Omar,
I read all of Henry James novels – or nearly all – it was some time ago; so I
don’t want to be too positive. I can’t remember anything specific about The
Ambassadors other than that I liked it. I recall that I liked the Portrait of
a Lady a lot. I read that more than once. I can’t recall having a standard
like Maxwell Geismar’s who criticized James to an absurd (IMO) degree for not
having the same standards he did – although Geismar would have argued, I’m
sure, that his standards ought to be the world’s.
Simon Harcourt Nowell Smith did a review of Geismar’s Henry James and his Cult
in the 2-6-64 issue of the TLS. He wasn’t kind to Geismar nor, if you look at
Geismar’s books in Amazon have most reviewers since. Smith in his review
thought that Dreiser met Geismar’s standards more closely than James did.
Geismar may have been unhappy with James, Smith writes, for not writing a
Sister Carrie. Smith condemns Geismar for being guilty of the “anachronistic
fallacy” for calling Jim Pocock in The Ambassadors a “pre-Babbitt” or
“pre-Dodsworth.”
BTW, I did read most of Sinclair Lewis at one time along with that class of
novels considered to “muckrake.” I remember anguishing over the first house I
was able to buy because it was a tract house of the sort condemned by Lewis in
Babbit. I personally don’t think that Sinclair Lewis or Theodore Dreiser are
as good, or as readable, as Henry James.
Yes, James world is a strange one, but then so was Kafka’s. One of my early
goals (lists) was to read “all” of certain novelists. I had James on that list
along with Hardy, Conrad, Dostoevsky, Mikhail Sholokhov, Kafka, Tolstoy,
Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, Kazantzakas among others.
I mentioned somewhere being stunned upon first reading Sylvia Plath’s Ariel.
The only novelist that did something equivalent to me, that I can recall at the
moment, was Nikos Kazantzakas. It was the first novel I read by him, a
translation of The Greek Passion, but I recall liking Freedom or Death nearly
as well. I also read The Last Temptation. I didn’t think his most famous
novel (in English) Zorba the Greek was as good as the others I read. I know he
also wrote a sequel to The Odyssey, which I once had, but I don’t think I
managed to read the whole poem – can’t remember why.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 5:07 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Henry James visit to California
I am not sure that you are going to find Henry James' novels all that
interesting. Of course, I have not read all of them, and I am not planning to,
but for example I find the Portrait of the Lady both unconvincing and
uninteresting. As for the Ambassadors, it is only a good reading if you want to
fall asleep quickly. If such people ever really existed, they would be an
extremely boring company to keep, and even more boring to read about. The
supposed difference between the Europeanized Americans and the Americanized
Europeans who have very similar lifestyles and move in similar circles is sort
of trivial, IMO.
On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 7:47 PM Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
James’ The American Scene (1907) was to have an additional chapter, entitled
“California” which was never written, but Philip Horne in the 9-21-18 issue of
the TLS has found enough in letters and articles to provide what he believes to
be the overview of what that chapter would have consisted of. James is quoted
from a letter, “California . . . has completely bowled me over – such a
delicious difference from the rest of the U.S. do I find in it. (I speak of
course all of nature and climate, fruits and flowers; for there is absolutely
nothing else, and the sense of the shining social and human inane is utter.)
The days have been mostly here of heavenly beauty, and the flowers, the wild
flowers just now in particular, which fairly rage, with radiance, over the
land, are worthy of some purer planet than this. I live on oranges and olives,
fresh from the tree, and I lie awake nights to listen, on purpose, to the
languid lisp of the Pacific, which my windows overhang . . .”
I’m reminded that I never followed up a note of John’s a while back in regard
to how we should expect to enjoy retirement by (especially) reading the books
we never got around to reading before we retired. I don’t any longer have his
note and so probably don’t remember it correctly, but . . . in my case I read
all the books I wanted to read, before I retired. Every book I wanted to read,
I read (all of James’ novels, for example). Of course there are many books I
haven’t read, but they aren’t books I wanted to read.
John, or someone else, may ask, “did you read X?” And I may not have, but I
probably considered him (or her) at one time and decided not to. I’m not
saying that my decisions were the best. I’ve had occasion to read novelists
that in the past I rejected and discovered later on that I enjoyed, but
breaking through my initial prejudice was (is) difficult.
I have created list-like goals in recent years – to read criticisms and
biographies, and then inspired by them to read (or reread) some of the poetry I
may have unjustly failed to appreciate, but have in most of these cases
continued the neglect. My current effort is in regard to Browning. I like a
lot of his poetry, most of what appeared in his Men and Women (1855), for
example, but I’ve decided to tackle Sordello, and then if that goes well to
have another go at The Ring and the Book.
I do regularly read the TLS, The London Review of Books, and The New York
Review of Books, and regularly buy books that strike me as interesting. They
may be histories, biographies, works of criticisms, or the occasional novel,
but my list of books to be read in retirement, remains blank. ;-)
Lawrence
