The Golden Bowl (Penguin Classics)

Book Description

This story of the alliance between Italian aristocracy and American millionaires is "a work unique among all [James's] novels: it is [his] only novel in which things come out right for his characters ...he had finally resolved the questions, curious and passionate, that had kept him at his desk on his inquiries into the process of living. He could now make his peace with America--and he could now collect and unify the work of a lifetime."

Customer Reviews:

The deepest pleasures of a masterwork--but only for the mature, meditatively reflective few. .......2007-08-27

This last completed novel of Henry James, the third of his three culminating masterworks, is not for the reader who doesn't understand that there is a difference between high, difficult, art and pop art--and that the difference has nothing whatever to do with class or politics or social status, but rather with depth, complexity, subtlety, and virtuosity of articulated nuance.

The storyline is fairly simple (easy to look up), but what makes the book most rewarding, read after read, is the way that Henry James brings dramatically to life, with unexpected richness of texture, every feeling of passion, ambivalence, anxiety, and inner conflict of the Prince, his lover Charlotte, her husband (Mr. Verver),the Prince's wife (Mr. Verver's daughter, Maggie), and the Assinghams.

Like "Hamlet" or a late Beethoven quartet, one learns to savor "The Golden Bowl" through repeated performances--except here, the reader must do the performing, a daunting challenge that takes patience and a concentration of intelligence that few enough people are interested in cultivating or even capable of. What is the reward for essaying to make James's visionary work one's own visionary work? In a word, it is the life-enriching experience of what Shelley once called "transforming enlargements of the imagination."

More than I was up for, I think.......2007-08-22

The rating is for my own enjoyment of the book - not for its literary quality.

Henry James is not my cup of tea. Tea being an appropriate metaphor, as Mr. James could no doubt write fifty pages about how a woman holds her cup of tea with her pinkie finger extended just so, therefore indicating to the rest of the group her inner turmoils, her family history, and what she fed the dog for dinner.

He has a tremendous command of vocabulary, long, complex sentences, engaging characters but it is such a long, slow read for me I find myself having to go back to the beginning of sentences just to see what the heck was going on when he started them.

This book took me all month to read, with some personal time off causing part of the delay, and reluctance to dive back in the rest. I am sure it is my own failing as a reader, but from a pure reading enjoyment viewpoint, this did not do it for me.

Not for me, but..........2007-01-13

"The Golden Bowl" (1904), written by Henry James (1843 -1916), is a book that many consider a classic. I read it many years ago, and decided to read it again after hearing a friend mention it, and realizing I didnt remember much about its plot.

The story is set in England, and its main characters are Prince Amerigo, Maggie Verver and her father Adam, and Charlotte Stant, Maggies best friend. Amerigo is an Italian nobleman that happens to be poor, and decides to marry the very rich Maggie in order to become wealthy. Maggie has a very close relationship with her father, and decides that Adam should marry Charlotte, so that he wont be alone. What Maggie doesnt know, however, is that Amerigo was the lover of her friend Charlotte. That seemingly small detail, that Amerigo and Charlotte go to great lenghts to hide, complicates the relationships of the four characters, and immerses them in a web of lies and simulation. Appearances and reality, what is more important? And what doesn a golden bowl have to do with all that?

If you are interested in finding the answer to those questions, and dont mind the fact that James style is somewhat baroque in this book, you might be interested in reading "The Golden Bowl". The descriptions are great, and the author excels at making you understand what these couples are thinking, and feeling. On the other hand, not much happens, and this is the kind of book that can be easily forgotten. That is what already happened to me once, and it is likely to happen again, at least to me. I dont recommend "The golden bowl", due to the fact that there are other books out there that are unforgettable, books that simply make you remember them...

Belen Alcat

PS: If you are interested in reading this book, please do so. "The golden bowl" was not for me, but maybe you will understand and appreciate it better.

The Golden Bowl: The Meaning of "Value".......2006-08-15

Reading THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James can be either an exercise in frustration or of exhiliration. If after reading a few pages one deduces the former, then one has allowed an excessively convoluted and ornate prose style to interpose itself between a writer with a straightforward theme that is inextricably intertwined with a style that is its polar opposite with a reader who expects the straightforwardness of the theme to link with a parallel style. James uses grammar and syntax in much the same way that Milton does in PARADISE LOST. Reading James and liking James is an acquired taste. For the novels leading up to this one, one can almost argue that James was simply getting ready to write what is generally considered his master work.

