Customer Reviews:
 Different editions May 23, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Readers should note that the green Penguin Pocket Classics edition (and the old budget Popular Classics one to which this is the successor) use the original 1881 edition of the novel. James subsequently revised his work for the 1908 New York edition, and this latter one is used by most current paperback versions including Penguin's full-price Classics edition, along with those of Vintage and Wordsworth and others. Among many changes the final paragraph of the novel is substantially longer and less abrupt in the 1908 version.
 Be careful what you ask for... March 28, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Re-reading this novel again so closely after reading Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? I can't help being struck by the similarity between Isobel Archer and Alice Vavasour. Both characters have financial freedom but crave social and spiritual freedom. Alice has the common sense to realise just in time, that her dependable John Grey, despite giving the appearance of a conventional man keen on a quiet life within the confines of what society expects, is far more likely to allow the freedom Alice craves, after their marriage.
Isabel Archer however, mistakes a bohemian lifestyle on offer with Osmond for the freedom she seeks. Her stubborness and to a certain extent, her inverted snobbery, prevent her from taking Lord Warburton seriously, a man ready and willing to allow her to live as she craves. Osmond plays Isabel like a harp, appearing to offer what she desires and then closing the door on life forever using the very social conventions and expectations that Isabel has feared she would find with Lord Warburton. It is superb writing. Compare this piece of art with it's cleverly calibrated plot and clearly drawn characters with rubbish like the Shadow of the Wind and you despair that people don't take the time to really read something worthwhile.
Henry James must have read Trollope's novel. He's taken the same basic story and converted it very skillfully for his own needs.
It's probably the best of Henry James' novels, so if you have limited time, read this one. The book's structure is nearly perfect, the writing is sublime in the same closely worked way that Jane Austen's prose enthralls. It's well worth the effort.
"The real offense was her having a mind of her own at all." February 13, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
When Isabel Archer, a bright and independent young American, makes her first trip to Europe in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who lives outside of London in a 400-year-old estate, she discovers a totally different world, one which does not encourage her independent thinking or behavior and which is governed by rigid social codes. This contrast between American and European values, vividly dramatized here, is a consistent theme in James's novels, one based on his own experiences living in the US and England. In prose that is filled with rich observations about places, customs, and attitudes, James portrays Isabel's European coming-of-age, as she discovers that she must curb her intellect and independence if she is to fit into the social scheme in which she now finds herself.Isabel Archer, one of James's most fully drawn characters, has postponed a marriage in America for a year of travel abroad, only to discover upon her precipitate and ill-considered marriage to an American living in Florence, that it is her need to be independent that makes her marriage a disaster. Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Florence, marries Isabel for the fortune she has inherited from her uncle, treating her like an object d'art which he expects to remain "on the shelf." Madame Serena Merle, his long-time lover, is, like Osmond, an American whose venality and lack of scruples have been encouraged, if not developed, by the European milieu in which they live. James packs more information into one paragraph than many writers do in an entire chapter. Distanced and formal, he presents psychologically realistic characters whose behavior is a direct outgrowth of their upbringing, with their conflicts resulting from the differences between their expectations and the reality of their changed settings. The subordinate characters, Ralph Touchett, Pansy Osmond, her suitor Edward Rosier, American journalist Henrietta Stackpole, Isabel's former suitor Caspar Stackpole, and Lord Warburton, whose love of Isabel leads him to court Pansy, are as fascinating psychologically and as much a product of their own upbringing as is Isabel. As the setting moves from America to England, Paris, Florence, and Rome, James develops his themes, and as Isabel's life becomes more complex, her increasingly difficult and emotionally affecting choices about her life make her increasingly fascinating to the reader. James's trenchant observations about the relationship between individuals and society and about the effects of one's setting on one's behavior are enhanced by the elegance and density of his prose, making this a novel one must read slowly--and savor. Mary Whipple
Did she jump or was she pushed November 1, 2001
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
James is keen to bring to the readers attention that he wishes for Isabel to have unlimited freedom to be what she wants to be. The central theme of the novel is Isabels indecision over what she should do with her life she admitts to Osmond that she changes her mind every day as to what to she should do with her life. It as if she is a blue print needing to be stamped by another ,unlike Henrietta Stackpole, she is unable to take responsibility for her own actions.The reason that it hard for the reader to have sympathy with Isabels predictment in her miserable marriage to Osmond. Is that in some respects she finds it romantic to suffer in her opinion the quest for greater knowledge can only be gained by suffering. She longs for passion and fulfillment but if she accepted Casper Goodwoods proposal it would be too easy, she would no longer have control and she would have to emotionally respond in a relationship. Osmond is sterile, controlling and one dimensional but Isabel gives very little indication that she is any different. The sterile world of Osmonds is a sanctionary away from the realities of love and life. Isabel belives that she has a greater mind than her peers. The power games that she engages with Osborne not only only gives him superiority but provides Isabel with a mission. If Isabel had a true intellect she would stand up to Osborne as she knows what he is about but as with many battered women the lure of the beast is an all consuming passion. She doesn't love Osborne but she is passionate about understanding him. She has money and good frends who are not conventional.The excuse that she had no option but to stay with Osborne because of the restrictions on women of the time do not apply here. The truth is that she wants to stay she enjoys the restrcitions of their narrow life. She admitts to Goodwood' the world is very small' which in essence is how Osborne views life perhpas they have meet their match in each other.
There could be hope for Isabel in the form of Casper Goodwood but it is in his hands. Isabel likes to be controlled. Henrietta is wise but kind, ' just you wait' she echos at Goodwoods disappointment at finding Isabel gone, she knows the romance could suceed but it depends on whether Goodwood is prepared to wait. For freedom in life is the last thing that Isabel truely wants. James challenged her restrictive nature by giving her the world.
|
