała ta powieść zresztą bada paradoks wolności i ograniczeń społecznych. Jakie to jest mocne! I wciąż w jakiś sposób aktualne, a minęło przecież ponad sto lat!

Henry James – taki celny, taki elegancki, nie potrafi oprzeć się, by dorzucić przejmujący komentarz społeczny. Dżentelmen amerykańskiej prozy, który z biegiem lat odrzucił Stany Zjednoczone na rzecz swoich europejskich korzeni. Obserwator natury ludzkiej, który nigdy się nie ożenił, a jego dziećmi stało się ponad sto książek, które napisał. Jego „Portret damy” to dzieło wybitne i nieśmiertelne, jak tylko klasyka potrafi być nieśmiertelna. Kolejna powieść spod jego pióra (przypominam „W kleszczach lęku”), która nadal jest szeroko analizowana i dyskutowana. To jedna z pierwszych powieści psychologicznych, w której czuć już ducha nadchodzącego modernizmu – tego ducha dobrze oddaje zresztą ekranizacja. Powieść, która okazała się też punktem zwrotnym w karierze Jamesa, dzisiaj uznana za najlepszą w obszernej twórczości pisarza. I nie ma w tym żadnej przesady.

I expected to like this more than I did. I found it needlessly long, occasionally pompous, and ultimately unsatisfying. Still, there's a lot of good stuff in here: the exciting independence of Isabel in the early chapters, her palpable misery in her marriage, the vivid and memorable secondary characters, and above all (for me, at least) the set pieces. James was always able to make me feel like I knew just what a room or garden looked and felt like -- though he also frequently made me feel as though I was observing it from behind a glass wall.

I read somewhere that Edith Wharton was always striving to be as good a writer as Henry James; frankly, I think she's much better. Wharton's work is far more elegant, focused, economical, and empathetic. There were moments in this book when James convinced me that he understood what it's like to be a human, but for the most part his prose seemed strangely removed and difficult to penetrate -- and therefore kind of annoying. I got used to it, but I never fully warmed to it.

It took me the entire month to get through this; on some days I avoided it like a chore, but on others I couldn't wait to curl up in bed with it. I'm glad to have read it, but I don't feel like I *needed* to have read it.

Old. Dead. White. Gay? Why should it even matter, you say? Well, I think it does and it doesn’t. Any of the above distinctions matter in a sense of circumstance, because certainly a rich white person living in the late 1800s and early 1900s had a day-to-day life that was much, much different than a poor, newly-freed slave living in the American South, for example. It’s also, I believe, a mistake to discount one’s superficial descriptors completely when it comes to their art—even down to one’s prose style (and James’ is of the highest order). It doesn’t matter in the sense that, in my belief, the best books speak to universal human traits.

Portrait of a Lady is most definitely one of those books. So why mention any of his “superficial” traits at all? I do this because it seems too often the classics are relegated in estimation to the privileged ramblings of Old Dead White Men. But what happens when you throw something like Gay into the mix? Colm Tóibín, distinguished gay novelist and author of the above-referenced article, says of James that, “[the revelation of James’ homosexuality] removed him from the realm of dead white males who wrote about posh people. He became our contemporary.” How fortunate, that after years of revisionist history (James’ family sought to hide his romantic leanings from the public for years), a writer like James could be championed by the LGBTQ community. But isn’t it also a shame that it took something besides the book itself to do this? To think that a book as rich and emotionally astute as Portrait of a Lady should be missed out on, by anybody, because of superficial—and incomplete—biographical details, is heartbreaking. Not least so because “outsiders” such as Tóibín, or any other “marginalized class of society”, are precisely the type that can appreciate James’ mastery the most. And if I want to be thorough, I’d say that everyone can benefit from a book like this.

I was not, however, so willing to take this attitude for the majority of my life. It wasn’t so much that James belonged to the group of Old Dead White dudes, but more so because of his obvious—to me—inclusion into the group of writers for which I have coined the term “Victorian Chick Lit.” Anything remotely resembling TV shows like “Avonlea” or “Downton Abbey” for me was literary anathema. I read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey a few years ago and found myself cringing with hatred as I endured another trip to the Pump Room for coffee and trinkets. If I had to sit through another labored account of Mrs. Piccadilly frolicking amongst the tea kettles I was gunna puke. It was only after reading Jeffrey Eugenides’ brilliant The Marriage Plot and listening to his remarks on writing it, that I decided to take a deep dive into what I thought I hated the most. What I found was a veritable GOLD MINE.

Where to begin. I was captivated from the very beginning by James’ prose. In today’s world, in America, it’s easy to forget that English is a language from England and was once practiced with something like pride. That’s not to say that emoji and meme culture is horrible in itself, but it is a very nice experience to be around someone that speaks as eloquently as Henry James. It is a kind of rest for the brain to have things expressed with such care and nuance. Sure, sometimes you want heavy metal, and sometimes you want trap music—those things aren’t “bad.” But sometimes it is very good to have a bit of classical in the afternoons, as the early-Spring light falls through the windows. James is this brand of sonic-literary mood.

The psychological traits associated with this kind of music include social insight par excellence, and deep questions about what it means to be happy in a capitalist-consumerist society. The questions of how and why we choose our mates—and friends—are no less important now than they were in 1881 when this book was first printed. Do we challenge ourselves or do we settle? Can it be construed as a sin to let romantic companionship slide in hopes of achieving something greater, especially if that ideal is nebulous and undefined? My eminent teacher and literary critic Harold Bloom had this to say about the titular Lady, Ms. Archer’s, complex psyche:

She is the archetype of all those young women, in fiction or in actuality, who are pragmatically doom-eager, because they seek complete realization of their potential while maintaining an idealism that rejects selfishness.

Whoa. Replace “She” with “He” or “They”, and how many people come to resemble our heroine Isabel? What does that even mean in a moral sense? Should we be more selfish? How can one bridge the paradox of being self-reliant but selfless? That’s a question that peers into all of our souls, and the soul, for me, has never had superficial traits that can be defined in terms of gender, race, sexuality, etc.

Henry James in Portrait of a Lady doesn’t give us any answers. He doesn’t tell us why people do things, and would never seek to tell us that we should do anything at all. His refinement instead illustrates crucial enigmas of the human soul through the lens of social interaction. Everyone should read this book for one’s own benefit. Reading this allows us to ask ourselves if we aren’t in fact doom-eager. Above all, what is possibly the greatest gift this book can give us, is a warning—to not give ourselves completely to others that do not appreciate us, and avoid at all costs those who would feast on our life-force like a vampire chugging blood.

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
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"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."

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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:
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"‘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.’"

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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."

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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"

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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."

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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."

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

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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!’"

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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.’"

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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."

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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:
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"‘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.’"

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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.
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"...‘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.’"

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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."

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

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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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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!

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).

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.

داستانش خیلی قشنگ بود و خیلی از شخصیت ایزابل خوشم اومد ولی بااین وجود هیچ حسی نسبت به این کتاب نداشتم البته فکر می‌کنم بیشتر از ترجمشه چندان روان نبود