(for Erika)
Henry James wrote The Portrait of a Lady as an American in Paris, about an American in Europe - thus, there is rich appreciation and experience of European culture in his novel; and there never was a character more suited to the purpose than Isobel Archer.
It's a sublime novel - the writing is unfailingly exquisite, the characters finely drawn, the conclusion a masterpiece of dramatic tension. Indeed, I don't believe that real people can be as finely drawn as Henry James's Isobel; she is altogether too whimsical for this prosaic world that I know. She excites passions in everyone she meets. To know her is to love her. Proud men want to marry her - wealthy women want to make her their protege - and she is above it all, not swayed by wealth or fame but by some esoteric high ideal. I've known people like that, but once I know them well enough they appear like other people, with flaws and quirks and private habits. Isobel Archer, unlike her readers and even her author, doesn't become coarser on acquaintance; she is consistently, constantly, vividly herself, inhabiting some rarified plane of aesthetic thought and experience. Thus, you might be perfectly right - we wouldn't like her at all. This is my problem with Henry James, his women have no crudities. And that's why I propose that she was never afflicted with diarrhoea. The end.
0 comments:
Post a Comment