The Turn of the Screw (Theatre in the Black 2019)

The Turn of the Screw was one of the first tales by Henry James I read. Unlike Daisy Miller (which I found to be subpar, and which turned my wife off of Henry James completely), James’ atmospheric and influential ghost story caught my imagination. Later writers, such as Shirley Jackson, would cite The Turn of the Screw as a significant influence in their own writing. In particular, the ambiguity as to whether the apparitions are real, or if they are all in the head of the protagonist, has inspired practically a whole genre. 

You can read my thoughts on The Turn of the Screw (and other novellas and short stories) here.  

Bakersfield is blessed with a vibrant local arts scene. In the last few years in particular, there have been a number of outstanding theater productions by several different groups. The newest group is Theatre in the Black, which focuses on darker works, typically with very small casts, and unusual venues. 

This particular version of The Turn of the Screw was Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation for a cast of two. The unnamed protagonist, a young governess, was performed by Caroline Fox. All of the other roles were handled by Bryan Maddern. These included the narrator (brother of the governess), the aristocratic uncle who hires her, the housekeeper, and the young boy. 

The script itself is fairly stripped down, but Theatre in the Black took it a few steps further toward minimalism. The performance was at The Guild House, a historic home transformed into a restaurant and event location. (I have played a few weddings there back in the day.) It certainly looks the part of the old mansion, although it is more Edwardian than Victorian. The larger room, essentially a living room, was used as the location. Roughly 25 chairs set at tables held the audience, and a small area in front of an elegant fireplace served as the stage. The only lighting was the candles and dim lights at the tables and on the walls and so on. One could consider it just a bit brighter than candlelight. There were no special effects. Not even sound effects. There were no costume changes. Everything was done by voice and body language. The apparitions were manifested only in the way the actors reacted to them. 

The play adheres pretty faithfully to the story. Like the original, key details are doled out slowly and incompletely. There are a few minor differences. (The one that came to mind is that the daughter eventually speaks in the original, but not in the play - because she exists only in the mind - no actor portrays her.) James never truly finished the narrative, but instead left it at a tragic point. We never do find out what happened to the other characters, and things are never actually explained. Which is exactly what James intended. 

One difference that was particularly noticeable was in the interpretation of the governess’ actions as connected with her repressed sexuality. This is nothing new, of course. I think it was in the 1930s that this theory was first set forth. The thing of it is, James’ writing is, if anything, about as unsexual as possible. Thinking back on the books of his I have read, it is kind of notable, actually, how he can write so well about emotional entanglement, and yet seem so sexless. There is some evidence that James himself was asexual. He never appears to have had a romantic relationship, although he was quite social and had friends. So, when I read The Turn of the Screw, I didn’t really see it as sexual - although romantic was at least possible. On the other hand, there is an argument to be made in favor of the sexual connection. In Hatcher’s version, the ties to sexuality are obvious - and they work pretty well. 

This was a thoroughly enjoyable production. Both actors were outstanding and compelling. The timing was spot on throughout. The setting enhanced the experience, and everything felt intimate. 

 Caroline Fox and Bryan Maddern

TitB publicity photo

I should also mention the “opening act.” Immediately prior to the play, Rikk Cheshire, performing as Edgar Alan Poe, read “The Raven.” I am always in favor of hearing poetry performed aloud - there is too little of that in our all too prosaic world. Cheshire captured the cadence, and brought the poem to life. I particularly appreciated the fairly deadpan “Nevermore.” In my view, Poe intended that the single word contrast with the increasingly fevered and desperate agony of the grieving man. 

This was my first time seeing a Theatre in Black production, but I think I may have to see some more. The production was of excellent quality, with a strong focus on artistic values. 

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Source of book: I own this.

I came rather late in life to Henry James: my first experience was in my mid thirties. This is probably just as well, as the teenaged me might have gotten the wrong impression.

James writes tragedies, for the most part. If there is one thing he writes best, it would be dysfunctional or failed relationships. I am hard pressed to think of anything of his that I have read that contained a truly great marriage - and the functional ones that do exist are usually at the extreme margins of the plot and do not even function as a foil to the bad relationships.

I have wondered if this is related to the fact that James never had a romantic relationship, and indeed seemed to avoid close relationships in general. This, combined with his brilliancy in observing and writing about the unhappiness of others, gives his writing a generally tragic air. 

The Portrait of a Lady is a devastating tragedy written when James was at the peak of his powers. As with many of his novels and novellas, he focuses on a female protagonist; and, as in other tales, his protagonist is young, naive, and in over her head in a sea of more sophisticated and Machiavellian sharks.

Isabel Archer is a young American woman, whose parents have died, leaving her with neither fortune nor prospects. Her elder sisters have done alright, marrying respectably although not brilliantly, and have settled into ordinary lives. Isabel is the prettiest, and has the most striking personality. In the wake of her father’s death, Isabel’s aunt (who is married to a rich American financier who lives in England), takes an interest in her, and whisks her off to Europe to expand her horizons. In fairly short order, she has managed to turn down two marriage proposals: one from Lord Warburton, a rather decent - and fantastically wealthy - English lord; and from her longtime acquaintance, Caspar Goodwood, a rising American businessman, whose “Americanness,” for lack of a better term, is amusingly caricatured by James. Oh, and her sickly cousin Ralph is also in love with her, but he knows he will die young and has no chance anyway.

