A Salute to The Ambassadors?

Ann Patchett is probably not an author I would have really considered reading. She's one of those authors I've "heard of" in the least meaningful way...I've walked past her books in Borders, vaguely registering them to the category of "not interested." And now that I've come across this article from NPR's "You Must Read This" series, Patchett has entered a new category: Never Pick Up A Book By This Author. Who else resides in this category? I couldn't come up with one. There is a separate but related category of Authors To Avoid Unless You Can't Avoid It, in which Henry James and probably Henry Miller are the first two that come to mind, though I'm sure there are numerous others. Fortunately, I don't believe Patchett is the type of author that will end up on any Best 100 lists that I - for some strange reason - make it my goal to wade through.

So, what is it that Patchett has done to incur such wrath from me, who has never - and now will never -read one of her books? She has exclaimed her love for not only Henry James - but The Ambassadors. That book is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, let me tell you. It is the work of a devil.

Here's what she said:

If the topic of conversation for our vacation was going to be The Ambassadors — that notoriously opaque Henry James novel published at the start of the 20th century — I would get to work straightaway.

And work it was. I followed Lambert Strether to Paris as he tried to reclaim the errant playboy Chad Newsome and return him home to his mother. The action was so subtle and the conversations so dense I could scarcely blink for fear of missing something. Suddenly reading felt more like deep sea diving, going miles out on a boat, suiting up in heavy gear, and then swimming down and down into that other world.

But that's what's so beautiful about the book — and about Henry James. Once you get in, it becomes your entire consciousness, the air you breathe. I had never read anything so all-encompassing, nothing that could knock out every bit of ancillary chatter in my brain. What seemed impenetrable at first slowly bloomed open with layer upon layer of meaning. The rewards of the effort were limitless, the literary equivalent of a religious text. As soon as I finished, I wanted to start again.

[Emphasis mine]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Ann Patchett you are so funny! Yes, James does feel like swimming - swimming in a sewage-polluted river where you encounter a giant, human-eating monster. You escape, but you are covered in nasty, stinkly slim that takes weeks to get off. Only it's not that exciting. It's also interesting that James knocks out all the other chatter in Patchett's head. Because whenever I pick up James, the chatter in my head increases: "Hey, wouldn't you rather be taking out the garbage?" Oh yes, I would rather take out the garbage. With my copy of The Ambassador's in it.

True friendship is a rare gift in life, but a friend with whom you can read and
reread The Ambassadors cannot be replaced.

Oh, so many mocking things come to mind: With friends like that, who needs enemies? If that's the true meaning of friendship, I'm glad I don't have any friends.

People have read this blog and quickly realized my hatred not just for Henry James, but for The Ambassador's in particular. They e-mail me and say, you're just being hyperbolic right? It can't be THAT bad, is it? "Yes. It really is," I advise them. They tell me they have to see for themselves. It's usually not that long after that that I get a follow-up e-mail. "You were right. It IS that bad." Listen to me here people: it really is that bad. And I would advise you to stay away from anyone who tells you they like it. Those people are working for Satan.

Wings of the Dove

I finally finished the evil Wings of the Dove this morning. In fact, I got up early just to read the last ten pages before work, so I wouldn’t have to drag the book around another day. It went immediately onto the Abandoned Books pile…along with three other Henry James books that I had acquired before realizing that I dislike him more than any other author.

The Wings of the Dove is the story of Kate Croy and Merton Densher. Kate and Merton want to get married, but Merton is penniless, and Kate’s family want to see her marry someone with a little money. Along comes American Milly Theale, who met Merton when he visited New York on a business trip. Milly is rich…and she is dying. Kate also discovers that Milly has a thing for Merton. So, Kate hatches an idea: Merton is to pretend that he’s interested in Milly so that she will hopefully leave him at least part of her fortune when she croaks. Then, Merton will be rich and he can marry Kate.

