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thefullbronte's review against another edition
2.0
Review haiku:
The Parentheses,
Why, Henry James? Why so cruel?
You make my eyes bleed
The Parentheses,
Why, Henry James? Why so cruel?
You make my eyes bleed
mary00's review against another edition
3.0
This was the other novel that I focused on in my thesis paper.
kiri_johnston's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
rc90041's review against another edition
3.0
After I finished this, I felt the book, mist-like, start to dissipate away: I don’t think it’ll stay with me. And that’s probably because it wasn’t the kind of book that would arrest your attention with an acute observation, or a striking metaphor. So much of the book felt like a cloud of endless internal dialogue weakly attached to a basic, skeletal plot structure. With time, that cloud of internal dialogue quickly fades away—being so oblique and nubilous, it retains no substance or mass in the reader’s memory. What’s left is the plot, which is, in my view, basic and predictable. [SPOILER ALERT] The ending—“We shall never be as we were!”—is both unsurprising and a little too cute. The reader who’s paying attention sees it coming from a mile—three hundred or so pages—off.
And after hundreds of pages of internal stream of consciousness, closely observed psychological developments, doesn’t the ending, with Densher’s almost Dickensian resolution to the problem of the inheritance, feel a bit gimmicky and like a deus ex machina—though a miraculous device not to wrap everything up happily ever after and to save our protagonists, but to leave use in a murky, ambivalent space of competing emotions and desires, i.e., HJ’s happy place?
I almost don’t even want to try to summarize the plot developments in the final segment of the book. With the space of a few days, those developments appear exceedingly basic, and need only a few words to recap: [SPOILERS] Milly learns from a vengeful and bitter Lord Mark that Densher is engaged to Kate. Milly becomes despondent, refuses to see Densher, gives up her will to live. Finally, she briefly relents, sees Densher for twenty minutes, and then he immediately returns to London. Milly dies. Kate and Aunt Maud nose about about what happened. Densher learns that Milly has left him a substantial inheritance. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seems, he finds spine and tells Kate that she will not be able to have her cake and eat it too: she can either have him, and no inheritance—he will refuse it—or she can have Milly’s money, but not him. And thus Kate’s self-pitying last line.
That’s it. It’s Dickensian/soap-opera level plotting, which isn't really the point. But, as I move away from this book, the plot's really all that will stay with me, I think. The mists of HJ’s endless descriptions of the internal workings of the characters’ minds will float away.
Do we sympathize with Densher? He, like almost everyone else in this book, is purposely drawn in chiaroscuro, with ambivalent motives, half in shadow. Densher is, perhaps, less mercenary than Kate, who devises the plan, but is denied her celebratory Hannibal-from-the-A-Team cigar at the end when Densher finds his previously invisible resolve. But perhaps we understand why Kate is as she is, given her father’s fall, her sister’s squalid situation, the pressure of keeping Aunt Maud pleased?
Maybe, but, in an almost reflexive way, instead of creating Dickensian cardboard, 2-D characters, some pure good, some pure bad, HJ draws all of his main characters—except for Milly and Mrs. Stringer—as complicated, in a way that feels too easy in itself, like the ending. It’s easy, in a way, to paint these characters as having such mixed and complicated motives, and leaving the reader unable to really side with anyone. Like the ending, there’s a hint of a cop out in that.
Sure, it’s more “intelligent” or “complicated” to have such unresolved, ambivalent characters—and perhaps that was an advance in the art at the time—but, read now, it feels simplistic and unresolved in its own way: ambivalent characters ambivalently coast along into an unsurprisingly ambivalent ending. It shouldn’t come as any surprise if the reader’s response is also . . . ambivalent.
And after hundreds of pages of internal stream of consciousness, closely observed psychological developments, doesn’t the ending, with Densher’s almost Dickensian resolution to the problem of the inheritance, feel a bit gimmicky and like a deus ex machina—though a miraculous device not to wrap everything up happily ever after and to save our protagonists, but to leave use in a murky, ambivalent space of competing emotions and desires, i.e., HJ’s happy place?
I almost don’t even want to try to summarize the plot developments in the final segment of the book. With the space of a few days, those developments appear exceedingly basic, and need only a few words to recap: [SPOILERS] Milly learns from a vengeful and bitter Lord Mark that Densher is engaged to Kate. Milly becomes despondent, refuses to see Densher, gives up her will to live. Finally, she briefly relents, sees Densher for twenty minutes, and then he immediately returns to London. Milly dies. Kate and Aunt Maud nose about about what happened. Densher learns that Milly has left him a substantial inheritance. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seems, he finds spine and tells Kate that she will not be able to have her cake and eat it too: she can either have him, and no inheritance—he will refuse it—or she can have Milly’s money, but not him. And thus Kate’s self-pitying last line.
That’s it. It’s Dickensian/soap-opera level plotting, which isn't really the point. But, as I move away from this book, the plot's really all that will stay with me, I think. The mists of HJ’s endless descriptions of the internal workings of the characters’ minds will float away.
Do we sympathize with Densher? He, like almost everyone else in this book, is purposely drawn in chiaroscuro, with ambivalent motives, half in shadow. Densher is, perhaps, less mercenary than Kate, who devises the plan, but is denied her celebratory Hannibal-from-the-A-Team cigar at the end when Densher finds his previously invisible resolve. But perhaps we understand why Kate is as she is, given her father’s fall, her sister’s squalid situation, the pressure of keeping Aunt Maud pleased?
Maybe, but, in an almost reflexive way, instead of creating Dickensian cardboard, 2-D characters, some pure good, some pure bad, HJ draws all of his main characters—except for Milly and Mrs. Stringer—as complicated, in a way that feels too easy in itself, like the ending. It’s easy, in a way, to paint these characters as having such mixed and complicated motives, and leaving the reader unable to really side with anyone. Like the ending, there’s a hint of a cop out in that.
Sure, it’s more “intelligent” or “complicated” to have such unresolved, ambivalent characters—and perhaps that was an advance in the art at the time—but, read now, it feels simplistic and unresolved in its own way: ambivalent characters ambivalently coast along into an unsurprisingly ambivalent ending. It shouldn’t come as any surprise if the reader’s response is also . . . ambivalent.
ajreader's review against another edition
3.0
Read my full thoughts over at Read.Write.Repeat.
Despite an intriguing plot, I struggled to engage with this turn-of-the-century British love triangle. I did not dislike the book, but it certainly did not win me over in the big way I was hoping for, which is unfortunate, considering James has two more works on the Modern Library list. It was just bland to me. There's really no other way to describe it.
Despite an intriguing plot, I struggled to engage with this turn-of-the-century British love triangle. I did not dislike the book, but it certainly did not win me over in the big way I was hoping for, which is unfortunate, considering James has two more works on the Modern Library list. It was just bland to me. There's really no other way to describe it.
brdgtc's review against another edition
2.0
A bunch of horrible people having conversations about other conversations they had with other horrible people.
jenmcmaynes's review against another edition
4.0
The language (all those fussy dependent clauses!), the length, the fact that not much happens... all reasons I should have hated this book. Yet I really enjoyed it. The psychological depth, the subtle shadings of character and action, the complicated relationships- especially between Kate and Merton- were fascinating. Milly was a bit too idealized for me, but overall I enjoyed this much more than I anticipated.
aaronentaylor's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5