Soon afterward, Isabel’s rich uncle dies, and, at the insistence of Ralph (his only child), leaves Isabel a sizeable legacy. This proves to be her undoing. Madam Merle, a friend of Isabel’s aunt, an American expat with a mysterious and lurid past of some sort, takes Isabel in hand. She introduces Isabel to Gilbert Osmond, another American expat, a widow with a daughter, who is somehow connected to her. Gilbert has impeccable taste, can charm anyone, and lacks money. What a perfect match, right? Isabel is too naive to see Gilbert for the narcissist and egoist that he is, or to realize that she is being manipulated by Madam Merle - and that Merle has an uncomfortably close connection with Gilbert. For his part, Gilbert believes he can change Isabel to fit his tastes, and clamp down on her irrepressible originality and independence.

This does not go well. Isabel doesn’t change, Gilbert ends up hating her. Even though he never does anything openly wrong, he essentially mentally abuses her. And, eventually, Isabel realizes that she has been duped.

As is typical with James, there are no really clear villains. Madam Merle herself suffered a bad marriage, and has had to use her brains and charm to survive. She is genuinely taken by surprise when the marriage she has arranged goes bad. She thought Gilbert was better than that, and that he would like Isabel. Likewise (although I won’t reveal the plot twist entirely), her ulterior motive is hardly shameful.

Gilbert is a narcissist and egoist, but he deserves some sympathy too. By 19th Century standards, he isn’t a bad spouse. His mental abuse is the natural working out of the views of the time. He expected her to change herself to suit him - quite reasonable for an upper class man in the Victorian Era - and her refusal to cater to him would (and does) earn her condemnation. An additional source of friction here too is that the money is hers, not his. Had it been the other way around (as it is for Gilbert’s sister and her philandering husband the Count), he could have easily controlled her using money. But the shoe is on the other foot.

Likewise, the “heroes” are flawed. Isabel is a bit of a live wire, but she lacks an intellectual foundation to aid her judgment. She ignores the advice of her aunt and cousin, both of which are more observant than she. She likewise ignores her friend Henrietta (a female journalist who is, like Caspar, hilariously American.) While she pays an unfair price for her mistakes, she mostly has herself to blame.

In the case of Caspar, who is cast as the hero - he offers to save her near the end - it is easy to see why Isabel refuses him. He is an egoist in his own way, and too over eager to be charming rather than slightly creepy. Would she have been happy with him? Probably not. Or with Lord Warburton, who is thoroughly nice, but not Isabel’s type at all.

Perhaps the most fascinating character is that of Ralph, who unwittingly causes the tragedy, and ends up regretting it. Ralph is the cynical observer, except he really isn’t that cynical. He is, how does one even put it? Disinterested, perhaps? (Not uninterested, which is most certainly NOT a synonym.) Ralph has no dog in the race, other than curiosity to see what someone like Isabel might do with enough money to enable her to chart her own course without financial considerations limiting her choices.

It perhaps says something about James that he has his character make terrible choices. I was tempted for a moment to say that James is sexist - his female characters rarely have good judgment. Except that his male characters are no better. They just tend not to pay for their mistakes the same way the women do. And that has little to do with James and everything to do with how late Victorian society functioned. If anything, the men tend to be indecisive and weak at all the wrong moments. It also occurs to me that Catherine from Washington Square is a fantastically strong and admirable character who pays for her virtues, not her mistakes.

One of the two best things about The Portrait of a Lady is the psychological portraits of the characters. The title itself is a clue to that: this book is a portrait of Isabel - a deep look at her psyche, her strengths, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, and emotions. And James is fantastic at the art of showing these rather than stating them. But there is more than that. We are given insights into many of the characters as we go along. Ralph, Henrietta, Mrs. Touchett, Madam Merle, Gilbert, Lord Warburton, Edward Rosier, and Pansy in particular are given special treatment throughout the book. The one blank slate seems to be Caspar, who one wonders if he even has an inner life.

The other strength of this book is the writing. James’ isn’t the easiest writing to read quickly (although it is by no means unusual for his era), but it is fantastically well crafted. At multiple points in this long book (600+ pages), I went back and re-read a passage just for the amazing way it was written.

Here are a few of the best moments - ones I couldn’t resist writing down. First is the opening line:

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

James was an American by birth, who, like his characters, spent much of his life in Europe. Lines like this elicit his admiration for the Old World and its ceremonies. It also sets the stage beautifully for what is to follow. In this opening scene, when Isabel first meets her uncle, cousin, and Lord Warburton, much of what will occur later can be seen in the interactions of the characters.

This initial scene occurs at the beginning, but the narrative is already in motion. Later, James circles back to introduce us to Isabel and exactly how she ended up in England. There are two lines in that chapter which are good in themselves, but also form a contrast with the final scenes in the book.

[T]his young lady had been seated alone with a book. To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of knowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was strong.

And later:

Her reputation of reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic; it was supposed to engender difficult questions, and to keep the conversation at a low temperature. The poor girl liked to be thought clever, but she hated to be thought bookish; she used to read in secret, and, though her memory was excellent, to abstain from quotation.

As an aside here, take a look at the masterful use of semicolons in those two sentences. James’ sentences are written with such a beautiful awareness of how clauses and ideas relate.

This scene is revisited at various points throughout the book. The Touchett’s massive and impressive library, where Isabel spends hours during her initial visit pairs with her last visit, where she cannot bring herself to read. Her early love for reading is crushed by Gilbert’s disdain for books and imagination in general.

James is nothing if not perceptive when it comes to the hypocrisies of his - or any - age. In an early conversation between Mr. Touchett (the rich uncle) and Isabel, they discuss Lord Warburton, who is both fabulously rich and politically progressive - even radical. Mr. Touchett, the capitalist banker, doesn’t think much of this.