This plan both does and does not work out the way that Kate anticipated. Milly finds out that Kate and Merton are engaged, and Merton refuses to deny it outright because he feels that to do so would be to betray Kate. This causes Milly to give up on life and accept death. Around the time of her death, Merton receives a letter from Milly. He wants Kate to open it. They are sure that it will state that Milly has left Merton some an inheritance despite their deception. Kate flings the letter into the fire. A few months later, Merton receives an envelope full of money from America, which he forwards to Kate. It's a test of sorts, and the fact that she opened it disappoints Merton. He wants to be free of the deception, as he was never really comfortable with it and only participated to please Kate. He gives Kate an ultimatum: marry him without the money, or take the money and be free of him. In other words: Merton wants Kate to marry him because of who he is, not because he has money - to go back to the way it was before Milly. But Kate asserts that it will never be that way again.

I will admit that this novel wasn't as bad as The Ambassadors. But as I said in a previous post, that's not really saying much. For the most part, I was able to discern the plot of Wings of the Dove, which is more than I can say for The Ambassadors. I have come to the conclusion that reading Henry James is like watching a movie through a very thick fog. I cannot really articulate it any better than that. It's like watching a movie through some mist which clouds everything, so that you can see movement, and you can hear dialog, but somehow it just isn't clear.

This book draws parallels with other pieces of literature, the most striking being Vanity Fair and Sister Carrie. The ending of WotD was very Sister Carrie-esque: the characters spend an entire novel trying to get to a certain goal only to find that reaching the goal wasn't what they thought it would be...the grass isn't always greener. Kate Croy reminded me very much of Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair. But while Becky Sharp is a character that is clear and pointed, Kate Croy is nebulous. I had written in response to Sister Carrie that one could tell the difference between a good novel with despicable characters and a mediocre one based on one's response to the character, and WotD definately fits into the mediocre category.

Henry James apparently went through three phases of writing, which are lovingly (I'm sure) called James the First, James the Second, and the Old Pretender. James the First culminated with The Portrait of a Lady (1881), meaning that The Americans, The Europeans, Daisy Miller and Washington Square are part of his apprentice years characterized as simple and direct (obviously the antithesis of his later period). James the Second runs until approximately 1897 during which he focused on short stories and plays. The Turn of the Screw fits into this period, as does What Maisie Knew and The Bostonians. The rest of literary career is as the Old Pretender, which is of course the period that includes the three novels on the Modern Library list: The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl. This period is characterized by "frequent double negatives and complex descriptive imagery. Single paragraphs...run for page after page, in which an initial noun [is] succeeded by pronouns surrounded by clouds of adjectives and prepositional clauses, far from their original referents, and verbs [are] deferred and then preceded by a series of adverbs. The overall effect could be a vivid evocation of a scene as perceived by a sensitive observer." Note that the overall effect "could be" a vivid evocation... it could be, I suppose - but it isn't. Or maybe I'm just not a sensitive observer. If one must be a sensitive observer to enjoy, or at least understand, James's Old Pretender phase, I proudly proclaim that I am not a sensistive observer.

This phasing of James's writing career could explain why I, at one point in time, enjoyed The Turn of the Screw. Yes, I admitted it - I did at one point in time enjoy that particular story. Perhaps all is not lost for Daisy Miller, Washington Square, or The Portrait of a Lady. Or maybe I should give up.

The Telegraph quotes H.G. Wells on Henry James: "His vast paragraphs sweat and struggle; they could not sweat and elbow and struggle more if God himself was the processional meaning to which they sought to come. And all for tales of nothingness It is leviathan retrieving pebbles. It is a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost, even at the cost of its dignity, upon picking up a pea which has got into a corner of its den. Most things, it insists, are beyond it, but it can, at any rate, modestly, and with an artistic singleness of mind, pick up that pea." The article also says that Thomas Hardy once referred to James as Polonius of English Prose. "...surely the Polonius jibe was a very palpable hit? "More matter and less art" is exactly what any honest reader must sometimes wish to scream at the Old Pretender." EXACTLY!

