The astonishing thing about this book -- and a lot of Henry James's writing -- is his insight into the problems of women. This book deals with the problem of independence and freedom. Most of us, let's admit it, love the idea of being swept off our feet by some competent, assertive male. It's a real turn-on. If you don't believe it, check out how many successful professional women secretly read historical romances by the boxload. The problem comes the next morning when he starts to take control, bit by bit, of your entire life. In this book you have Olive, who is not, I think, a lesbian but someone who is very lonely and doesn't trust men and Verena, who likes men just fine, but is, for the moment anyway, under the spell of Olive and her feminist ideology. Are these our only options? Verena Makes her choice, but James notes that the tears she sheds may not, unhappily, be her last.

Henry James's, "The Bostonians," is a simple, but increasingly entertaining love story set in the years soon after the end of the Civil War. Basil Ransom, a true Southern gentleman from Mississippi, has moved North (specifically, to New York City) to try and start a career away from the impoverished South of the Reconstruction days. Shortly after moving North, he pays a visit, at her behest, to the Boston house of his distant cousin, Olive Chancellor. Olive, a stalwart in the women's rights movement of the time, invites Basil to her home in order to offer help and assistance to her Southern cousin, but she also wishes to save him from the flawed ways he certainly must have taken on growing up in the South. Her self-seeking, ulterior motives fail miserably, of course.

It is through Olive that Basil Ransom meets Verena Tarrant, the young woman who has left her lower middle-class family to move in with and be molded by Olive. Verena has a tremendous speaking ability which caught Olive's (and the other women's (womyn's?) movement leaders') attention. But ultimately, Verena also catches Basil's attention... not for her feminist diatribes, but for her beauty and the passion of her speeches. Basil is instantly struck by Verena, and from this point onward the plot focuses as Basil attempts to seek out his love interest who is highly guarded by Olive, Verena's parents, and several others.

The dialogue between Olive and her friends with Basil Ransom, is a constant back and forth that is civil on the surface, but boiling with hostility underneath the social niceties. While Basil is always cool and focused as he tracks the object of his love, Olive Chancellor only becomes more paranoid as she sees that she is gradually losing her young charge... to a Southern Neanderthal. "The Bostonians" meanders through the first couple hundred pages with witty dialogue between the alien Basil and his new peers, but as his focus intensifies, so does the plot. James draws all this circling and stalking into a final, climactic scene that many will be cheering, but one that many modern-day feminists and their sympathizers will be cursing.

James after 1898 was too subtle, too often employing apposition to add layers like coats of paint to each observation. Works like The Ambassadors (1903) rely on the reader's powers of synthesis, which can be in turns exhilarating or frustrating. The Bostonians (1885) is an extremely straightforward, dramatic, cruel, hilarious, political, compassionate love story and one of the best novels by anyone. Olive Chancellor is tragic: with so much love behind her cold, horrified stares. Basil Ransom is magnetic, but an educated idiot savant whose passion and will are nothing other than natural talent. Verena Tarrant has nothing but natural talent--she is an organism that throbs with passion like a finely tuned Geiger counter. Whether the private turmoil of sex and marriage finally draw her from the political sisterhood, and what happens to queer women like Olive, are high-stakes, human questions that James presents with sheer drama and almost unbelievable insight.

I thought the value of this book lied not in its story (it was forgettable), but as a sort of cultural museum, allowing one to look into what English "high society" was like at the end of the 19th century.

What it was, I found, was horribly superficial and empty. These people had little to do with their time except gather at eachother's parlours and chat idlely and endlessly. But with nothing to talk about and all day to talk about it, it was considered better to sound "clever" than to have something meaningful to say; style was valued in the absense of substance. No one said what they felt, no one felt strongly about what they said, and the whole frustrating lot of them came across as a bunch of phonies. They were all but toppling over with the weight of their own pretensions.

The reason I found this frustrating, though, is that in his other works I have read (admittedly not that many), the reward for struggling through James' prose is his deeply penetrating understanding of human nature; clearly, James "gets" people, and it shows in his sharp observation and subtle wit. So that made me struggle all the more to peel back the layers of clever chatter to "get" what James was driving at, but after I turned the final unfathomable page, all I could say was "huh?"

Critics will often pair this novel with his earlier "What Maisie Knew."

Both novels deal with the child's / adolescent's emerging conscience, while faced with adult corruption.