“Don’t you think they are sincere?” Isabel asked.

“Well, they are very conscientious,” Mr. Touchett allowed; “but it seems as if the took it out in theories, mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they have go to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they are very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury.”

What a delightfully cynical observation. And kind of true too, both about the British aristocracy in the twilight of the Victorian Era and in our own times. It’s easy to be progressive as long as your own status isn’t really threatened. On the other hand, I suppose that one of the reasons the British Empire faded without a bloody revolution is that the Bertie Woosters of the Edwardian Era were content to allow needed reform to happen, rather than double down on increasing inequality like some of our current American plutocrats.

Mr. Touchett is hardly the only cynic in his family, however. Ralph is rather delightful, and this exchange between he and Isabel about Henrietta is fantastically witty.

“Shall I love her, or shall I hate here?” asked Ralph, while they stood on the platform, before the advent of the train.

“Whichever you do will matter very little to her,” said Isabel. “She doesn’t care a straw what men think of her.”

“As a man I am bound to dislike her, then. She must be a kind of monster. Is she very ugly?”

“No, she is decidedly pretty.”

“A female interviewer -- a reporter in petticoats? I am very curious to see her,” Ralph declared.

“It is very easy to laugh at her, but it is not easy to be as brave as she.”

“I should think not; interviewing requires bravery. Do you suppose she will interview me?”

“Never in the world. She will not think you of enough importance.”

“You will see,” said Ralph. “She will send a description of us all, including Bunchie, to her newspaper.”

“I shall ask her not to,” Isabel answered.

“You think she is capable of it, then.”

“Perfectly.”

“And yet you have made her your bosom-friend?”

“I have not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her, in spite of her faults.”

“Ah, well,” said Ralph, “I am afraid I shall dislike her, in spite of her merits.”

That is an exchange worthy of Oscar Wilde.

Later, there is another one, this time about Henrietta’s ambiguous relationship with Mr. Bantling, a minor British aristocrat.

“She has made a conquest. He thinks here a brilliant woman. It may go far,” said Ralph.

Isabel was silent a moment.

“I call Henrietta a very brilliant woman; but I don’t think it will go far,” she rejoined at last. “They would never really know each other. He has not the least idea what she really is, and she has no just comprehension of Mr. Bantling.”

“There is no more usual basis of matrimony than a mutual misunderstanding.”

What an outstanding line. For better or worse, Ralph is right. Henrietta and Bantling do eventually square it up -- although not for a number of years. But, alas, Isabel herself will marry on the basis of a mutual misunderstanding.

Not too long after this, Caspar Goodwood makes his first appearance, and attempts to convince Isabel to marry him. It does not go well. She turns him down, and he won’t let it go.

“What good do you expect to get by insisting?”

“The good of not losing you.”

“You have no right to talk about losing what is not yours. And even from your own point of view,” Isabel added, “you ought to know when to let one alone.”

I’ve met a few people like this in my law practice. The ones who feel they have some entitlement. (And, whether it comes through in this short excerpt, Caspar does feel he has a claim on her, if he can just assert it strongly enough.) However, Caspar does get one thing right about Isabel:

“Do you think I am so very easily pleased?” she asked suddenly, changing her tone.

“No I don’t; I shall try and console myself with that. But there are a certain number of very clever men in the world; if there were only one, it would be enough. You will be sure to take no one who is not?”

“I don’t need the aid of a clever man to teach me how to live,” said Isabel. “I can find it out for myself.”

Isabel speaks the truth -- but not the truth about her, and that is the problem. All it will take is a very clever man (aided by an even more clever woman), and she will marry to be “taught how to live.” Isabel is the one person who can’t see this about herself. Later, Mrs. Touchett has some misgivings about Isabel and Gilbert having met, but she consoles herself that Isabel refused Lord Warburton. I love this line about Mrs. Touchett’s view of marriage:

Mrs. Touchett easily remembered that the girl had refused an English peer; and that a young lady for whom Lord Warburton had not been up to the mark should content herself with an obscure American dilettante, a middle aged widower with an overgrown daughter and an income of nothing - this answered to nothing in Mrs. Touchett’s conception of success. She took, it will be observed, not the sentimental, but the political view of matrimony -- a view which has always had much to recommend it.

I am, shall we say, not of Mrs. Touchett’s opinion. However, I will grant one thing: there is much to be said for marrying someone in one’s general income class. Much less gold digging -- and that goes both directions. But that is probably the attorney in me talking. (Also, how good is that last sentence? Delaying “political” until the end of the clause is perfection.)

There is another witty exchange on the general topic of materialism later on. Edward Rosier, the star-crossed would-be suitor of Gilbert’s daughter Pansy, tries to enlist Madame Merle’s assistance. Edward isn’t the sharpest tool, but he is rather earnest.

Rosier’s eyes wandered, lingeringly, around the room again.

“You have some very good things.”

“Yes, but I hate them.”

“Do you want to get rid of them?” the young man asked quickly.

“No, it’s good to have something to hate; one works it off.”

“I love my things,” said Rosier, as he sat there smiling.

I did snicker when I read that one.

Notwithstanding all this sparkling wit, the story turns darker and darker as it progresses. A particularly devastating moment is when Isabel comes to terms with the fact that her husband hates her.

She remembered perfectly the first sign he had given of it -- it had been like the bell that was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama of their life. He said to her one day that she had too many ideas, and that she must get rid of them. He had told her that already, before their marriage; but then she had not noticed it; it came back to her only afterwards.

