Comments on: Story: A Tragedy of Error

By: Holly

Holly — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:10:32 +0000

I am, as usual, bringing up the rear, but I’ve just, FINALLY, obtained a copy of the Library of America collection of these short stories. I pulled the package from the mailbox, and didn’t even go into the house, just immediately began reading ATOE. Oh, the wonderful image at the beginning, remarked upon above, the mysterious lady with the parasol! To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this first story, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. So Jamesian (probably not the correct word), the initial conversation between the clandestine lovers, especially the part about drowning. Well, I’m not expecting any responses, as everyone else has undoubtedly moved on to the next stories, but I will continue to post my reactions. Thank you, Kirk, for this website, I have wanted to read James in chronological order for so long, but without this impetus, probably wouldn’t have had the discipline to follow through. One more inconsequential observation – was NOT expecting this ending!

By: Kirk

Kirk — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:37:28 +0000

Wow, Sally, you seem to be even more of a Henry James fan than me! I hope you’ll contribute your thoughts here.

I wish I could find a good copy if the Sargent portrait. I had a friend get me a copy from the National Portrait Gallery in London, but it’s very dark, and not very big. (For those interested, you can find it here.) Looking now, though, they have larger sizes that aren’t too expensive; maybe I should get one…

BTW, 15 shelves? Can you tell us some of the more interesting books about Henry that you have?

By: Sally Clark

Sally Clark — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:33:13 +0000

I’m with you also. HJ has been my favorite author for more years than I ought, perhaps, to disclose. I have over fifteen shelves in my library devoted exclusively to James & have been on pilgrimages over decades to places lived in or visited by him. A copy of Sargent’s portrait of him, aged 70, actual size, hangs in my upstairs library. Thank you for your oh-so-welcome exploration into the early stories. You have prodded me into re-reading them.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:56:28 +0000

Thanks for the kind words. I am, indeed, not an academic, just an avid reader who has read all of Henry’s fiction once, and who likes it so much that I wanted to share that. There won’t be many people posting comments here, which is fine; it’s the process of the reading, reflecting and writing that I’m interested in.

Yes, sensibility is, indeed, at the heart of Henry’s work. And looking as closely as I have at the first three stories has shown me that this is indeed present from the earliest works. I find it surprising that these early stories are sometimes derided; especially the third story, A Landscape Painter, which is, in my opinion, a minor masterpiece.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me.

By: Charles

Charles — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:52:49 +0000

I agree completely now. It’s actually a revelation to me, and something that seems not to be remarked on in more “academic” studies, which perhaps emphasize the later and more complex novels. So that is my compliment to you. It is really interesting that it takes a non-academic approach to illuminate this. It’s just that the style changed so radically! But not the sensibility, of course. But I do think that Henry is very much a writer of emotional states in particular “situations” and that plot, which you emphasize, is not central to understanding him as it is in Wharton or Conrad or Galsworthy, etc. But since sensibility is key, and emotion, and place, then so is biography, which you are sensitive to. All of which to say, I have new respect for your approach, and am happy you’re back at it!
And I think you’re right, it was not a “deliberate” echoing of image, all those years later. I just think the image of the beautiful woman with the parasol meant something to him emotionally. I just wonder what. Suffice it to say it was beautiful to him, and he wanted to begin things with an image of beauty.)

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:06:40 +0000

Interesting comment, thanks for pointing it out.

Tedious, eh? I didn’t really think that myself, and having read both A Tragedy of Error and The Story of a Year today, with the awareness of all the James that I’ve read up until the end, I’m actually quite surprised by the consistency (within limits) of his technique, of the familiarity of images and methods. I’ll have more to say about that when I post about The Story of a Year, but even at the beginning, in this period derided by many, Henry was laying the signposts of what was to come. Not intentionally, of course, but the “germ” of the later Henry is visible in these early works.

By: Charles

Charles — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:02:44 +0000

It occurred to me just now, reading the start of this story, that there is maybe a parallel with the first page of The Golden Bowl, written some thirty years later:

“The young man’s movements, however, betrayed no consistency of attention — not even, for that matter, when one of his arrests had proceeded from possibilities in faces shaded, as they passed him on the pavement, by huge beribboned hats, or more delicately tinted still under the tense silk of parasols held at perverse angles in waiting victorias.”

Same image and diction, as if the Prince had been one one the bystanders in A Tragedy of Error whose attention had been arrested by the lady with the parasol in the carriage! I’m sure this parallel has been noted before, maybe by Kaplan or Leon Edel, but I don’t know it. There seems to be a lot of recurrence of images and “situations” in Henry James, which makes reading him so fun. You know, I thought at first that your starting at the very beginning of Henry would be tedious; now I’m not so sure! So thank you for that.