In "Maisie" and "Awkward," we see James following up on his fascination with Hawthornian themes.

James's facility with dialogue, in which abrupt blushes are loaded with meaning, is apparent here. The drawing-room conversations reminded me of a party in a swimming pool; each character is constantly, in a conversational sense, "taking a plunge and coming up somewhere else."

I found this novel somewhat thin - read closely James's "Preface to the New York Edition"; can you hear James in self-defense mode?

Overall, not bad, but "Maisie's" somber and gloomy tone was better suited to the subject matter and themes than the "light and ironic" touch of "Awkward."

This novel tells a familiar tale: old-fashioned man enters a tangled web of wealthy British fashionable types, makes a proposal, and the web falls apart. Mr. Longdon, a wealthy old man from Suffolk, returns to London to find the children and grandchildren of his ancient love. Out of respect for this unspoiled affection, he takes an interest in the grand-daughter of his love and tries to pull her out of the circle of influence that has, effectively, soiled her. James manages some interesting and convincing characters, and these pawns interact in some magnificent scenes. It almost reminds me of Restoration Comedy, with its complicated dialogue and dramatic jumps in setting that resemble staged scenes. The major thread of the novel is the relationship between Vanderbank, a complicated but good-natured young man who has managed to penetrate that affluent circle, and Nanda Brookenham, the granddaughter of Longdon's lost love. Vanderbank remains deliciously puzzling to the end of the novel, and Nanda manages a kind of heroism. The conclusion is somewhat surprising; James, by this point in his career, seems to have moved beyond the endorsement of conservative values evident in a work like The Bostonians. Despite the surprise, though, it was a great deal of fun getting to that conclusion. This novel is as close to a page-turner as I have read from James thus far, and bristles with subtle interrogation of a rotting social structure. I have no trouble saying, like F.R. Leavis, that this novel ranks among James's best.

First things first, it is a very nice novel, but very hard to follow. Personally speaking, sometimes I couldn't get very exactly what Henry James was trying to say, but I could understand the situation as a whole and be able to move on.

As everybody knows, Hery James is not an easy writer. His appeal is very difficult and complex although it doesn't read very old-fashioned. The story is very interesting and timeless, because it deals with passion, money and betrayal. The books follows Kate Croy and her beloved Merton Densher when then both get involved - in different degrees and with different interests- with the beautiful rich and sick American heiress Milly Theale.

Most of the time, the book kept me wondering what would come next and its result and the grand finale. But, that doesn't mean I was fully understand its words. As I said, I was just feeling what was going on. As a result, i don't think I was able to get all the complexity of Henry James. Maybe, if I read this book again in the futures, it will be clearer.

There is a film version of this novel made in 1997, and starring Helena Bonham Carter, Allison Elliot and Linus Roach, directed by Iain Softley. Carter is amazing as always! Kate is a bit different from the book, she is not only a manipulative soul, but, actually, she is a woman trying to find happiness. One character says of Kate, "There's something going on behind those beautiful lashes", and that's true for most female leads created by James. Watching this movie helped me a lot, after finishing reading the novel.

Two responses to previous reviews: it was written one hundred years ago, so it would of course be somewhat dated. Second, you should perhaps READ THE ENTIRE BOOK before you attempt to review the text.

The text follows the fascinating development of a manipulation: Milly Theale, an American woman, enters the London scene, endowed with prodigious wealth, youth, and beauty, and several characters vie for her affection. It's a standard James plot in that way. Much like Portrait of a Lady, the wealthy American is exploited by her European acquaintances. Kate Croy convinces her lover Merton Densher to take advantage of Milly's interest in him, and to go so far as to attempt to marry the young American for her money. She is, after all, fatally and tragically ill. James brilliantly depicts the struggle between Densher, Kate Croy, her powerful Aunt Maud, the piquant Susan Shepherd, Sir Luke, and Lord Mark, and his characteristically enigmatic ending does not disappoint. James manages to breathe life into these odd characters in a way that so few writers can: his genius is for complex character, and this book embodies that genius at its height.

The trouble with the book, however, is that it does not qualify as a "light read." The pace is incredibly slow - deliberately slow, of course. It is a novel about decisions, and the development of those decisions constitutes the bulk of the novel. James's prose does lack the terseness of a Hemingway, but the latter writer often fails to capture the nuances that James so elaborately evokes in his careful prose.