The Telegraph also describes The Golden Bowl as a "dense" novel. Great...something to look forward to! Two down, one to go.

One last note: I had problems finding websites about WotD (the novel at least...there is a plethora of them about the movie, which seems to have taken some liberties with the novel). The only one I could find is here.

In summary, WotD wasn’t as painful as The Ambassadors, and that’s about its only redeeming quality. I got a call yesterday from the library that my interlibrary loan is in – Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man. It must be the universe’s reward for finishing WotD.

I hate Henry James and I'm not afraid to admit it

Wings of the Dove. I'll admit it's not as bad as The Ambassadors, but then that book was the worst book that I've ever read, so that's not really paying WotD a complement. I have a slightly better idea of what is going on than I did in The Ambassadors, in which I was so lost that I eventually just surrendered to the fact that I didn't get it, and would never get it, so I should just finish the stupid thing and be done with it. I feel the same way with WotD, though less so.

Here's what annoys me about Henry James: There are many times while reading any particular book when I suddenly realize that I don't really know what's going on. Oftentimes, that is my own fault for not paying attention. So, I go back and reread the last paragraph, or last page, or even last few pages, and I'm back up to speed on what is happening. With Henry James, however, it doesn't matter how much I read, or reread, or how intensely I pay attention...I still don't understand what's going on. His syntax is strange and he never seems to come to the point. His writing is circumlocutory: instead of writing one or two sentences, he writes 20, which really could be 60, circling around what he's trying to say. Most often, the only reason why I have any clue what is going on is because I read a summary of the book, so I know what is supposed to be going on, and I can kind of follow along. Note the "kind of," because even when I know the plot, I still am often lost.

When I was reading The Ambassadors, I thought that maybe I was just stupid...which is how I feel when I attempt to read Joyce, and occasionally Faulkner. That is until I found Doug Shaw's review of the book. I will be forever grateful to Doug Shaw for writing that review, as it completely saved my self-esteem...my feeling of worth as a reader. When reading Faulkner, or Joyce, or many of the other Writers For Very Intelligent Readers, I recognized it as such. But at least with them, if I worked at it hard enough, I could get it, and I would come out feeling so much smarter... there is a sense of accomplishment that comes with reading, finishing, and sort of understanding Joyce, or The Sound and Fury. But instinctively, I didn't feel that way with The Ambassadors. I kept thinking to myself, how did I become so stupid that I don't understand this? But then I found Doug Shaw, and I realized that I'm not stupid. The book is stupid. Henry James is stupid. It isn't just me.

While seeking out other people who hate Henry James, I found a lesson plan for high school teachers who are covering James. One of the suggestions was: 'Give students an in-class writing assignment: “What If You Were Henry James?”' What if I was Henry James? I would have saved the world the misery of having to read my books by never writing them.

CRIMES AGAINST COMMAS

"She had come on from Boston for that purpose; had seen little of the girl--or rather had seen her but briefly, for Mrs. Stringham, when she saw anything at all, saw much, saw everything--before accepting her proposal; and had accordingly placed herself, by her act, in a boat that she more and more estimated as, humanly speaking, of the biggest, though likewise, no doubt, in many ways, by reason of its size, of the safest." (Wings of the Dove)

I take back what I said about Anthony Powell using too many commas. I'm so sorry Tony! I completely forgot what a horrible comma-abuser Henry James is. I must have unconsciously blocked out the TRAUMA that I suffered reading The Ambassadors last year. Let this serve as a warning for others: it has been, my experience, thus far, that, like The Ambassaors, Wings of the Dove is, "humanly speaking," "in many ways," almost, as bad. WHEN WILL THE INSANITY END?

P.S.
Yes, there is a Stringham in both Dance to the Music of Time and Wings of the Dove.