The plot is relatively uncomplicated. A father daughter relation is exceptionally close. Their immense wealth insulates them from the mundane trivialities of life. Both are used to acquiring things of value: a painting, a house, and when need be, a husband for the daughter. Adam Verver is the father, a basically decent sort who has Midas type wealth, but is determined to use it to make his daughter happy, a state of mind that is no more different--or more expensive--than acquiring anything else. Maggie is the daughter, also a good hearted woman who has learned from her father that value must be exchanged for value. Enter Prince Amerigo, a titled but impoverished European who is selected to marry Maggie. He is willing to swap values. The difference between his decision and theirs is that he knows what he is contemplating is wrong, but as long as all concerned are upfront, no harm done. Complicating matters is Charlotte Stant, a close friend of Maggie, who is in love with Amerigo and he with her, but both acknowledge that marriage is out of the question. Maggie convinces Charlotte to marry her father--again an exchange of value for value. The two marriages occur and things are more or less normal for a few years. Maggie has a baby, but neither the baby nor her husband are allowed to interfere with her relation with Adam. Maggie, eager to have more time for her father, encourages Amerigo and Charlotte to spend time together. Eventually, Maggie gets suspicious and guesses the truth. The novel ends with Charlotte and Adam leaving for America, leaving a suddenly contrite Maggie to relight the spark in a marriage that was never properly lit in the first place.

The dominant theme is less complex to relate than to analyze. All four spouses are willing to marry as long as each one receives value for value. For Adam, this value is renting/buying (it is difficult to approximate the correct verb) a titled husband that he believes will make Maggie happy. He is quite prepared to pay millions. For Amerigo, this value is getting enough money so that he can make his way in the world. He is prepared to be a probably non-functional trophy husband. For Maggie, this value is fulfilling her biological imperative, and she is prepared to ignore Amerigo or pay attention to him as the case may be. And for Charlotte, this value parallels Amerigo's and she is prepared to pay the same price as he does.

Unifying all these cross-cutting themes is the Golden Bowl of the title. Early in the novel and before any of the marriages, Amerigo and Charlotte plan to buy a suitable gift for his marriage to Maggie: a magnificent golden bowl, with a minute defect, a slight crack. They refuse to buy it for that reason. Later in the novel, the bowl reappears with Maggie's learning that it had been intended as her wedding gift. Maggie sees, perhaps subliminally, that the bowl is symbolic of her life with her father and her husband. As long as she lives with her father, life will be an uncracked bowl, perfect externally but inhuman internally. Maggie's realization that her life with Amerigo must contain that crack comes with breathtaking force. She, Amerigo, Adam, and Charlotte have chosen to live with a cracked bowl. For those readers with the patience and skill in deciphering an admittedly complex text, they can see that in this imperfect bowl Henry James has made a very profound statement about the human condition.

The Golden Bowl.......2006-04-04

Reading late James - particularly "The Golden Bowl" - often strikes me as being similar to reading a novel in a foreign language whose vocabulary you have mastered but whose grammar remains partially a mystery. Anyone who has attempted this will recognise the sensation of understanding all the words, yet not understanding how they fit together. You read a sentence two, three or five times, and it is only then that you understand, if at all, the meaning of all the words combined. Sometimes the meaning never becomes clear.

"Late James" is a foreign language, but one in which I have become more fluent over the years. When I first read "The Golden Bowl" some years ago I understood very little and did not enjoy it. The long, convoluted sentences, with so many things only half spoken - and often never spoken at all - seemed a vast and elaborate machine which never seemed to produce enough to justify its own existence.

Yet now, having read most of James over the intervening years, I have become more fluent in his language, and find the circumlocutions, complexities and ellipses of the "late style", if not exactly crystal clear, then certainly much clearer, and even rather comforting and enjoyable. The subtle discriminations, the way James holds up to the light tenuous motives and turns them slowly - very slowly - so that their hidden facets become, fleetingly, visible; the very real portrayal of interesting characters that James reveals; as well as the languorous, unpredictable turns of a Jamesian sentence - all offer the kinds of pleasures that no other writer (possibly excepting Proust) is able to produce.

"The Golden Bowl" consists largely of conversations, some continuing over many, many pages. The content of those conversations would, for most writers, comprise the details between the main actions of the plot; and for most writers, those conversations would occupy, at most, a few pages. But for James, it is the interstices between big events, the dramas, not so much of everyday events, but of the subtle daily manipulations, the unspoken victories and losses of personal relationships, which interest him and which comprise the novel.