James, like Faulkner, is not for the faint of heart. Some of his work is more accessible; readers in search of a more palatable James should look to Washington Square, What Maisie Knew, or his popular masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw. This novel does not fit easily into a category, and its principal interest is that very quality of inscrutability. It's not really a "British" or an "American" novel but contains elements of both. It's not "Modern" or "Victorian" but both. Originally published in 1902, it's also not easy to include him in either the 19th or the 20th century. He appears to be writing in both.

In short, then, it's not a light-hearted novel and the prose can be challenging at times. But I believe that the effort of reading this book is well rewarded.

I've carried on a love-hate affair with The Wings of the Dove for more than 20 years. In that period of time, I started the novel (the same beautiful little Signet paperback edition) at LEAST 15 times and could never get past page 30 or so. But it kept nagging at me to read it. Last summer, I plowed through its dense prose thicket, and I felt as though I were peering through a glass darkly. Several times I felt like tossing it aside. I've studied Enlish and literature all my life and yet I had one heckuva time with those daunting banks of prose. But I'm glad I read it. It's masterful. Worth all the effort. Those scintillating scenes in Venice. Nothing like them! I just read The Golden Bowl, another difficult but rewarding book. There are astonishing scenes in it, like when the husband of the busy-body watches her in a pensive mood as if she were in the middle of a lake, coming closer. It's just an extraordinary scene! I love early James too, like that perfect jewel of a book, Washington Square. Sometimes, great as the late books are, I really do think they lose something of the wonderful clarity James achieved earlier. There are still a few scenes in Wings and Bowl, for instance, in which I have NO IDEA what James was trying to express. Talk about super subtle! But do make the effort, folks, they're incredible books.

Henry James' work, Washington Square, is simply a love story with psychological undertones. In it, the main character Catherine Sloper falls deeply in love with a handsome suitor, Morris Townsend. The irony here is that Catherine is a plain girl who possesses a "poor dumb eloquence." As well, besides possessing great wealth of her own, Catherine has an enormous inheritance from her deceased mother. Conversely, Morris is a handsome, debonair suitor whose financial situation may only be described as relative poverty. His charm is enjoyed by almost everyone but Catherine's father, Dr. Austin Sloper. Suspicious of Morris' motives, Dr. Sloper accuses him of marrying Catherine for her fortune and vows to remove all inheritances in her name should the union occur. These circumstances create a bitter relationship between father and daughter, as Catherine must eventually choose between her family and fortune and her lover. In her struggle, however, Catherine gains an admirable strength of character, which is central to the message of the story.

As examined through a brief plot summary, Washington Square contains no clear-cut revelations in its message. Upon careful investigation of the characters, however, it seems that James wants the reader to decide whether Morris' love is true or not. In other words, in terms of the main character's conflict, should Catherine have chosen her father or her lover? In the end, James has Catherine choose neither, thus carefully creating a plot that can be scrutinized from different perspectives. With each of Morris' actions, it is unclear whether he does it out of love for Catherine or out of greed for her money. The author achieves this effect by judicious word use and careful insertions of flaws in the characters of Morris Townsend and Dr. Sloper.

Washington Square was a novel I read for school after having visited Washington Square itself many times. Having said that, although it's an excellent read for literary analysis, it's also a rather dry novel. For a student wanting to complete a literary analysis and enjoy a good book at the same time, this is not good news, thus the 3.5 stars. However, its strong points are the psychological power and the keen insight James has on human nature. Read it for those things, if anything.

This relatively short novel is a wonderful way to become acquainted with the writing style of Henry James.Washington Square is much more accessable than some of his other works.
The plot revolves around a young woman who is living in Washington Square with her widowed physician father and his sister. The daughter Catherine is not considered particularly attractive by her father so that when a handsome young man begins to court her the father is imediately suspicious of his motives since Catherine is his only heir.
The tension between the father and his daughter is offset by the bond that the Aunt develops with the young man .

James allows us to perceive the motivations of each of these primary characters and we come to recognise that Catherine is in fact in danger of being deceived. The father who is not a very sympathetic character is insightful enough to do what is necessary in his view to prevent this.

The characters are all well concieved and remain true to type throughout the story.

A bonus is the setting of old New York and the scenes of a growing city are vividly drawn. Imagine a time when moving "uptown" meant moving to what is now the Village.