And then later:

The real offense, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to be his -- attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park. He would rake the soil gently and water her flowers; he would weed the beds and gather an occasional nosegay. It would be a pretty piece of property for a proprietor already far-reaching. He didn’t wish her to be stupid. On the contrary, it was because she was clever that she had pleased him. But he expected her intelligence to operate altogether in his favour, and so far from desiring her mind to be a blank, he had flattered himself that it would be richly receptive. He had expected his wife to feel with him, and for him, to enter into his opinions, his ambitions, his preferences; and Isabel was obliged to confess that this was no very unwarrantable demand on the part of a husband. But there were certain things she could never take in.

James here betrays the values of his time -- and pushes back on them. Indeed, it really was considered a reasonable demand that a woman “submit” to her husband in all things including her very ideas. In fact, this is precisely what is expected within the Christian Patriarchy circles my wife and I spent time in. At least in theory. And there were more than a few narcissists who, like Gilbert Osmond, came to hate their wives for having their own minds. Isabel may concede this in theory, but not in practice. And I can say for certain that my wife would never tolerate it. Likewise, I would never expect it. I love that she has a sharp mind - and a sharp tongue on occasion. I have no wish to have it any other way.

Sadly, Isabel really has no one with whom she can be honest. Except for Henrietta.

“Yes, I am miserable,” she said, very gently. She hated to hear herself say it; she tried to say it as judicially as possible.

“What does he do to you?” Henrietta asked, frowning as if she were inquiring into the operations of a quack doctor.

“He does nothing. But he doesn’t like me.”

“He’s very difficult!” cried Miss Stackpole. “Why don’t you leave him?”

“I can’t change that way,” Isabel said.

“Why not, I should like to know? You won’t confess that you have made a mistake. You are too proud.”

“I don’t know whether I am too proud. But I can’t publish my mistake. I don’t think that’s decent. I would much rather die.”

“You won’t think so always,” said Henrietta.

“I don’t know what great unhappiness might bring me to; but it seems to me that I shall always be ashamed. One must accept one’s deeds. I married him before all the world; I was perfectly free; it was impossible to do anything more deliberate. One can’t change that way,” Isabel repeated.

There is something particularly devastating about this passage. Isabel, obviously, would lose if she left. Probably her fortune, which would now be Gilbert’s - the laws were unfavorable to women. But also her “respectability,” for whatever that was worth. Caspar would take her. He offered as much. I have seen other people (male and female these days) stay in doomed relationships for years - decades even - because of this misplaced sense of pride. It would be better if more people were willing to admit a mistake - and to grant grace to others who have left failed marriages too.

There is one more amazingly perceptive line from this terrible relationship. Gilbert, naturally, loathes Henrietta. But, because his life consists of showing contempt for the world while craving its approval, he wishes to do the socially proper thing.

Isabel presently saw that Osmond would have liked her to urge a little the cause of her friend, insist a little upon his receiving her, so that he might appear to suffer for good manners’ sake. Her immediate acceptance of his objections put him too much in the wrong -- it being in effect one of the disadvantages of expressing contempt, that you cannot enjoy at the same time the credit of expressing sympathy.

At the end, Ralph finally succumbs to his illness. As he is dying, Caspar and Henrietta agree to take him back to England. Soon afterward, Isabel is told the end is near, and she decides to defy her husband’s wishes, and go see him one last time. The book ends without telling us what the fallout will be. It is implied that she is going back to Gilbert, but it is far from clear if he will take her back or not. If he does, he will presumably punish her forever for her disobedience. But, as one of the above exchanges indicates, she herself wonders if enough suffering will make her leave. Yes, she’d lose her fortune. (Laws were not favorable to women…) Caspar would take her -- he offered. But would she take him? It seems unlikely. So we are left to wonder.

As a final thought, here is the exchange with Caspar when he realizes she is miserable, even if she won’t admit it.

“But I do ask one sole satisfaction -- that you tell me -- that you tell me -----”

“That I tell you what?”

“Whether I may pity you.”

“Should you like that?” Isabel asked, trying to smile again.

“To pity you? Most assuredly! That at least would be doing something. I would give my life to it.”

She raised her fan to her face, which it covered, all except her eyes. They rested a moment on his.

“Don’t give your life to it; but give a thought to it every now and then.”

This actually would have been a great way to end the book. There are another 80 pages to go, and the ending as it is is okay, even if it is a cliffhanger. But, man, what a great final line that one would have been.

I rather love Henry James, and this is one of his finest works. While I noted at the outset that I thought his writing might have been wasted on the teenage me, I also wonder if books like this might be good reading for teens in general, at an age when they are likely to become enamored of charming narcissists like Osmond, or fall prey to the machinations of more sophisticated manipulators like Madame Merle.

Henry James had a brother, William James, considered one of the most influential psychologists - and philosophers - of all time. Henry shared his brother’s keen insights into the working of the human mind, and it is arguable which one has had the most profound influence. Given the power of stories, I lean toward Henry. Not everyone will take a philosophy course. But anyone can appreciate the insight demonstrated in novels like this. It is a difficult task indeed to read The Portrait of a Lady, and not come away deeply moved and troubled by its truths.  

***

Other Henry James works I have read and reviewed:

Eight Novellas and Short Stories (Includes Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw)

Washington Square

The Bostonians

The Bostonians by Henry James

Source of book: I own this.

A few months back, I was returning an audiobook to the library, and I found a used book sale in progress. (This was at a branch, rather than the main library, so the sale wasn’t one of the usual ones we attend…) I found a fairly good number of boxed hardbacks from the Library of America for dirt cheap, so I picked up the ones I didn’t have. Cheap as in a few bucks for a book. Sign me up! Anyway, three of the volumes I got were of Henry James.

