Review: "Daisy Miller" By Henry James

Henry James is a prismatic kind of fellow with his fiction.  I am beginning to understand that he likes to write about his characters and actions from differing perspectives, and his novella Daisy Miller is certainly an excellent example.  Daisy Miller was written by James in 1878, and first serialized in Cornhill Magazine, edited by Virginia Woolf's father, Leslie Stephen. 

In this short tale, the eponymous Daisy Miller is a wholesome and fresh young American woman on her first tour of Europe with her nine-year old brother, and her mother, who seems to be a bit of a hypochondriac.  In Vevay, Switzerland, Daisy meets an American expatriate, Mr Winterbourne, who is visiting his aunt.  In his late-twenties, Winterbourne becomes quite taken with the vivacious Daisy, and accompanies her on an unchaperoned tour of a nearby castle, drawing words of warning from his aunt.  He encounters Daisy again later in the season in Rome and finds that she is spending much of her time with an Italian young man, much to the chagrin of the American expat community who begin to shun her in society. 

Daisy Miller is all about perceptions and misunderstandings, and it seems that most of them work to the detriment of Daisy and her reputation among the expats.  Winterbourne and the reader eventually do come to terms with Daisy and her 'free-wheeling' way of experiencing life, and come to realize that she is genuinely innocent and is much misunderstood and maligned by the Society wags around her.  The reader eventually realizes that perhaps it is not Daisy that has the problem with societal norms and cultural values, but that the expat definition of appropriate behavior is outdated and out-of-touch with the 'modern' Americans that are now coming over to Europe from places like Daisy's Schenectady, New York.

This is an extremely well-written story that quickly engages the reader, with well-constructed characters, and a fascinating plot that provides a terrific snap-shot of what life must have been like in the latter half of the 19th century for Americans traveling abroad in Europe.  While the ending is somewhat unexpected and sad, it makes the story even more powerful and thought-provoking.  Finally, it is worth mentioning that a wonderful book-end to Daisy Miller is a short story written by Edith Wharton in 1934, entitled Roman Fever.  I strongly recommend reading Wharton's short story once you've completed Henry James's Daisy Miller.

***

Daisy Miller
By Henry James, 1878
Penguin Classics Edition
Softcover, 128 pp. 

Review: "What Maisie Knew" By Henry James

In the annals of classic fiction I have encountered some truly monstrous parents (some of the parents in Austen or Dickens certainly come to mind), but the mother and father of little Maisie Farange must surely be the worst.  They are truly beyond despicable, and if I could reach into the pages of Henry James's What Maisie Knew, I'd throttle them both!  Okay, now that I've gotten that off of my chest, perhaps I can provide an objective review of this novel.  What Maisie Knew was written by Henry James in 1897, while he was still living in London.

The structure of this sophisticated novel is extraordinarily clever, as the entire plot is laid out from the perspective of the little girl, Maisie (and keep the title of the novel in mind as you read too).  The novel starts off with the parents being granted a divorce and the court awarding that custody of Maisie will be shared.  This poor little girl has to spend six months with her father and then be packed off for six months with her mother.  What is even worse is that the parents use Maisie in their on-going fight-to-the-death with one another, while at the same time they take on new spouses (and then immediately begin adulterous relationships!).  And while Maisie is wise beyond her years and quite perceptive to what is going on around her in the world of the grown-ups that she is surrounded by, much of what she observes has to be interpreted through the lens of the experience of her own childhood and the little bit of love and kindness bestowed upon her from a scant few of the adults--but not her own parents--around her. 

Through the course of the novel Maisie does gravitate to the two characters that do seem offer her the hope and opportunity of kindness, love, and some semblance of stability, and those two characters are her governess, Mrs Wix, and her mother's second ex-husband Sir Claude.  Sir Claude has his own 'bag-of-issues' to deal with, but he is really and truly genuinely concerned about Maisie and her long-term welfare.  He ends being more of father-figure to the little girl, by a long-shot, than her own father did on his very best day.   Ultimately, these two people, whom Maisie trusts with her heart and soul, do end up making the right decisions that give this little girl a chance for a wholesome life.

Finally, it needs to be said that there's much in this novel that can offend modern sensibilities, particularly when it comes to how children are looked after (or not), guardianship issues, or even the exercise of parental responsibilities (or not!).  The reader needs to remember that there weren't governmental agencies like 'Child Protective Services' in Victorian England to provide that safety net for children in Maisie's situation.  Henry James, like Charles Dickens before him, seems to have been much affected by child welfare issues, and I have to think he was trying to make a point here that parental responsibility is a duty and an obligation and that love and a nurturing stable environment are what every child needs and deserves.  As painful as it was to read, I'm glad that I read What Maisie Knew, and look forward to reading it again in the future.  At this point, I would give this 3.5 stars out of five.