Overall I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend it

This book by Henry James is as different as can be from his longer works, but it has its own charm. The charactization is quite complex for a novella. It's just unfortunate that Catherine is so unredeemably staid. I realize that quite a few women chose to live a life alone in those days, but she seemed quite plodding to me. She does develop into a spinster that seems to enjoy that state. And Morris is quite the cad, but we the readers are never in any doubt as to that. The doctor father is another story, He's so right-minded that it's difficult to imagine anyone could be that stubborn. And the widowed aunt is a treasure - silly, manipulative and oh so romantic. This novella is written like a play since there are only four main characters, and most of the action takes place in the house on Washington Square. I really think this book looks deceptively simple, but it is not as simple as it appears. I enjoyed the story.

The last completed novel by Henry James is, like preceding works of his later era ("The Wings of the Dove" comes up to mind first), very hard to read. That's the warning to every unwary reader who happens to think about starting to read Henry James anew.

The plot is simple: its about two couples of people -- Charlotte and Amerigo, and Adam Verver and his daughter Maggie Verver. Charlotte loves Amerigo, who, however, decides to marry Maggie. Soon after that, Charlotte marries Adam Verver, an American millionaire. Still, Amerigo and Charlotte maintain their former relations as lovers until their secret is discovered by Maggie unexpectedly with an advent of a golden bowl, which looks perfect outward, but deep inside cracked. Maggie, who greatly adores her deceived father, in turn, starts to move in order to mend the cracked relations, or secure the apparently happy family life without disturbing the present relations.

As this sketch of the story tells you, one of the favorite topics of the 19th century literature -- adultery -- is staged in the center of the book, but the way James handles it is very different from those of other American or British writers. The meaning is hidden in a web of complicated, even contorted sentences of James, and you have to read often repeatedly to grasp the syntax. The grammar is sometimes unclear, with his frequent use of pronouns and double negatives, and very often you just have to take time to understand to what person James' "he" or "she" really refers to. It is not a rare thing for you to find that a paragraph starts with those "he" and "she" without any hint about its identity, so you just read on until you hit the right meaning of these pronouns. And this is just one example of the hard-to-chew James prose. If you think it is pompous, you surely are excused.

But as you read on again, you find, behind this entangled sentences and a rather banal melodramatic story, something intelligent, something about humans that lurks in the dark part of our heart. I will not pretend that I can understand all of the book, but James clearly shows how we, with a limited ability of our perception, try to act as the characters of the book do, in the given atomosphere of society. To me, this book is about the way of the people's behavior luminously recorded; about the way of our expressing and perceiving ourselves without uttering them aloud.

Gore Vidal says about the book: "James's conversational style was endlessly complex, humourous, unexpected -- euphemistic where most people are direct, and suddenly precise where avoidance or ellipsis is usual (see his introduction of "The Golden Bowl" in Penguin Classics edition. This is exactly the nature of this book, which would either attract or repel you. Unfortunately, I admit, this is not my cup of tea, for I prefer more story-oriented novels. Still, if you really want to challenge reading something really substantial, I for one recommend this book.

There is a sumptuous film version of the book, starring Uma Thurman and Nick Nolte. It might be a good idea to watch it before you start reading the book.

I discovered James in college and read all his full-length novels before reaching age 30. The only one I had real trouble with was The Golden Bowl.

I recently reread the novel and reveled in its elegant complexity. (It would be nice to think that the passage of 20 years has brought wisdom and insight that made me a better reader, but the credit belongs to Dorothea Krook's illuminating discussion in The Ordeal of Consciousness in Henry James.)

The Golden Bowl is the last, the most demanding, and the most rewarding of James's major novels. Even its immediate predecessors, The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove, do not reach its deep examination of the mixed motives, the tangled good and evil, that drive human action and passion. Although he presents his characters' acts and much of what goes on in their heads, James manages in such a way that while Krook believes Adam and Maggie are on the side of the angels, Gore Vidal (who introduces the current Penguin edition) believes they are monsters of manipulation--and (as Krook acknowledges) both views are consistent with the evidence.