I was fairly late to discover Henry James, which is a bit surprising because I have loved James Thurber since my teens, and he praises Henry James in many of his essays. If you want to read my previous reviews, Eight Novelas and Short Stories, which includes his shorter novels Daisy Miller (meh) and The Turn of the Screw (I enjoyed that one). And also his longer novel Washington Square, which I also thought was outstanding. I was due to read some James anyway, because it has been over three years. 

I chose The Bostonians because I had just read The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, and recalled that she was in a “Boston Marriage” with another woman, and that the term came from James’ novel. The term applies to two women living together independently of a man. This relationship could be purely economical, based on close friendship, or sexual/romantic. It did, in any case, require that at least one of the women be financially independent. In the case of Jewett, there is nothing definitive, particularly since the other woman was a widow, and there are no obvious indications like passionate love letters. On the other hand, poet Elizabeth Bishop (who had some money of her own) was in two Boston Marriages during the course of her life that were decidedly passionate.

For other couples, they were more like the couple in The Bostonians, radical (for their time) feminists mutually devoted to the cause of women’s suffrage. Although, truth be told, James’ story is more complex than that - see below.

Henry James drew inspiration for his stories from people he knew, and never hesitated to observe or listen for ideas. In this book, the research for the female companions came in part from the relationship his sister Alice had with Katharine Loring. The characters of Verena and Olive are very loosely based on this real life couple - although as is the case with most of James’ stories, the borrowing is very free and loose, and should not be mistaken for an even approximate portrait of the real persons.

I will warn at this point that there are plot spoilers in the rest of this review, so if you don’t want to know how the story ends, you might want to stop here and read the book first. I have chosen to do this because I think the details are important to my analysis.

The novel opens with a visit by a young Southern gentleman, Mr. Basil Ransom, to his distant cousins, Adeline and Olive, who live in Boston. Adeline is a widow with a young - and very spoiled son - who decides early on she wishes to snare Mr. Ransom. And why not? She has the money, while he is impoverished, and she’d love a handsome, dashing man in her life.

Olive, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with men, and loathes Ransom from the start. This is no mystery. He is politically conservative, and believes that women should know there place - and their inherent inferiority. Olive is a suffragette, and finds Ransom condescending from the outset. However, she, on kind of a whim, invites him to come to the suffragette meeting that evening.

This soiree turns out to be the pivotal moment in the book. While the featured speaker is one of the old guard, the star of the show turns out to be the young and naive Verena Tarrant, the daughter of a snake oil salesman who has groomed her for public speaking. She is beautiful, winsome, eloquent in a shallow sort of way, and exceedingly young and inexperienced.

Both Ransom and Olive fall madly in love with her, and their battle for Verena’s affections are the story of the book.

The battle, though, isn’t just fought on the turf of romance - in fact, Olive really can’t fight on those terms. Rather, it is fought mostly on political and philosophical ground. Specifically, on the question of suffrage. Olive takes Verena in, allegedly to groom her as a better speaker and as a future suffragette warrior, using her skills and charm to advocate for the cause. And Olive definitely does this, taking Verena much further both socially and professionally than her hack con-man father ever could. But Olive doesn’t just want Verena’s skills. She wants Verena.

“Will you be my friend, my friend of friends, beyond every one, everything, forever and ever?”

Even for the Victorian Era, this seems a wee bit rich for a purely platonic desire. And throughout the book, Olive talks and speaks exactly like a jealous lover. She has it bad for Verena, that much is clear. However, this being the Victorian Era, James cannot breathe more than a faint whiff of sexuality. What is amazing is how he makes the novel so erotically charged. The frisson is electric.

What is less clear is exactly how Verena feels. There is a passage later in the novel where Verena is contemplating leaving Olive, but knows it will devastate her.

She had a vision of those dreadful years; she knew that Olive would never get over the disappointment. It would touch her in the point where she felt everything most keenly; she would be incurably lonely and eternally humiliated. It was a very peculiar thing, their friendship; it had elements which made it probably as complete as any (between women) that had ever existed. Of course it had been more on Olive’s side than on hers, she had always known that; but that, again, didn’t make any difference.

There’s a lot that is almost told in that paragraph. Hints, entendres, but not the thing itself. One cannot but feel that James says as much as he legally can for his era, and assumes the reader will get the hint. (And plenty did - and complained about it.)

In contrast to Olive, Ransom is able to speak his desire almost from the beginning. He wants Verena to be his wife. But that isn’t all. He wants her to be a certain kind of wife, staying at home, and utilizing her prodigious talents for the sole purpose of pleasing him. However, Ransom doesn’t approach Verena with this, rather, he finds reasons to be around her until he is sure her interest in him is mutual. They then debate the issues of gender and gender roles as a kind of proxy for dating.

The problem for Olive in winning this contest is that she is at an unfair disadvantage. Verena admires and respects Olive, and loves her as a friend. But, as far as I can tell, she isn’t attracted to her in the same way Olive experiences desire. Rather, Verena feels a personal attraction to Ransom, one she doesn’t quite understand, and one she fights against, because she dislikes his views of women. But nevertheless, she falls in love with him.

This is, of course, a common theme in Henry James. The falling in love against one’s will and better judgment. I am also kind of hard pressed to think of a romance in a James novel that goes well. It isn’t his style.