But I still want to reach into the pages of this novel and throttle both of her parents!

***

What Maisie Knew
By Henry James, 1897
Penguin Classics Edition
Softcover, 309 pp.

Review: "Something Red" By Douglas Nicholas

Every once in a great while you just happen upon a book and author that you absolutely know nothing about, but you take a chance and take it home with you and you are simply blown away at what you've discovered.  Something Red, by Douglas Nicholas, is just such a book and is really a stunning little novel.  This dark and grim story revolves around a small troupe of travelers on a journey through a rugged wild portion of northern England during a bleak and cold winter in the 13th Century.  During the course of their trip the horror and terror mounts until the explosive climax near the end of the book.

The author of Something Red, Douglas Nicholas, in my opinion, is a writer of great promise.  Not only can he spin a great yarn, but his prose is gorgeous and verges on the poetic at times; which actually makes sense as Nicholas is apparently a well known published poet from the Hudson Valley of New York state.  The characters in Something Red are interesting and well wrought, and his use of magic and mythology is deft and sure-footed and works well in the plot.  I have to say that more times than not this dark tale reminded me of the early Anglo-Saxon alliterative epic poem, Beowulf (especially Seamus Heaney's brilliant translation). Also, it is actually quite hard to pigeon-hole this book as horror, fantasy, mystery, or medieval historical fiction--as it really is all of the above.  Mostly though, this is just one damn good book that I had a hard time putting down until I'd read the last page.  I ain't gonna say anymore, other than to urge you to read this superb and riveting debut novel from Douglas Nicholas.  This received five out of five stars from me, as it really was a most excellent novel, and one that I will surely read again sometime soon.

Something Red
By Douglas Nicholas
Emily Bestler Books/ATRIA Books, 2012 
315 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4516-6007-4

***

Review: "The Road" By Cormac McCarthy

I just finished rereading this spare, but intensely powerful, little book.  There's an almost intoxicating quality to the writing of Cormac McCarthy, and The Road is an excellent example of his mastery of the craft.  I swear that there is simply not one extraneous word, and that his brief--almost painfully brief--prose somehow majestically morphs into an elegy that becomes a song of sorrow about the last vestiges of human existence on a shattered Earth. 

The Road is both relentlessly sad and horrifying as the reader follows the struggles of the 'man' and the 'boy' as they slowly journey on the road across the ash-covered and tortured landscape.  But as painful as this book is to read, it is also at the same time the story of a beautiful love between a father and his son.

The Road is, at some level I think, a retelling of the Myth of Prometheus.  Prometheus, as you may recall, was the Titan that created humankind from clay and then gifted them with fire.  For defying Zeus and providing humans with fire, he was chained to a mountain-top where each day an eagle swooped down and devoured his liver.  In The Road, the man and boy travel down the road trying to be the "good guys" and "carrying the fire" in a world that has obviously been, and continues to be, brutally ravaged by fire (whether it was by nuclear holocaust, an asteroid strike, or environmental catastrophe is not made clear, nor is it particularly relevant).

In my opinion, McCarthy's prose in The Road rises to the level of the apocalyptic poetic visions of William Blake, William Wordsworth, or even T.S. Eliot, and is richly loaded with allegory, metaphor, and symbology.  And while The Road is grim, dark, and utterly bleak, it is entirely consistent with much of the rest of McCarthy's oeuvre.  Like many of McCarthy's earlier works, The Road is the story of an epic journey and the relationship between a father and son (or older man and younger man).  Think about, for example, Blood Meridian ("The Judge" and "The Kid"); No Country for Old Men (the Sheriff and his Uncle); and then each of the books in The Border Trilogy, and some of his earlier "Appalachian" works like The Orchard Keeper, Suttree, and Outer Dark.

Some how, some way, McCarthy, while exploring the dark side of humanity in his fiction also always manages to find the spark of goodness in some of his characters--and yet Hope always remains an elusive and sketchy notion.  For me, what makes McCarthy's vision of Hell so goddamned terrifying is that there is a palpable sense of doubt in the validity of Hope and Grace in his fiction.  In The Road it is the 'glimmer' of Hope that carries the scent of salvation and keeps the reader going page after page, paragraph after paragraph, and spare sentence after spare sentence. 

When you read Cormac McCarthy you quickly come to realize that really bad things can happen to decent people and that walking 'the road' of life is a difficult proposition at best. Tough stuff to read, but oh so worth it.