Much--too much--of these riches of doubt and ambiguity is lost in the Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala translation to the screen (2001). The movie has some good things, but it could have had many more. Surprised by extraneous material (like the exotic dance), heavy-handed symbolism (the exterior darkness on the day Charlotte and Amerigo find the golden bowl), and needless oversimplifications (Amerigo's talk of "dishonor" to Charlotte, which exaggerates his virtue and his desire to be done with her), I got the sense that nobody involved in the production had read the novel with the care that it requires and rewards. Had they done so, their version could have been really fine--both as a movie and as an invitation to the novel.

How does one choose between Henry James novels? Can one really put the feminine insight of The Portrait of a Lady above the moral conflict of The Wings of the Dove? I loved both those novels, and thought that The Ambassadors was quite good as well. But The Golden Bowl, for me, was another experience altogether.

First of all, I found "Bowl" to be the most difficult of James' novels to read. Actually, it was one of the most difficult books I have ever read, period. One must reread many passages to make sure they have the right meaning because the prose is so austere and almost impenetrable. But, once you get to the conclusion, it's more than worth it. You have to stick with this novel right to the end in order to fully appreciate its brilliance. The characters are realized with an intelligence that is rare to find in literature today, and they are written about in such a wonderfully restrained and subtle way. Don't miss this literary triumph, and please don't shy away from it because it is considered a "classic" or because of your possible misconceptions of Henry James.

Also, I read that it is being developed for an upcoming film version by Merchant Ivory. If that's true, then moviegoers are in for a treat!

Some popular fiction manages to stand the test of time, and EAST LYNNE falls into that category. For its contemporary readers, EAST LYNNE was one of the exemplars of that emerging genre, the sensation novel: its plot incorporates, among other things, murder, mistaken identity, bigamy, and adultery. Sitting awkwardly in this wild stew of criminal activity are the narrator's pious moral observations and the novel's didactic (and sometimes ponderously satirical) pronouncements on contemporary mores. The characters are mainly cardboard, with the possible exception of the termagant Cornelia Carlyle. The story remains highly readable, largely because the plot moves at a reasonably fast pace, but no-one should approach this book looking for high literature. Mrs. Wood wrote plain--some might say "simplistic"--prose with a minimum of stylistic embellishment, but most readers should find her writing tolerable. In other words, this novel exists in the upper reaches of Danielle Steele-land. It is, nevertheless, an essential text for understanding trends in Victorian popular culture during the 1860s and after.

This new edition, probably intended to replace the poorly edited Everyman version, contains a number of "extras." These include letters from Mrs. Wood, the report from publisher's reader Geraldine Jewsbury (herself a popular novelist), data on the novel's publication and serialization, contemporary reviews, contextual material, and selections from one of the many theatrical adaptations of the novel. Like most Broadview publications, this edition is obviously designed for classroom use, although casual readers should also find the additional material helpful.

Unfortunately, this edition has something in common with the Everyman version: the editing and proofreading. The text is rife with bizarre word substitutions, as if the MS had been run through a spellchecker without a second reading; typos; and improper accidentals (e.g., semi-colons for apostrophes and commas for periods). The often scattershot footnotes did not help: they were sometimes repetitive (e.g., annotating "Turk" more than once) and often too terse to be of much use. Many notes glossed old sayings whose meanings remain obvious even to today's students. To make matters worse, my own copy was badly printed. Instructors may want to keep these problems in mind.

Mrs Henry Wood's novel itself doesn't need any recommandation: generations of readers have literally devoured it. My rating however is valid only for the novel in itself.

What I should like to comment upon is the edition -- and here my rating is just 2 -- published as a volume of "Everyman's Library"...The text is disfigured by dozens...of misprints -- from a philological point of view, this edition is just useless.

The volume is out of print at the moment. This should be welcomed by the editors as an occasion to correct those numberless misprints. If they don't do so, there is only one comment possible on their edition: forget it.

I loved the novel "East Lynne" and am now reading it for the 2nd time. I could not put the book down and kept reading and reading. I recommended it to my mother and she also read it and loved it. It is Mrs. Henry Wood's greatest triumph. The reader feels so greatly for Lady Isabel, one wishes the ending were happier for her. The deaths of little William and finally Lady Isabel bring many tears. No wonder it was such a success in the Victorian era and it should be printed again in this time, to counter so much trash and vulgarity that is written.
I certainly can believe how successful it must have been when it was first printed in 1861. I also believe anyone who reads it wishes Lady Isabel back in her ex-husband's life and Barbara Hare out! Wonderful!!

