GENERAL IMPRESSIONS: Blech, blech, and more blech. If Henry James' goal was to make you want to punch the heroine of the book only slightly less than you want to kill it's author, than he was immensely successful. I am frustrated in real life by people who are determined to be unhappy and the book puts them on a pedestal. The titular character, the lady- Isabel Archer, shows promise in her first introduction as she is intelligent, independent, and unabashedly American. But then James starts heaping on insanely boring and annoying descriptions of personality traits as the minimalistic plot requires them to give him something to write about. Every single thing I wanted to happen in this book didn't. Plus, when something was actually interesting, James spent an uncharacteristically short amount of time describing it (the loss of an infant child is mentioned in a fleeting half sentence while the way the main character turns the page of a book is granted a full chapter of description). Essentially, this was everything I don't like (too much description, unrelatable characters, non-existent plotlines, and self-imposed angst) all in one book. Besides the obvious outdatedness of the book (wasting away illnesses making people "invalids", lords/ladies, dutiful wives, children being raised at convents, shocking age differences in marriages, etc...) there was one modern concept which still exists in other books on the list which frustrate me (i.e. On the Road)- an obnoxious preoccupation by characters with their self-imposed unhappiness. Just makes me want to punch them all.
SPOILER ALERTS: The most action of the book occurs in the last 55 pages. You'll want to gouge your eyes out with the corner of your book until then.
MUSINGS: Why are my favorite characters consistently referred to as "simple"? Complex people can be happy too. Suck it, Henry James. Also, this book shouldn't even be on this list because it was written in the 19th century.
GRADE SHEET:
Narrator's Likability: F
Pace: D-
Readability: C
Satisfying Ending: B-
Impressively Long Paragraphs: A
Use of French: B+ (I understood most of it without translations! Which was good because my book didn't have any...)
Oh no! I already hate this book. This is going to have to be 2nd to last, right before On the Road.
ReplyDeleteI hope there aren't too many like this or I won't make it :)