And there is a reason for this. There is solid evidence that Henry James was asexual. There is no evidence he ever had a romantic relationship with anyone, either male or female. He had a variety of friendships, and was quite social. But he never really got all that close with people. This may well have contributed to his ability to write interpersonal dysfunction extraordinarily well; but also to his inability (or unwillingness) to portray a believably healthy romance. (On a related note, the relationship between James’ sister Alice and his brother William was really creepy, and may well have been sexual. Strange family…)

In any case, instead of romantic banter, we get sparring over gender politics. It is difficult to know where James’ loyalties lay. He actually writes both sides well, but does not appear to be personally sympathetic to either Olive (and her views) or Ransom (and his.) Both are portrayed with a bit of acid humor. All that does seem certain is that James predicted misery for Ransom and Verena as a couple.

One thing that did strike me about the arguments on each side is that they haven’t really changed much since 1886. What has changed is the world we live in. Women vote - and have for the last 100 years. (That’s pretty recent, but still.) Women no longer stay at home and avoid careers, civic involvement, or opinions. But the arguments over gender roles remain fairly static, at least in certain circles. And in those circles, the connection of retrograde views of women continue to be connected to the idea of upper-class Southern culture. I ended up making notes about a number of the quotes, just because James so perfectly captures the rhetoric.

Ransom’s thoughts after meeting Olive for the first time:

The women he had hitherto known had been mainly of his own soft clime, and it was not often the exhibited the tendency he detected (and cursorily deplored) in [Olive]. That was the way he liked them - not to think too much, not to feel any responsibility for the government of the world, such as he was sure Miss Chancellor felt. If they would only be private and passive, and have no feeling but for that, and leave publicity to the sex of tougher hide.

I am particularly fond of the phrasing “private and passive.” That encapsulates much of the argument against women in positions of leadership.

Regarding Olive’s sister, Mrs. Luna, who, while less aggressive than Olive, still rubs Ransom the wrong way:

This boldness did not prevent him from thinking that women were essentially inferior to men, and infinitely tiresome when they declined to accept the lot which men had made for them. He had the most definite notions about their place in nature, in society, and was perfectly easy in his mind as to whether it excluded them from any proper homage. The chivalrous man paid that tax with alacrity. He admitted their rights; these consisted in a standing claim to the generosity and tenderness of the stronger race. The exercise of such feelings was full of advantage for both sexes, and they flowed most freely, of course, when women were gracious and grateful.  

I have absolutely been steeped in this philosophy. It is just better for both men and women when they stay in their places. Women don’t need respect, because they get more when they appeal to the need for protection and provision from men. And women should be grateful for this support, rather than demanding equality.

From an argument between Ransom and Verena:

“My interest is in my own sex; yours evidently can look after itself. That’s what I want to save.”

“To save it from what?” she asked.

“From the most damnable feminisation! I am so far from thinking, as you set forth the other night, that there is not enough woman in our general life, that it has long been pressed home to me that there is a great deal too much. The whole generation is womanized; the masculine tone is passing out of the world; it’s a feminine, a nervous, hysterical, chattering, canting age, an age of hollow phrases and false delicacy and exaggerated solicitudes and coddle sensibilities, which, if we don’t soon look out, will usher in the reign of mediocrity, of the feeblest and flattest and the most pretentious that has ever been. The masculine character, the ability to dare and endure, to know and yet not fear reality, to look the world in the face and take it for what it is - a very queer and partly very base mixture - that is what I want to preserve, or rather, as I may say, to recover; and I must tell you that I don’t in the least care what becomes of you ladies while I make the attempt.”

This was written, recall, in 1886. And yet, we are still saying the same things. The pearl clutching over the supposed feminization of culture, of the threat that women in the realm that rightfully belongs to males alone pose to the poor, vulnerable manboys. Yeah, the poor men, if we let women vote, hold jobs, earn their own money, and insist on males behaving themselves. Whatever will become of us? The only difference, by the way, between the above and the crap that I have heard in the official teaching on gender roles both from open Patriarchists and from mainstream Evangelicals is this: Henry James writes better. That’s the only difference. It’s still a condescending gender essentialism that rests in a belief in the inherent inferiority of women.

And, as the relationship with Verena progresses, Ransom gets more explicit in how he views Verena:

“[I]t’s all very comfortable for you to say that you wish to leave as alone. But you can’t leave us alone. We are here, and we have got to be disposed of. You have got to put us somewhere. It’s a remarkable social system that has no place for us!” the girl went on with her most charming laugh.

“No place in public. My plan is to keep you at home and have a better time with you there than ever.”

…

“Think what a confession you make when you say that women are less and less sought in marriage; what a testimony that is to the pernicious effect on their manners, their person, their nature, of this fatuous agitation.”

“That’s very complimentary to me!” Verena broke in, lightly.

But Ransom was carried over her interruption by the current of his argument. “There are a thousand ways in which any woman, all women, married or single, may find occupation. They may find it in making society agreeable.”

“Agreeable to men, of course.”

“To whom else, pray? Dear Miss Tarrant, what is most agreeable to women is to be agreeable to men. That is a truth as old as the human race…”

Again, all James does here is make this view more explicit than we usually experience in the 21st Century. Women belong at home, not out in positions of power and prominence. Excluding them from power doesn’t matter, because there are so many other things for them to do. History shows that what women really care about is pleasing men. And so on. I’ve heard them all. Some of them just recently in a discussion about women in religious leadership. Hey, it’s fine that they can’t serve in positions of power, because the “highest” callings (which turn out to be fairly far in the direction of “private and passive”) are open to them.

