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mashedpotatoandsaladcream's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
“the main thing to be said with regard to it is, i had a secret from him. i believe he never suspected it, though of this i am not absolutely sure. if he did, the line he had taken, the line of absolute negation of the matter to himself, shows an immense effort of the will. i may tell my secret now”
you are finally given the chance to meet your favourite author and stay round his house for a day or two. you meet him and he’s beautiful, he’s all you could have imagined and you resolutely convince yourself of this even as you meet his wife, you meet his sister, and you meet his son, and you realise he is quite simply ordinary with familial problems and reticence to share personal information - considering you’re quite adamant on knowing everything about him.
but not only do you see your author, you are given a front row seat to his marriage problems - specifically the wife believing the husband will corrupt their son with his words and as a result is strongly unwilling to let the father even touch the son, even going so far to prove this fatal.
“i want to be truer than i have ever been. i want to give an impression of life itself. no, you may say what you will. i have always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and rounded them off and tucked them in - done everything to them that life doesn’t do. i have been a slave to the old superstitions”
in a time of the great aesthetics, the bohemian movements of the decadent artists and “art for arts sake”, henry james shows a short introspective piece into this debate of a husband who writes for art, and the wife who refuses to accept any art that doesn’t have a purpose. is art corrupting? should it be something that has a function, or should it just be?
supposedly inspired with his friendship with another author, james addington symonds, who is apparently one of the first english authors to openly defend male homosexuality, and his puritanical religious wife who was explicitly against all this influence. james tells the effects of religious attitudes towards arts purpose as the wife lets their son die in sacrifice rather than live to be corrupted by the world and the fathers works . james plays with almost archetypes of the young beautiful child who seems to angelic to live, the sybil sister, the kind and courteous author to almost foreshadow the events along with the almost journal like narrative through the first person fanatical author who spends these few days with this dysfunction.
“perhaps i care too much for beauty - i don’t know; i delight in it, i adore it, i think of it continually, i try to produce it, to reproduce it. my wife holds that we shouldn’t think too much about it. she’s always afraid of that… i care for seeing things as they are; that’s the way i try to show them in my novels. but you mustn’t talk to mrs ambient about things as they are. she has a mortal dread of things as they are.”
i didn’t find the story horrifically boring, it’s not superbly exciting and tense, but perhaps i just find short novels hard to say they weren’t worth the time reading because they just don’t take that long to read for me. but i see how he’s become known for his writing, especially his ghost story? if you don’t like books that are inspired by debates you’ll probably not find it THAT interesting, but if you like the idea of almost sinister religious results this may interest you? it’s short so i’d say it’s worth a chance if you do like this sort of thing
you are finally given the chance to meet your favourite author and stay round his house for a day or two. you meet him and he’s beautiful, he’s all you could have imagined and you resolutely convince yourself of this even as you meet his wife, you meet his sister, and you meet his son, and you realise he is quite simply ordinary with familial problems and reticence to share personal information - considering you’re quite adamant on knowing everything about him.
but not only do you see your author, you are given a front row seat to his marriage problems - specifically the wife believing the husband will corrupt their son with his words and as a result is strongly unwilling to let the father even touch the son, even going so far to prove this fatal.
“i want to be truer than i have ever been. i want to give an impression of life itself. no, you may say what you will. i have always arranged things too much, always smoothed them down and rounded them off and tucked them in - done everything to them that life doesn’t do. i have been a slave to the old superstitions”
in a time of the great aesthetics, the bohemian movements of the decadent artists and “art for arts sake”, henry james shows a short introspective piece into this debate of a husband who writes for art, and the wife who refuses to accept any art that doesn’t have a purpose. is art corrupting? should it be something that has a function, or should it just be?
supposedly inspired with his friendship with another author, james addington symonds, who is apparently one of the first english authors to openly defend male homosexuality, and his puritanical religious wife who was explicitly against all this influence. james tells the effects of religious attitudes towards arts purpose as the wife
“perhaps i care too much for beauty - i don’t know; i delight in it, i adore it, i think of it continually, i try to produce it, to reproduce it. my wife holds that we shouldn’t think too much about it. she’s always afraid of that… i care for seeing things as they are; that’s the way i try to show them in my novels. but you mustn’t talk to mrs ambient about things as they are. she has a mortal dread of things as they are.”
i didn’t find the story horrifically boring, it’s not superbly exciting and tense, but perhaps i just find short novels hard to say they weren’t worth the time reading because they just don’t take that long to read for me. but i see how he’s become known for his writing, especially his ghost story? if you don’t like books that are inspired by debates you’ll probably not find it THAT interesting, but if you like the idea of almost sinister religious results this may interest you? it’s short so i’d say it’s worth a chance if you do like this sort of thing
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