/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13115037]

Redpill me on Henry James

[Anonymous No.13115056]

James scares the /lit/

[Anonymous No.13115059]

the GOAT character writer

[Anonymous No.13115062]

He looks like my uncle

[Anonymous No.13115077]

>>13115062
Did your uncle molest you?

[Anonymous No.13115098]

A literary eunuch, to quote Raymond Chandler.

[Anonymous No.13115103]

>>13115062
>>13115077

[Anonymous No.13115130]

Writes really long books about people getting taken advantage of. Pretty up front about the modern world in that his characters always operate in the framework of money = only way to lead an interesting and free life. People are always scheming to get money somehow. Based takes about Europe's sickly and decayed culture and writes about America's position in cultural history. What exactly will happen to America? He gives a few answers represented by his character's fate and personalities.

[Anonymous No.13115150]

>>13115059
Marionette maker*

[Anonymous No.13115303]

Early James: Good Realist author with a focus on the pschology of females
Late James: Proto-Modernist, almost impressionistic at times and notoriously difficult to read and understand
Typical subjects include the clash of American innocence and European experience, the intricacies of high society and the fate of tragic romances. Plebs and brainlets will often detest him because of the lack of plot and because of his long and elaborated sentences

[Anonymous No.13115324]

>>13115130
>really long books
Think Golden Bowl is his longest and that's about 600 pages. Most are in that 200-350 range, he hated those Victorian overly long novels

[Anonymous No.13115326]

>>13115303
What makes him difficult to read?

[Anonymous No.13115341]

>>13115037
No, You redpill ME on Henry James.

[Anonymous No.13115343]

>>13115324
the wings of the dove is 700 and portrait of a lady is 900

[Anonymous No.13115376]

>>13115343
Are you reading some large print version?

[Anonymous No.13115460]

>>13115376
Not the guy you're responding to but I honestly think you're confusing Henry James with someone else. His major novels are massive and feel longer even by his syntactic constructions. Maybe you're thinking of his loose baggy monster quote? That wasnt so much about length than it was about economy.

[Anonymous No.13115537]

>>13115460
Depends on your definition of massive I guess. He has nothing longer than 600 pages. Checking the penguin editions, Golden Bowl is 596, Portrait 583, Wings of the Dove 534.

[Anonymous No.13115621]

>>13115537
Can confirm.
Can add that the Hyperion WotD is 539.

[Anonymous No.13115654]

>>13115037
anglos cant write

[Anonymous No.13115796]

>>13115326
Mainly the way he builds his sentences. They are often very long and intricately composed.
This is a quote from The Golden Bowl that was posted in a Henry James thread last week or so:
>It argued a special genius; he was clearly a case of that. The spark of fire, the point of light, sat somewhere in his inward vagueness as a lamp before a shrine twinkles in the dark perspective of a church; and while youth and early middle-age, while the stiff American breeze of example and opportunity were blowing upon it hard, had made the chamber of his brain a strange workshop of fortune. This establishment, mysterious and almost anonymous, the windows of which, at hours of highest pressure, never seemed, for starers and wonderers, perceptibly to glow, must in fact have been during certain years the scene of an unprecedented, a miraculous white-heat, the receipt for producing which it was practically felt that the master of the forge could not have communicated even with the best intentions.

[Anonymous No.13115862]

>>13115303
When would you consider him to have changed into his Modernist phase, so I know what not to read.

[Anonymous No.13115931]

>>13115862
This chart is pretty accurate in my opinion, around 1896 is what's usually considered the turning point

[Anonymous No.13115969]

The man can't write. There isn't a single apt description or feasible character in any of his books, which are of no interest on account of their focus on cheap soap opera tier social sensibilities.

Take Isabel Archer. She is esteemed by some of the most select and discriminating men in the world. What is her great quality? Absolutely nothing. It's nonsense.

[Anonymous No.13116133]

>>13115130
I don't really see his depiction of Europe that way. Yes, oftentimes American characters get corrupted by Europeans but there are also novels like The Ambassadors where they just completely fall for the European culture and way of life. Since James himself lived in Europe for most of his life, I would doubt that he purely viewed Europe as sickly and decayed.

>>13115969
Are you the same anon that comes into every Henry James thread and cries about not understanding Isabel Archer?

[Anonymous No.13116203]

>named a character Fanny Assingham

[Anonymous No.13116216]

>>13115969
>This autist again
You got blown the fuck out in the last thread and you still won't withdraw?

[Anonymous No.13116307]

>>13115969
t.

[Anonymous No.13116404]

>>13116133
>Are you the same anon that comes into every Henry James thread and cries about not understanding Isabel Archer?
Are you the one who shit out pathetic platitudes about how I should just trust James and assume that there is something exceptional about her without actually providing evidence?
>>13116216
>You got blown the fuck out in the last thread and you still won't withdraw?
You people never can defend it. You just all spew the same easy platitudes. Often, you even get major narrative facts wrong, as if you haven't even read the book.
>>13116307
Coping jamestard

[Anonymous No.13116420]

His older brother had more talent. James is another over hyped American writer.

[Anonymous No.13116525]

>>13116420
Redpill me on William James pls

[Anonymous No.13116539]

>>13116404
We gave you real life examples of the novel's plot happening and you refused to accept them because they weren't specifically Isabel Archer.

[Anonymous No.13116671]

>>13116539
You mean that timr you said some commoner married an aristocrat as if modern aristocracy means anything? And as if that was my point and not the fact that she wins not only the aristocrat, but the other men as well?

Not very convincing

[Anonymous No.13116672]

>>13116133
Reread Portrait and his correspondence with his family

[Anonymous No.13116842]

>>13116671
James is describing the modern aristocracy you idiot. Lord Warburton is partly modeled off of Edward VII, grandfather of my example, Edward VIII
But you'r just an autist and will continue to conjure up new hoops for why more than one person courting the same woman is a totally unbelievable plot

[Anonymous No.13116895]

>>13116842
>grandfather
So not even the same generation, excellent.
Rest of your post does nothing. If she’s constantly attracting the best men, she must be special. If she’s special, the author must make us feel it. He doesn’t.
>durr durr dis aristocrat 50 years later fid this
Fuck off

[Anonymous No.13117987]

>>13115796
Thank you now I know I'm never reading this shit

[Anonymous No.13118619]

>>13116895
>why don't the relationships in this novel work like my R9k jpegs say relationships work? The novel must be wrong
Have sex, then you'll understand

[Anonymous No.13118791]

Just finished pic related yesterday. My favorite novel of his thus far. What does /lit/ think? I've read that some critics find that the metaphor of the golden bowl is a little too on the nose but I really enjoyed the way James utilized it. I also think there is a lot of humour to be found in the dialogues

[Anonymous No.13118796]

>>13118791
>I also think there is a lot of humour to be found in the dialogues
He does that dry deadpan irony as well as Austen.