I have this friend who hates Henry James. I can't understand it. The style is dated, in that people dont write that way today, but as you get into the book you begin to enjoy the style, as well as the plot, characters, and French/American dual culture shock that still goes on today. (For an update on the theme, look at Le Divorce and Le Mariage by Diane Johnson). I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen to these characters and the description of Paris in the Second Empire were fascinating. If you watch the Masterpiece Theatre version without having read the book, you will be totally confused. They moved events out of sequence all over the place and after about ten minutes I shut off the tape and picked up the book. You have to know the whole story before you watch them throw characters and events at you in the first two scenes that only appear 2/3 of the way through the novel, after a foundation has been laid as to who they are and when and why things happened.

I couldnt recommend this more for a good read. The only caution I have is for readers who have never been to France. They may get an extremely negative impression of French people from many of the characters in this book. Go to Paris and you will find the city is wonderful, and so are the French people. These characters are not typical!! They belong to a certain class, and the book does take place 150 years ago. If this book doesnt get you hooked on James, I dont know what will. Try Washington Square and dont miss that movie, with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney and Maggie Smith.

OK so it takes half the book to get to the story. In typical Henry James fashion you are completely prepared for the action. Unlike Thomas Hardy, whose surroundings tell us of the character of the person it surrounds, James wishes you to know the depth of his characters as seen through the eyes of others. This of course brings on many minor characters that just seem to disappear, but it is a view of a person as if the reader was on the other side of the mirror watching the story unfold. Yes, James is wordy, yes this is not a quick read, but Henry James has a mastery of language and story telling that is rare.
"The American" is a wonderful love story that ends as a real life love story might end. Do not expect roses and happily ever after, it is as much a story of an ancient social system as it is of the life of "our hero." And the thing that seems to get missed is that Henry James actually wrote this as a mystery, not a love story.
This is a novel to contemplate and read between the lines. Good verses Evil, Noveau vs Old Money, Right and Wrong, can literature get any better than that?

This book is long, but only because that's how James tells the story. It's like a soup that needs to boil all day, so it's kept on low, but when it's done, it's perfect. The book stays at the pace of "our hero" the American Christopher Newman. A smart, educated, rich, yet easy going, simple, and humane veteran of the Civil War and a self made tycoon, who goes to Europe to see the "treasures and entertain" himself.

He becomes entangled in what he thinks is a simple plan for matrimony, but is really truly a great deal larger and more treacherous and terrible than that.

We spend a lot of time in Newman's mind, paragraphs of character analaysis are sprung upon us, but nothing seems plodding or slow, nothing feels useless. By the end of the book we find that we think like the character and can only agree with what he does. We react to seemingly big plot twists and events as he does, without reaction, and a logical, common sense train of thought.

But don't misunderstand that. For a book that is so polite and the essence of "slow-reaction", it is heartwrenching and tragic. You will cry, you will wonder, and you will ask yourself questions. Colorful, lifelike, and exuberant characters fight for your attention and your emotions, and we are intensely endeared to them. Emotional scenes speckle the book and are just enough. And the fact that something terrible and evil exists in this story hangs over your head from the beginning. It's hard to guess what happens because James doesn't give us many clues, and the ending may come as a surprise to some people. And without us knowing it, James is comparing American culture to European culture (of the day), and this in of itself is fulfilling.

Indeed, James uses every page he has, without wasting any on detailed landscapes and useless banter. 2 pages from the end you have a wrenching heartache, but the last paragraph and page is utterly and supremely satisfying, and you walk away the way Newman walks away, at peace.

The author's observations are simply not very interesting, and her life is rather blase, although she, herself, finds it endlessly fascinating. She strikes me as a wait-to-talk, rather than listen-and-respond, luncheon companion.

Wendy Lesser has written an engaging book or half-critical, half-personal essays, a form that has gone out of style. She should be commended for reinvigorating it.

Only a sourpuss could dislike this engaging, enlightening and well-crafted autobiography by Threepenny Review's founder and editor, Wendy Lesser. In two dozen essays, we not only learn about the great obstacles inherent in starting a literary journal, we see how Lesser developed as a reader and observer. This is a delightful read filled with Lesser's wonderful observations on love, art and publishing. I highly recommend this book.