BOOK REVIEW: THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James

The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first Henry James novel I have read in a decade. I  felt out of practice -- weak and flabby. It is also part of the last triumvirate of novels where his late, most oblique style is in full force. So I confess, at times I would finish one of those two-page paragraphs and not be quite sure who had decided what or what they were going to do about it.


During one dinner party scene -- I almost wrote during "one inevitable dinner party scene"-- I found myself wondering how people could be so involved in nuance and the minutiae of social maneuvering. Then a few nights later I was at a meeting of a non-profit organization I work with and realized that I was caught up in the low-comedy version of the same sort of thing. Breaking News! Henry James Relevant Today!


To sum up:


Mrs. Lowder -- a low-key version of one of James's great social tyrants.

Kate Croy -- she knew what she wanted even if I was never completely clear on that topic

Merton Densher -- maybe the closest James ever came to writing about a boy toy

Millie Theale -- the young, fantastically wealthy American heiress wit the vaguely defined but fatal disease.


I now look forward to the sexed-up film version that came out several years ago, and, yes, I look forward to getting back into the Jamesian habit.


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HENRY JAMES ON PARIS HILTON (2)

This would be, precisely, on the subject of that freedom, which she now quickly spoke of as complete. "That's of course by itself a great boon; so please don't think I don't know it. I can do exactly what I like -- anything in the wide world. I haven't a creature to ask -- there's not a finger to stop me. I can shake about till I'm black and blue. That perhaps isn't all joy, but lots of people, I know, would like to try it." He appeared about to put a question, but then had let her go on, which she promptly did, for she understood him the next moment as having taken it from her that her means were as great as might be. She had simply given it to him, so this was all that would ever pass between them on the odious head...All her little pieces had now fallen together for him like the morsels of coloured glass that used to make combinations, under the hand, in the depths of one of the polygonal peepshows of childhood.

Henry James,  The Wings of the Dove

(For Mr. James's further thoughts on Ms Hilton, follow the labels below.)

HENRY JAMES ON PARIS HILTON

[She] had in a sublime degree a sense closed to the general question of difficulty, which she got rid of furthermore not in the least as one had seen many charming persons do, by merely passing it on to others. She kept it completely at a distance: it never entered the circle; the most plaintive confident couldn't have dragged it in; and to tread the path of a confident was to accordingly live exempt. Service was so easy to render that the whole thing was like court life without the hardships. It came back of course to the question of money...it prevailed even as the truth of truths that the girl couldn't get away from her wealth...She couldn't dress it away; she could neither smile it away in any dreamy absence nor blow it away in any softened sigh. She couldn't have lost it if she had tried -- that was what it was to be really rich. It had to be the thing you were.

Henry  James,  The Wings of the Dove