Reading Henry James

Subscribers to the Library of America, whose volumes I’m using in my readings of Henry James, get a subscription customization form every year in the Spring. This form lists the new volumes for the coming year (publishing year: from the fall of the current year through the summer of the next), and subscribers are invited to choose which books they wish to receive.

I was happy, this morning, to get the latest form in the mail, and to see that the final volume of Henry’s fiction will be published in the coming year. Novels 1903-1911 will feature The Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl, The Outcry, and The Married Son, a chapter that Henry contributed to a multi-author novel conceived by William Dean Howells called The Whole Family. This will be the eleventh volume of fiction from Henry published by the Library of America, and the 15th volume of his works.

It may not be the last, because I was told by the Library of America that they were considering a couple of volumes of other works: there are plays, letters, notebooks and more that they could publish.

Other highlights in the coming year from the Library of America include another volume in their series of Philip Roth’s works, two volumes by H. L. Mencken, and the first in a series of books about the Civil War, collecting speeches, diaries, letters, published reports and more. There will be one a year as we “celebrate” the 150th anniversary of this Great American Conflict.

It’s Henry James’s birthday today. Henry was born on April 15, 1843. Let us all read something by Henry James to celebrate!

Buy from Amazon.com

Published in 2007, this second volume of Sheldon Novick’s biography of James is, oddly, out of print already (though used copies are available cheaply from Amazon). The first volume, Henry James: The Young Master, is available in paperback, and I assume that the second will soon be released in paperback as well.

I had planned to write a review of this book, being the biggest Henry James bio since Edel’s famous five-volume set. Yet for some reason, I’ve had trouble getting through this book. I still haven’t finished it, and it languishes on a pile of unfinished books, most likely because it’s just not that interesting. While I did read the first volume with some pleasure, I can’t put my finger on what is keeping me from finishing this book.

I’d be curious to know if others have read this book, and, if so, what they think of it. It’s unlike me to not “get through” a book about Henry James, and in most cases I just whiz through them. But this one just doesn’t work for me.

Any thoughts?

One reason it took me a while to get started on my Reading Henry James project was that I got a bit tied up in another reading “binge”. I live in France, and there was a lot of to-do about the 50th anniversary of Albert Camus’ death, which was on January 4th. Camus was a huge influence on me when I was in my early twenties, and I read most of his major works in English (I lived in New York City at the time). So the event prompted me to look at Camus again, getting his complete works in French as a Christmas present, and reading two biographies of Camus, as well as several other books about him.

I’ve read about half of the first volume so far, and I very much like what Camus wrote. I like his thinking, and his style. Interestingly, he was said to have appreciated Henry James, along with Proust, Melville, and several other authors I like. He also, for a short time, had a dog named Kirk.

Back with Henry now, I’ll be continuing my reading of Camus over the coming months, interspersing the two (and, of course, other books as well, such as Robert B. Parker’s wonderful Spenser mysteries, which I’ve been reading lately). While James and Camus are quite different, there are actually some interesting similarities in the way they both worked with characters. Camus’ writing is more philosophically based, even if he never considered himself a philosopher, and it’s essential reading, in my opinion. If you haven’t read Camus, check out one of his books from your local library.

Published: 1866
Length: 14,300 words, 36 pages
Genre: artists, love and money
Library of America volume: Complete Stories, 1864-1874
Etext: Project Gutenberg edition of the February, 1866, Atlantic Monthly

This is the first of Henry’s stories featuring artists, a type of character he will explore often in his fiction, though in this story, the art itself is secondary. An unnamed narrator is telling the story of love and marriage between a rich young painter, Locksley (his first name is not given), and Esther Blunt. The story begins as follows:

Do you remember how, a dozen years ago, a number of our friends were startled by the report of the rupture of young Locksley’s engagement with Miss Leary?

Henry begins by telling us of an event that is not part of this story, but may have led to it. Locksley was jilted, apparently, by this Josephine Leary, causing him to go off into nature to find himself, and to see things differently. In order to tell this story, Henry creates a narrator who inherited a number of personal effects of the painter, including his diary.

He left a mass of papers on all subjects, few of which are adapted to be generally interesting. A portion of them, however, I highly prize, — that which constitutes his private diary. It extends from his twenty-fifth to his thirtieth year, at which period it breaks off suddenly.

The narrator’s presentation is two long chapters, after which the remainder of the story is excerpts from the diary itself. So following a brief introduction by a narrator, we then have a story written in the first person by one of the protagonists.

Locksley’s diary begins with an entry in a town called Cragthorpe. He has set out to see the scenery of an area on the sea, and is enchanted by it. Staying at a tavern, he decides he wants to find a house in which to board, but the innkeeper was of no help. Setting out in a small rented boat, Locksley finds a quite little cove, “So bright, so still, so warm, so remote from the town, which lay off in the distance, white and semicircular!” He anchors his boat and wanders for a while. After the tide has gone out, he cannot use his boat to return to his lodgings, and he hails a man in a sailboat who picks him up. The sailor, Richard Blunt, “though most people [...] call me Captain, for short,” inquires as to Locksley’s “titles and pretensions.” Locksley replies, and tells the reader what his is about:

I told him no lies, but I told him only half the truth; and if he chooses to indulge mentally in any romantic understatements, why, he is welcome, and bless his simple heart! The fact is, that I have broken with the past. I have decided, coolly and calmly, as I believe, that it is necessary to my success, or, at any rate, to my happiness, to abjure for a while my conventional self, and to assume a simple, natural character. How can a man be simple and natural who is known to have a hundred thousand a year? That is the supreme curse. It’s bad enough to have it: to be known to have it, to be known only because you have it, is most damnable. I suppose I am too proud to be successfully rich. Let me see how poverty will serve my turn. I have taken a fresh start. I have determined to stand upon my own merits. If they fail me, I shall fall back upon my millions; but with God’s help I will test them, and see what kind of stuff I am made of. To be young, to be strong, to be poor,—such, in this blessed nineteenth century, is the great basis of solid success. I have resolved to take at least one brief draught from the pure founts of inspiration of my time.

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