The Bostonians (Modern Library Classics)
by Henry James
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 559)
Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
the young and impressionable.
Well,I just finished reading it not five minutes ago. Henry James has a rich writing style. He is supremely eloquent. However, the downside to this is that at times he is verbose and melodramatic. I don't know if it is the setting of the novel or the time in which it was written... the the characters' fits of emotion became predictable by the end of the novel.
There was so much conflict leading up to the last page of the novel that I feared that the ending would be a disappointment. I didn't ...more
There was so much conflict leading up to the last page of the novel that I feared that the ending would be a disappointment. I didn't ...more
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Read in January, 2008
My major question about this novel is -- What is it about? Is it a lampoon on women activists? A satire on the over-earnest people of Boston? A cautionary tale of what can happen to a vivacious and oddly talented young person (in this case, a woman, Verena Tarrant) who becomes the prize in a power struggle between two strong, arrogant, self-centered and diametrically opposed combatants (Olive Chancellor, a self-professed man-hating women's advocate; and Basil Ransome, an ultraconservative man fr...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
James fans who want to see a new side of their boy!
Newsflash: Henry James is funny! Seriously, he likes to laugh. And he's good at it. Who knew? The opening of this book reads like a farce, a comedy of manners, a vicious taking apart of characters worthy of Oscar Wilde. It does diminish and get rather more serious over the course of the novel, but it never entirely goes away. Henry's vicious! In a good way. I mean, you may feel a little bad as he chooses to rip into the feminist movement as a target, but at least his chosen characters fully dese...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Bostonians, funnies, spinsters, people who don't know what's good for them but wish they did
I read this book because I just moved to Boston and hoped it would give me a sense of atmosphere, which it did. I was not expecting it to be as hilarious as it was. Unfortunately the humor tones down a little bit after the first hundred pages. It starts out absolutely ruthless but then you get the sense he maybe relented a little, because after all he loves these Bostonians, doesn't he? And so do we. (Or if you don't, you might be heartless.) Anyway, as the humor starts to fade the book becomes ...more
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A tense, sometimes funny, ultimately sad, but always wordy,love triangle. Two awful people trying to step on the same perfect flower.
Henry James was doing his thing before the whole "iceberg" theory of fiction came about. There's not a lot of "submerged" story. Instead he drops the whole damn iceberg on your lap and points out to you inch by inch its various icy pits, bumps, and fissures. Yes, that kind of detail, which manifests itself in pages and pages blackened with l...more
Henry James was doing his thing before the whole "iceberg" theory of fiction came about. There's not a lot of "submerged" story. Instead he drops the whole damn iceberg on your lap and points out to you inch by inch its various icy pits, bumps, and fissures. Yes, that kind of detail, which manifests itself in pages and pages blackened with l...more
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Read in August, 2007
This was my first Henry James. Overall, I enjoyed it. It did take me a while to read it though. While I was engaged by the novel when I was actually reading it, there was nothing about the story that compelled me to resume reading once I'd put the book down. There is a plot, but it moves glacially until the last hundred pages or so. This trouble aside, I particulary liked reading about Boston of the 1870s, where Olive still has a view of the actual bay of Back Bay from her Charles Street ap...more
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Read in April, 2008
I loved the descriptions of place--the unfilled Back Bay in Boston, ramshackle tenements in German Manhattan, grass growing in disused shipyards on the Cape. But the main characters are hard to enjoy. Boston feminist Olive is all angry propaganda, her conservative Southern cousin Basil is all sentimental claptrap. My copy bills the book as addressing "the woman question," but social reform is only a backdrop to Olive and Basil's rivalry. I was also struck by the rootlessness of the cha...more
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Read in January, 2006
My friend Bernie chided me for never having read James, his favorite author. I took his criticism to heart and bought two of James' classics with a B&N gift certificate I won for playing nicely with co-workers. Maybe this was a bad introduction, but it struck me as tedious characters in search of a story: Hundreds of pages, and nothing happens. I finished it out of a sense of duty, but it felt like penance. I have a virgin copy of The Portrait of a Lady on my bedroom bookshelf, and I ...more
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Read in July, 2007
Geez, this book sticks in your craw. Not exactly a feel-good story but in reality an impressive dive into the complexities of human and social nature. The bad guy wins and the bad guy (gal) loses, everyone's unhappy (except Basil, but he's mor eor less unhappy in general). I suppose it also has great insight into the transformation of American (or New England) intellectual culture in the late nineteenth century but that probably holds little relevance or interest to the general reader. Enjoy...more
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Read in November, 2007
This book poses a very interesting struggle between a New England feminist of the time and an extremely conservative Southern lawyer. They are struggling to win over a woman in her early twenties who is very talented and capable. The ensuing clash is told by James masterfully, focusing on the psycological struggles of all three characters. James does a fantastic job at helping the reader empathize with all three characters, which keeps things fascinating to the last page.
One other thing...more
One other thing...more
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
completists, politically minded folks
This one is more interesting than enjoyable within the James oeuvre. I have mixed feelings when I look back on it. Of course, a lot of times that has to do with class discussion and how it went, but I still think it could lose a hundred pages quite easily, and I wouldn't say that about every long book. It's very strongly felt on the part of each of your two main characters, and it's an intriguing love triangle. Really, you can probably read it quite well in dialogue with _The Wings of the Dove_,...more
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Read in June, 2001
recommends it for:
insomniacs
I was an English major in college and loved James' The Turn of the Screw, but this book was one of the most miserable reading experiences of my life! I had to read it for a class, and found it so painfully boring and tedious that I literally almost cried every time I had to pick this sucker up. I made it through the whole friggin' thing, and keep it on my bookshelf at home as a reminder that no matter how bad of a day I'm having, at least I don't have to read this book ever again!
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
Long-winded people
I really can't get over Henry James. I believe the entirety of this book could really be condensed into about two chapters, sans all of James's absurdly long descriptions of absolutely irrelevant details. Unfortunate, really. It had an intriguing plot and unique characterization. You just have to literally hack away at the book before you can get to them.
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Read in July, 2007
James is so sharp! You get the sense that you're reading reading real people, rather than characters. Just like real people though, they have habits that can exasperate you after a while. I have a whole new layer of understanding about the history of Boston now, too.
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Read in April, 2008
Oh, Henry James, you fatalistic destruction of female empowerment once again sucks me in and leaves me crushed. Beautifully written, and a lot of fun for those familiar with the Boston area, James' psychological descriptions are as ornate and as spot-on, as always.
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An interesting read, moreso as it involves (indirectly) the campaign to give women the vote. One of the few novels of James where the subject matter interested me almost as much as the story itself, which is written beautifully (as one would expect).
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I'm loathing this book. Well in general I'm not in the James camp- how does he make such interesting situations so ponderous and dull? I understand he's a stylist, but I simply don't find his style absorbing. And I'm only half way through- urgh.
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Read in May, 2008
This book reminds me why I could never get into H. James. The plot gets lost for me in all the character descriptions and I don't even end up liking any of them! I saw the humor but it wasn't enough to keep me going, painfully dull book.
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The first time I read this book, I came thisclose to closing it without finishing it. I hated it that much. We're reading it for the reading group this summer, and I'm hoping I'll be more favorably disposed to it after that.
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Read in September, 2007
This book is awesome. It somehow manages to be about Boston, women's suffrage movement, reformers, and probably most impressively, the Civil War, since it really only mentions it by name in about 4 pages.
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