I love the Beverly Hillbillies TV Show, I just love the down to earth, home spun, appeal of that show, and I thought the Beverly Hillbillies Movie remake was really cute and funny, I listened to the audio book recording of Todd Strasser's the Beverly Hillbillies Movie (based on the screenplay) and I really enjoyed listening to it! I have always liked Henry Gibson (Laugh-In and numerous movie and TV appearances, including Bio-Dome and Sabrina The Teenage Witch), and I was very pleased that he did the narration! The audio book is abridged and I enjoyed it so much I found myself wishing to hear the whole book on tape!

Dear Henry:

I was one of the people who originally used the book at Molloy College ( remember me- Lorraine Tawfik?) I am now using your book at Suffolk COmmunity College in Selden where I finally got a one-year temporary full-time position (don't know if it will continue to a tenure-track one!) . Anyway, your text is very lively and wellwritten to the student's level and has many pictures to describe the formulas. the only complaint I have is that the pages tend to get worn at the holes and I have had to put hole reinforcers on some of them.Otherwise I think by putting the contents in a binder - this is a nifty way to reduce the sticker price shock of a college text and I wish you lots of luck with selling the book to other colleges! My e-mail address is : tawfikl@sunysuffolk.edu. Write back to me when you have the time!

THE AMBASSADORS demands more effort and concentration from the reader than probably any other novel written by an American. But the payoff is worth the effort, however we may begrudge James' frustratingly and intentionally thick prose. James does indeed describe intense human situations in great depth and detail: duty, honor, nostalgia; the contrast between the starchy-collared stiffness of Brahmin Boston (read: America) contrasted with the joie de vivre of Paris (read: Europe); how difficult certain of life's choices can be. These are just a few themes that make this book worthwhile. James' America is young and trying to assert itself (and so takes itself too seriously); his Europe is old and satisfied (and perhaps doesn't take itself seriously enough).

Lambert Strether, a fiftysomething turn-of-the-20th-century bourgeois Bostonian gentleman on an aristocratic lady's errand--she will not marry him until he convinces her son Chad to return to Massachusetts. We see his struggle with his uncomfortable position when he realizes Chad is no longer a spoiled young prep-schooler, but a young gentleman of increasing refinement and self-awareness. And if Strether is anything, by the way, he is one of the most supremely self-aware characters in literary history. Once that Paris air starts to play its magic with Strether himself, we are off to the races. Keeping in mind, of course, that with James' prose we are racing with tortoises. James invites us to ponder how many chances a person truly gets in this life to reinvent his or her self? And if we get the chance, do we always take it? How much should we weigh the consequences before we decide? How much are we willing to accept them after we have chosen?

For similar themes with clearer, faster-paced, and wittier prose, try Edith Wharton's marvelous homage to James, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE.

James' novel affected me in part because I also fell in love with Paris, though not with a Parisian. The sinuous, difficult prose provides the perfect vehicle for the adventures of aging Lambert Strether as he goes to Paris to try to recover a New England son who will not return to his domineering mother and take a role in the family business--manufacturing an article that is never named. In Europe he meets a degree of sophistication he had never known but also a jungle of moral ambivalences. If I gave the novel only four stars, it is not because of the difficult prose, which I sometimes cursed, but because the crucial instance of moral turpitude which he describes seems practically banal now. I once bundled up all my Henry James books in a fit of pique and was on the way to taking them to a library book sale, but thought better of it. And it was a better thought.