James also gets some zingers in with Verena’s speeches. On the one hand, he exaggerates the tone and “eloquence” of the style. (Really, if you have read speeches from this era, James spoofs them beautifully.) On the other, the ideas are pretty good. James plays fair, and accurately reproduces the suffrage arguments.

“Do you know how you strike me? You strike me as men who are starving to death while they have a cupboard at home, all full of bread and meat and wine; or as blind, demented beings who let themselves be cast into a debtor’s prison, while in their pocket they have the key of vaults and treasure-chests heaped up with gold and silver. The meat and wine, the gold and silver,” Verena went on, “are simply the suppressed and wasted force, the precious sovereign remedy, of which society insanely deprives itself - the genius, the intelligence, the inspiration of women. It is dying, inch by inch, in the midst of old superstitions which it invokes in vain, and yet it has the elixir of life in its hands. Let it drink but a draught, and it will bloom once more; it will be refreshed, radiant; it will find its youth again. The heart, the heart is cold, and nothing but the touch of woman can warm it, make it act. We are the Heart of humanity, and let us have the courage to insist on it! The public life of the world will move in the same barren, mechanical, vicious circle - the circle of egotism, cruelty, jealousy, greed, of blind striving to do things only for some, at the cost of others, instead of trying to do something for all. All, all? Who dares to say “all” when we are not there? We are an equal, a splendid, an inestimable part.”

Henry James was undoubtedly aware of the contributions of women and their intellects up to that time, and this speech seems particularly prophetic in the sense that once women were allowed to compete in science, the arts, leadership, and so on, they did indeed make huge contributions.

But one other thing stood out to me: the passage on the heart of humanity. Now, I am not so much of a gender essentialist as to say that women are inherently more compassionate. And if anything, my experience in family law has shown that women can be equally as cutthroat and vicious as men. But rather, I would say that in our society, virtues have been divided by gender such that compassion, empathy, cooperation, and so on, are believed to be female virtues. And because they are considered female, they are devalued in favor of the “masculine” counterparts like competition, hyperrationality, and individualism - or even the “masculine” vices like aggression, greed, lack of compassion, etc. I think this is a particular problem within conservative (and religious) groups here in the United States. It is not a coincidence that they have embraced Ransom’s view of the “feminization” of America, by which they have come to mean the contamination of radical individualism with that ooky female compassion thing. That’s one reason why I am hard pressed to think many women I know who are actually okay with, say, cutting off health care to the poor and sick and disabled. But I run across men all the time who openly favor that. And they tend to have toxic ideas about masculinity as well, because both are tied up in the idea that their worth is based on the way they can protect and provide for women. On a related note, the resistance to the social Darwinist policies of today’s Republican party has come in significant part from women. This is the symptom of considering compassion to be “feminization” rather than the heart of being a decent human being - or a Christian.

It is passages like these that form the philosophical heart of the book, the ideas which fill and dominate the narrative. The public was not particularly thrilled at the political nature of the book, and it was not a financial success for James. He would switch back to more personal and less political themes for future books. I found it interesting that both sides of the debate complained about the book. Those opposed to suffrage obviously found that James made them look provincial and regressive - and the sort of men that no woman should take up with. On the other, the suffragists were unhappy with the implication that feminism made them unmarriageable - or lesbian. Even the residents of Boston complained about how they were portrayed. Oh well, James was a bit hard on everyone, really.

There are a number of other things worth mentioning about this book. Particularly good was the portrayal of Miss Birdseye, one of the old guard feminists who truly lived her reformist beliefs. While she is an impoverished old lady at the time of the narrative, we hear about her early exploits, including smuggling bibles to slaves - an act that landed her in a Georgia prison. She preached temperance to groups of Irish, which ended with missiles, as the book puts it. She took in impoverished children, and gave of herself in every way possible. Unsurprisingly, she is the most obviously likeable character in the book. Even Ransom likes her, even if he cannot accept her views.

Another intriguing character is Mrs. Burrage, the mother of a wealthy heir who wishes to marry Verena. She disapproves of Verena’s execrable parents - the con-man father and the wife who has some blood but is gauche beyond belief. However, she is progressive enough to put aside her reservations and embrace Verena. Too bad her son is dumb and insipid, or it might have worked out.

Also interesting are the characters of Olive and Ransom. Olive is abrasive, and not the most pleasant. In particular, her hatred of men seems a bit over the top, but it does kind of make sense. There is no doubt that she is treated vastly differently than a man in her situation would be treated. She has to fight for every bit of respect she gets - and she is dismissed as an old maid (despite being quite young) because it is clear she has no intention of marrying.

One telling line about her concerns her deigning to visit Verena’s parents.

Great efforts were nothing new to her - it was a great effort to live at all - but this one appeared to her exceptionally cruel. She determined, however, to make it, promising herself that her first visit to Mrs. Tarrant should also be her last. Her only consolation was that she expected to suffer intensely; for the prospect of suffering was always, spiritually speaking, so much cash in her pocket.

Henry James can seem gentle at first, but he can twist the knife like nobody’s business when he wants.

Not that Mrs. Tarrant gets off easy.

When she talked and wished to insist, and she was always insisting, she puckered and distorted her face, with an effort to express the inexpressible, which turned out, after all, to be nothing.

I know a few people who do that.

Ransom is even more irritating, though. He has all of the entitlement of a chauvinist without the character to actually make a living. His family’s money has dwindled after the Civil War, so he has to fend for himself, which he does poorly. He seems unfocused (except when it comes to wooing Verena) and flaky. Presumably his best bet would have been to go back to his hometown and practice law there, rather than trying to break into the New York City clique. But to him the thought of “coming down in the world” by going from gentleman to mere professional in the sight of his people is too much. He must either succeed or fail out of their sight. He is perhaps the most anti-hero of any of the protagonists I have met in a James book.

