Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Golden Bowl by Henry James ISBN: 0-14-043235-3 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1985 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.85 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: This book is quite something
Comment: I love this book. If you think Henry James is hard to stomach, yeah, it's true but once you get into it, it's like you're floating in this sea of lush, rich prose. James makes you like sympathetic and angry for/at all of the characters . It's wonderfully not settling. By which my primary example here will be Charlotte and Amerigo, who everyone is prepared to root for. But instead of making both of them so wonderfully pitiable, James gives them life; Charlotte is not quite so lovable and Amerigo is a lazy-ass who is probably just using her for the sex. James never comes out and says these thing (cuz then it wouldn't be literary) but he like hints them in this very cool way. Read it
Rating: 4
Summary: Ultimate Henry James: Hard to Read But You Will Be Rewarded
Comment: The last completed novel by Henry James is, like preceding works of his later era ("The Wings of the Dove" comes up to mind first), very hard to read. That's the warning to every unwary reader who happens to think about starting to read Henry James anew.
The plot is simple: its about two couples of people -- Charlotte and Amerigo, and Adam Verver and his daughter Maggie Verver. Charlotte loves Amerigo, who, however, decides to marry Maggie. Soon after that, Charlotte marries Adam Verver, an American millionaire. Still, Amerigo and Charlotte maintain their former relations as lovers until their secret is discovered by Maggie unexpectedly with an advent of a golden bowl, which looks perfect outward, but deep inside cracked. Maggie, who greatly adores her deceived father, in turn, starts to move in order to mend the cracked relations, or secure the apparently happy family life without disturbing the present relations.
As this sketch of the story tells you, one of the favorite topics of the 19th century literature -- adultery -- is staged in the center of the book, but the way James handles it is very different from those of other American or British writers. The meaning is hidden in a web of complicated, even contorted sentences of James, and you have to read often repeatedly to grasp the syntax. The grammar is sometimes unclear, with his frequent use of pronouns and double negatives, and very often you just have to take time to understand to what person James' "he" or "she" really refers to. It is not a rare thing for you to find that a paragraph starts with those "he" and "she" without any hint about its identity, so you just read on until you hit the right meaning of these pronouns. And this is just one example of the hard-to-chew James prose. If you think it is pompous, you surely are excused.
But as you read on again, you find, behind this entangled sentences and a rather banal melodramatic story, something intelligent, something about humans that lurks in the dark part of our heart. I will not pretend that I can understand all of the book, but James clearly shows how we, with a limited ability of our perception, try to act as the characters of the book do, in the given atomosphere of society. To me, this book is about the way of the people's behavior luminously recorded; about the way of our expressing and perceiving ourselves without uttering them aloud.
Gore Vidal says about the book: "James's conversational style was endlessly complex, humourous, unexpected -- euphemistic where most people are direct, and suddenly precise where avoidance or ellipsis is usual (see his introduction of "The Golden Bowl" in Penguin Classics edition. This is exactly the nature of this book, which would either attract or repel you. Unfortunately, I admit, this is not my cup of tea, for I prefer more story-oriented novels. Still, if you really want to challenge reading something really substantial, I for one recommend this book.
There is a sumptuous film version of the book, starring Uma Thurman and Nick Nolte. It might be a good idea to watch it before you start reading the book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Mixed reaction
Comment: Very long, very detailed, and a compendium of compound sentences. It's necessary to read this book during concentrated quiet time. It can be difficult to focus during a commute. James tells the story of a pair of former lovers, who are separately married to a wealthy father and his daughter. James details the relations among them before the marriage, during the betrayal, and after the discovery.
 |
Title: The Ambassadors by Henry James, Harry Levin ISBN: 0140432337 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1987 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
 |
Title: The Wings of the Dove by Henry James ISBN: 0140432639 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1986 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
 |
Title: The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, Geoffrey Moore ISBN: 014043223X Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1988 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
 |
Title: The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford, Thomas C. Moser ISBN: 019283620X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
 |
Title: The Princess Casamassima by Henry James ISBN: 014043254X Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1987 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