The subject of "The Golden Bowl" is the reciprocal marriages of father and daughter, to a pair of former lovers. The novel is about the tensions and deceptions, and the manipulations, that arise as a result. Who knows what about whom? Who is responsible for what actions? Who is deceiving whom, and who has the moral authority as a consequence? Ultimately, who, if anyone, triumphs, and is their victory a hollow one? These are the sorts of questions James is concerned with.

"The Golden Bowl" rates as a great novel - one of the greatest of the twentieth century - because of these qualities as well as its ambiguities. It is also an enjoyable novel, but to enjoy it you must first be sympathetic to the sorts of concerns James is interested in, and you also need to be conversant in his distinctive language. Both of these require - or at least I would recommend - first reading James' earlier and middle period works. For most of us, late James can be a struggle, but one which is justified by its rewards. I don't regard reading "The Golden Bowl" as an exercise only for academics, pretentious aesthetes or literary masochists, but I sympathise with those who do.

Giving "stars" to a James novel seems a little inappropriate (he is beyond these kinds of simplistic judgements), But I have given "The Golden Bowl" four stars, because there are times when it strains the patience even of those who admire the writing style and enjoy the late James novels, and I prefer "The Ambassadors" or "The Wings of the Dove". Nevertheless, "The Golden Bowl" is one of the great novels in English and is highly recommended to anyone who has read and enjoyed James' other novels.

The Golden Bowl (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The Golden Bowl (Penguin Modern Classics)
Henry James
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Golden Bowl by Henry James

The Golden Bowl
Henry James
Manufacturer: Toby Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1592640478

Customer Reviews:

The Golden Bowl by Henry James.......2007-02-21

Have not read it yet though I saw the series on Channel 13 a long time ago. I am sure it is a masterpiece.

The Figure of Consciousness: William James, Henry James and Edith Wharton (Literary Criticism and Culturaltheory)

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The Figure of Consciousness: William James, Henry James and Edith Wharton (Literary Criticism and Culturaltheory)
Jill M. Kress
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0415939798

Book Description

Through analysis of metaphors of consciousness in the philosophy and fiction of William James, Henry James and Edith Wharton, this work traces the significance of representations of knowledge, gender and social class, revealing how writers conceived of the self in modern literature.

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The Golden Bowl
Henry James
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The characters of love;: A study in the literature of personality

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The characters of love;: A study in the literature of personality
John Bayley
Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006AWXVS

The character of love: A study in the literature of personality

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The character of love: A study in the literature of personality
John Bayley
Manufacturer: Collier Books
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ASIN: B0007E7XZ4

The Dialect of the Tribe: Speech and Community in Modern Fiction

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The Dialect of the Tribe: Speech and Community in Modern Fiction
Margery Sabin
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195041534

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The bold careers of Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett--writers with profoundly unsettled cultural identities--spark Margery Sabin's investigation of values carried through inherited forms of speech. The Dialect of the Tribe offers fresh readings of such great novels as The Golden Bowl, Women in Love, Ulysses, and the Beckett trilogy which illustrate how complex attitudes toward the speech forms of language inform the most varied social, psychological, and aesthetic structures in modern fiction. Sabin explores the powerful tension in these writers between appreciation for the resources of common speech in English and contrary longings for a freedom associated with abstraction, system, and foreign or private language. Her own critical procedures transcend restrictive and reductive polarizations, as she lucidly analyzes the biases of both the Anglo-American critical tradition and the challenge to that tradition in French literary theory and practice. Written in a jargon-free, accessible style, The Dialect of the Tribe argues that the ambiguous cultural positions of the great modern novelists in English emerge as a major source of their strength--the rich traditions of the English language give enlivening power to writers also remarkable for their drive toward radical independence and skepticism.

Golden age, Great Depression, and Dust Bowl

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Golden age, Great Depression, and Dust Bowl
Ellen May Stanley
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Golden Apples in Silver Bowls: The Rediscovery of Redeeming Love (Mennonite sources and documents)

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Manufacturer: Routledge Cavendish
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Bankruptcy Law and Practice in Ireland
William Holohon , Mark Sanfey , and Bill Holohan
Manufacturer: Round Hall Ltd
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The law and practice of bankruptcy and arrangements in Ireland: With statutes, and the rules and forms in the King's Bench division and the local bankruptcy courts
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John Levy
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The law and practice of bankruptcy in Ireland: Comprehending all statutes, rules, and orders, now in force : with forms and directions for use
Edward Clements
Manufacturer: W.B. Kelly
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The law and practice of the Bankruptcy Court, Ireland: Comprising the statutes relating to bankrupts and debtors in Ireland : the general orders of the ... law courts and chairmen of Quarter Sessions
W. H Kisbey
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