Another interesting character is Mrs. Adeline Luna, Olive’s sister. She has money to burn, and has no scruples about marrying a poor but handsome man. Heck, she would be willing to let him think he was the boss, even as her economic situation enabled her to do as she pleased. I am inclined to agree with Olive’s assessment of her.

In spite of the difference in their age, Olive had long since judged her, and made up her mind that Adeline lacked every quality that a person needed to be interesting in her eyes. She was rich (or sufficiently so), she was conventional and timid, very fond of attentions from men (with whom indeed she was reputed bold, but Olive scorned such boldness as that), given up to a merely personal, egotistical, instinctive life, and as unconscious of the tendencies of the age, the revenges of the future, the new truths and the great social questions, as if she had been a mere bundle of dress-trimmings, which she very nearly was. It was perfectly observable that she had no conscience, and it irritated Olive deeply to see how much trouble a woman was spared when she was constructed on that system.

Again, brilliant. And I know far too many women (personally and professionally) who fall into this category as well. (Men fall more into the male stereotype like Ransom when they lose their consciences.) It really is easier to just lose the conscience, and substitute adherence to social norms. It saves a lot of trouble.

One more observation on the suffrage theme. A minor character is Doctor Prance, a female physician who is part of the suffragette circle, but a bit more cynical than most. In talking with Ransom, she mentions she is not as feminist as she once was. Ransom asks if that fact distressed the old guard like Miss Birdseye.

“Not much, because I am not of importance. They think women the equals of men; but they are a great deal more pleased when a man joins than when when a women does.”

I’m not sure that Doctor Prance is correct here, at least in one sense. Perhaps it isn’t that they accept that men are more important, but that in a male-dominated society, the presence of a man lends it credibility. This is, by the way, one of my wife’s pet peeves, that still, many - perhaps most - refuse to listen to what a woman says...until a man says the exact same thing, then suddenly it is important. Gah! You see the same thing when it comes to discussing race. (Interesting case in point is that only now are people considering opioids a national emergency: because middle class white people are dying of overdoses. Back when it was (perceived as) being mostly poor minorities, it wasn’t a big deal - except in the sense of “jail all the druggies!”) Something can be said for decades by people of color, and nobody wants to give it credibility until a white male says it…

I do want to say something about the style. Henry James is not the easiest to read, particularly in his later works. He has a tendency to write really long paragraphs - some I noted were more than two pages long. He has an immense vocabulary, which can either be good if (like me) you enjoy running across more obscure and precise words, or a pain, if you have to look a bunch of them up. The quotes above give a pretty good flavor of his style, which I rather like, even if it makes for slower reading - you have to savor the perfect turns of phrase.

The other thing I love about James is his use of the semicolon. I think they are underrated and underused. They too can slow things down, which is often what you want at a particular juncture; a pause that focuses attention on the next phrase.

I also should mention that I find James writes good female characters. Not always likeable female characters, but good ones. And they are by no means all the same. Sure, there are the fainting Victorian females, but they are rare, and usually more complex than that anyway. He also is genuinely sympathetic to their situations, even though he doesn’t tend to give them true love in the end.

Not everyone finds James to be as enjoyable as I do, and your mileage may vary. But I say, if you already enjoy a good psychologically complex novel, the beauty of well used language, and don’t mind a bit of wordiness, James might be for you. I’m not convinced The Bostonians is his best work, but it does have its moments.

***

One thing that came to me after I finished was an observation with a personal connection. Like many Christian homeschoolers of my age and younger, we were kind of like Verena. While we were young and impressionable, we were carefully groomed to be Cultural Warriors™ in the great fight against “evil” in the form of modernity. We were the generation that would change the world, that would stem the tide of feminism and multiculturalism and sex and communism and whatever the other bogeymen of the day were. And we too had con-men who had Selah Tarrant’s lack of ethics combined with Olive Chancellor’s ideological vision. Our parents may or may not have bought into it all, but there were definite expectations placed on us that we would save the world politically and culturally.

And then, we one day found ourselves grown up, having known only one side of the issues, and realizing that what we wanted out of our lives didn’t really matter. We we just pawns in that hands of those with agendas that were not really, internally, our own.

Verena finds herself in this situation, and she responds as many of us did, with a determination to break free and follow our own hearts and minds, not just regurgitate what we have been fed.

Unfortunately for Verena, the best option wasn’t really available. That would have been to get an education in an area she was interested, get a job, support herself, and have a chance to grow up and figure out who she was.

Instead, she ended stuck between a Boston Marriage, and an conventional marriage that meant giving up her very self and independence completely.

Fortunately for us in the 21st Century, there are other options, and even ways of moving past mistakes rather than being trapped in them.

The Bostonians is a cautionary tale in that sense about viewing people as resources in your ideological war. Whether or not you are in the right, you risk alienating people with that level of control and indoctrination.

***

Just a note on name usage: Yes, using the man’s surname and the woman’s first name is totally sexist. I did that in my review because that is what James does in the book. 19th Century convention, I imagine. It just feels too weird to go with “Basil” since nobody ever calls him that, or to use “Miss Tarrant” in speaking of her with characters who were not so formal. It would feel anachronistic to do either in this case.

***

One of the first things I read about Henry James was this essay in The New Yorker by James Thurber, who is always so delightfully snarky. His fears of what would happen if Hollywood or Broadway gave happy endings to the great tragedies in literature are fantastic - give it a read.

The Wings of Henry James