This is a novel about a man named Strether, who is as obviously an alter ego of Henry James as Ralph Touchett is of Mr. James in Portrait of A Lady or, to jump continents and switch authors, the main character in Remembrance of Things Past is of Proust. Strether is in Paris to retrieve his (hopefully?) future son-in-law Chad from the wiles of the City of Light and return him to New England so that Strether can marry, settle down and pass his waning years in Puritan New England (New England was still Puritan at the time.). At least, that's the plan. But once Strether arrives, something happens to him, and that mysterious something is what makes this work great. One could easily sum it up and say that Strether becomes enraptured by beauty, and one would be quite right. But to do so would be to miss the point....What is beauty? This is the question the novel essentially asks, all plotting and sub-plotting (and plenty of it) aside. Strether's paralysis because of his inability to grasp what is holding him there and why he becomes one of the greatest procrastinators in English literature (not excepting a certain Danish prince) is the great theme around which all else revolves. Strether is essentially a sensitive, cultured man with hyper-refined sensibilities. Alighting in Paris from the drab New England factory town awakens things in him that can only be perceived through the mind's eye of such a man. He is a sort of Geiger counter which registers things missed by others not so equipped (i.e., the rest of the characters.) "Strether had not for years so rich a consciousness of time-a bag of gold into which he constantly dipped for a handful." Ch.6 The beginning of Ch. 16 has a beautifully succinct line of his predicament, "How could he wish it to be lucid for others, for any one, that he, for the hour, saw reasons enough in the mere way the bright, clean, ordered water-side life came in at the open window?" Reasons, that is, to stay in beloved Paris. The denouement of the struggle between this sensibility and his deeply engrained New England morality becomes really beside the point. All the tergiversations and multiple reflections and subtle dialogue that convey the consciousness of a great soul constitute the book's undisputed prominence. I came away from the novel asking myself anew the question raised by Plato and other great philosophers and artists throughout history: What is beauty? What is the mysterious hold it has on us? And why do those who feel its power most acutely, such as Strether, suffer the most?

I read this book as part of an English course on late-19th and 20th century American literature. It's the first time I've read a novel by Henry James, having so far only seen the movie adaptations of 'Portrait of a Lady' and 'Washington Square'. Having been wary of reading James (because of his reputation for dense, convoluted prose) I was surprised at this novel's relatively brisk plot and overall readability. The story itself, ostensibly a simple one about one man's inability to understand a seemingly complicated woman, also has interesting things to say about gender, class and the relationship between the United States (personified by the heroine) and the rest of the Western world. I was actually somewhat amazed that the image of America created through the characterization of Daisy Miller still rings true 125 years after this book's publication.

I hadn't read James for about eight years or so when I came across a copy of Daisy Miller in a pile of discarded books at a local university. It sat on my shelf for a while longer, as I knew full well that James writes in thick sentences, making up for the lack of volume by quite a bit.

What I found was what I have come to expect from James, even in his early works. This book does a great deal in terms of pulling together many levels of interpretaion: Old World versus New World, common versus exclusive, and also the chaser and the chased.

This last viewpoint in particular is what stuck with me. We have a young girl, and a young man. They meet once for a few days, and the young man becomes utterly fixated on her, if for any other reason that she is playing, in his view, hard to get. When she turns her attention elsewhere, the ante is doubled and tripled when, for a variety of reasons most likely centered around our young hero Winterbourne, the American society in Rome starts to give our heroin the "cold shoulder". Given that James writes most often to examine the person most in focus in the novel, I tend to atribute most of the troubles of this young girl to both herself and Winterbourne, not just the society of the time. This is far from a safe academic interpretation, however.

The notes included in the book are helpful for getting into the mindset of the typical reader of James' day, but are not distracting. Overall, this would probably be suitible for an ambitios middle school student, and just right for most high school students.

As is often the case for Henry James, there is scarcely a detail of his work that can be made better somehow.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY, 1878, is among the principal novellas of history and literature. Very simply, the story involves a young girl Daisy Miller, wandering through Europe, and from America. She is sensitive and capricious. Her ways attract attention, such that perhaps she appears a lustrous woman of carnal desires, or disrespectful to cultures not her own, or stupid. At any event, she catches the eye of another tourist, Mr. Winterbourne, a "nice guy" who not unlike the nice guys of our own world lucks out. He does not get Daisy, but watches as she kisses another and loses herself to unappreciatve men. She does this from anger, resentment, and want of attention. She becomes a symbol of many things, and in the end she dies. The book has been debated for decades.

The dialogue is so well crafted as to be sacred. No further editing of this story is possible, for James took very great pains to edit his work multiple times over. And here, we see a flow of talking and happenings that seem to real to even be on the page. As for instance the communication of Mr. Winterbourne and Daisy's little brother (I believe). The little boys talks, and behaves, as a little boy would. And, Mr. Winterbourne likewise behaves as a young man would to a young boy. Greatest of all are the marvellous dialogues between Daisy and Mr. Winterbourne. They flirt at times, and one feels Winterbourne's longing for her. They feel his sadness, a real sadness, as when she is not feeling for him nearly as deeply. I likened myself to to the man.

I am glad to know that Mr. James was credited as having been "the Master."