***

Review: "Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage" By Noah Andre Trudeau

This was an amazing book, and ever-so-well written!  I have been to Gettysburg National Military Park several times over the course of my adult life, and I never fail but to be astounded at the overall importance of this battle and that the Union Army was able to ultimately prevail over the Confederate Army during this battle on July 1-3, 1863.  The other important element of this battle that Americans need to understand is the sheer ferocity with which this battle was fought between the two sides.  It really was blood-letting on an almost unimaginable scale with about 45,000 men--blue and grey--killed, wounded, or missing over the three days of battle in this quiet little Pennsylvanian town.

In 2002, former National Public Radio producer Noah Andre Trudeau published his own detailed account of this significant episode in American history, and it really is a solid winner.  With 65 superb maps in the book, this is virtually an hour-by-hour, or blow-by-blow account of the battle, and for much of the book leaves the reader almost breathless with anticipation as one turns the pages, as this battle really was a very near-run thing and could just as easily have turned to the favor of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. 

A lot of books (a bazillion, maybe?) have been written about this seminal battle of the American Civil War, and it is easy to see why.  The Battle of Gettysburg is generally considered to be the "High Tide of the Confederacy", and with Lee's loss at Gettysburg on July 1-3, and the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg to Grant's Army on July 4th, it really did become just a matter of time before the war would end in victory for Lincoln and the Union. I remember reading Edwin B. Coddington's The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command many, many years ago, and while Coddington's analysis is truly superb, I think that most readers are likely to enjoy Trudeau's even more.  I've also yet to read Stephen Sears' one-volume account, Gettysburg, but have it on my 'Mount To-Be-Read' shelf waiting for me (I'm actually halfway through it now).  Finally, if you're interested in fictional accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg, I urge you to read Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels and the very recent novel, Cain at Gettysburg, by Ralph Peters (review posted, above).

If you're at all interested in the American Civil War, American history, or military strategy and tactics, I highly recommend Noah Andre Trudeau's book, Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage.  Finally, it is worth pointing out that the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg is coming up next year--July 1-3, 2013.  This book would be worth reading between now and then and ponder the consequences; and if you've the time, take your family and go visit this hallowed ground.

***

Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage
By Noah Andre Trudeau
Harper, 2002
Hardcover, 720 pages

Review: "11/22/63" By Stephen King

Whee-Doggy!  This was a great novel from start-to-finish!  A real barn-burner of a book!  Over the years I have come to conclusion that Stephen King may very well be the modern American equivalent of Charles Dickens, and 11/22/63 has only reinforced that notion.  The man sure knows how to write about the human character--both good and bad. 

11/22/63 is not a mystery, it is not a tale of horror, nor is it fantasy.  In my humble opinion, this is simply one helluva good story about a whole bunch of interesting characters inside one humdinger of a plot.  I started this early one morning and in about 48 hours I'd plowed through all 850 pages.  You just can't put this damn thing down once started!

In a nutshell, here's the premise of the novel--

If you could go back in time are there things that you'd try and change?  In 11/22/63, the protagonist, Jake Epping, has just this opportunity, and he goes back in time in an effort to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  The only catch is that he has to go back in the Fall of 1958--so, he needs to integrate himself into the America of the late-50s for nearly five years before that fateful day in Dallas in 1963.  What one learns during the course of reading this incredible novel is that the past is obdurate to change, and that there are always unintended consequences to all of the actions, be they in the past or present.  I am not going to say any more about the plot of the novel, other than it is one of the more thought-provoking plots I've encountered in a while.  There were a lot of 'Whoa!' moments as I read this book.

After reading a lot of Stephen King's fiction in the 70s and 80s, and especially after reading his magnum opus "The Stand", I kind of stopped reading his work.  I think it was because I just felt that The Stand really couldn't be topped, and that I wanted that novel to be my standard of excellence associated with his body of work.  Well, I gotta say that 11/22/63 is right up there, and I think is destined to ultimately be considered a true classic of 'time-travel' fiction.  I highly recommend this book, you won't be sorry.  Finally, I have to say that I think that this book would make one terrific movie!

***

11/22/63
By Stephen King
Scribner, 2011
Hardcover, 849 pages

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"Mrs. Lidcote had deplored, when she started, that the Utopia was a slow steamer, and would take eight full days to bring her to her unhappy daughter; but now, as the moment of reunion approached, she would willingly have turned the boat about and fled back to the high seas.  It was not only because she felt still so unprepared to face what New York had in store for her, but because she needed more time to dispose of what the Utopia had already given her."

My teaser was taken from page 293 of my current read-- The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, New York Review Books, Introduction by Roxana Robinson, NYRB, 2007, 452 pages.  This particular 'teaser' selection is from one of her very well-known short stories, Autres Temps...

This is a truly wonderful collection of twenty of Edith Wharton's short stories revolving around life in New York City.  As much of a fan as I am of Wharton's novels, I am equally enamored with her shorter fiction.  This makes a delightful bedside table book, with a chapter a night being just what the doctor ordered.  Enjoy!

[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]