The Master

by Colm Tóibín

The Master

by
Colm Tóibín

book data

883 ratings, 3.76 average rating, 189 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		26%
4		38%
3		24%
2		8%
1		2%

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published

March 14th 2003 by Pan Macmillan

details

Paperback

literary awards

Man Booker Prize Nominee (2004), International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (2006), Stonewall Book Award for Literature (2005) …more

Man Booker Prize Nominee (2004), International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (2006), Stonewall Book Award for Literature (2005), Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (2004), Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Roman (2005) …less

isbn

0330485679 (isbn13: 9780330485678)

description

Like Michael Cunningham in The Hours, Colm Tóibín captures the extraordinary mind and heart of a great writer. Beautiful and profoundly moving, The …more

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Jul 03, 2007

David rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: read-in-2009

Read in June, 2009

Colm Tóibín is a genius. In this novel, he explores the life and work of Henry James, spanning the period from 1895 to 1900. His characterization of James is so subtle and - dare I say? nuanced - that I was forced to keep on reading. Even though I don't particularly like Henry James or his work, by the time I finished this book, I was motivated to rethink my dislike.

If you're a James fan, this is probably a five-star book for you. For the rest of us, it's somewhere between 3 and 4...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

11 comments

Dec 17, 2008

Joy H. (of Glens Falls) rated it:

(review of isbn 1587248255)

bookshelves: biography-fictionalized, fictionalized-biography

Read in March, 2009

If you'd like to get a feel for the personality and life of Henry James without struggling (g), try this book.

Colm Toibin, author of _The Master_, imitates Henry James' style as he tells this fictionalized biography of part of Henry James' life.

I found it thrilling to feel so close to Henry James who has always seemed so distant as a writer. It was interesting to learn, as I read Henry's inner thoughts, that he suffered from self-doubt . He was human after all.

...more

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Sep 24, 2008

Suzy rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

recommended to Suzy by: Cathy

Having just finished this today, I'm left slightly bewildered. There's no question that this is a piece of historical fiction which does proud to the genre, and I entered its world expecting to be dazzled. But it soon became clear that the author has no intention of dazzling anyone(perhaps this would fall under 'humbug'?).

There is a certain delicacy to the tone that blunts the keenest of humiliations and fervid of passions. Perhaps Toibin has taken us too deep into his subject, wher...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

4 comments

Apr 11, 2008

Brenna rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: 1001

Read in June, 2008

usually i get frustrated and bogged down when the pace of a book is as slow as this one, and when the plot isn't really the point. but i loved loved loved this book, and loved its carefully crafted, meditative prose style. i found myself reading much more slowly than i usually do and thinking more about what was being said, so for me it was more of an interactive experience than reading usually is, and i loved that. the sentence structure was more challenging than the books i guess i've been rea...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

3 comments

Mar 02, 2008

Jeff rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Jeff by: andrea lynch
recommends it for: revisionist historians

it's been a couple weeks since i finished _the master_, so i approach this review with both the benefit of critical distance and the burden of a poor memory for detail.

ostensibly a fictional account of the life and inner mental workings of henry james, _the master_ ironically succeeds in painting nuanced portraits of james's cohorts while treating james himself as little more than a caricature-montage of social withdrawal, repressed homosexuality and inadvertant emotional carelessnes...more it's been a couple weeks since i finished _the master_, so i approach this review with both the benefit of critical distance and the burden of a poor memory for detail.

ostensibly a fictional account of the life and inner mental workings of henry james, _the master_ ironically succeeds in painting nuanced portraits of james's cohorts while treating james himself as little more than a caricature-montage of social withdrawal, repressed homosexuality and inadvertant emotional carelessness.

While one may argue that because james's contemporaries are presented through his own intellectual prism (the book is written in third person free indirect discourse) we can infer his mental disposition through those portraits, the reader is ultimately left with a confusing authorial dynamic that in bizarre ways pits toibin against james; in point of fact, we simply can't know whether the depictions of minny temple, constance fenimore woolston, et al, are toibin's own or ones that can be safely ascribed to james the historical personage. maybe it doesn't really matter.

_the master_ also flaunts its exhaustive research on the events of james's life without seeming to realize that the historical accuracy of where he lived in which years and with whom he dined can be of no import to most readers (save the odd 19th century lit professor here and there). while i applaud toibin for the homework, _the master_ grafts historical occurrences onto an otherwise interesting story with excessive fervor.

similary, toibin draws correlations between james's historical circumstances and his novels with a bit too much ease. in many cases, an interaction here or there gives rise to an immediate emotional epiphany and, in turn, a major james novel. i admire the attempt to assimilate james's life with his art, but i find it hard to believe that something minor happens and, bang, he churns out _portrait of a lady_.

there can be no question that toibin's prose is fluid and engaging, if a bit precious, and i found the descriptions of american life abroad among the educated rich at the turn of the 20th century extremely compelling, but in the end i expected more from a book recommended by the inimitable andrea lynch (as well as the booker prize committee), both of whose taste is generally flawless. (less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

3 comments

Sep 11, 2007

Avital Gad-Cykman rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: irish

The Master tells about Henry James from the inside out and back. The insight into the author's psych is mesmerizing and daring. It is also a picture of a unique society, the rich who offered their palaces, parties and company to artists all over Europe, and the artists who stayed as guests for months. Henry James enjoyed such hospitalities but also treasured his solitude. It is hinted more than once and in various ways that he was homosexual, but either he was a-sexed or Toibin refrains from get...more

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Jan 17, 2010

Wolfgang rated it:

(review of isbn 0330485660)

Read in May, 2007

"It would spoil my post-mortem expression which I have been practising for years." This is what James's sister says some time before her death, which he eventually attends: "He stayed by her body, knowing that lying peacefully in death was what she had craved to do. She looked beautiful and noble, and he believed, after all his earlier doubts, that if she could see herself as her body awaited cremation, she would feel a grim delight at what she had become." And on and on the ...more

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Jan 13, 2010

Grady rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

The Genesis Seeds of Genius: Meditating on Henry James

Colm Toibin's fine novel THE MASTER is an act of art in and of itself. This is a well-researched biography of one of America's greatest novelists but it is also a novel, a great work of literature that sifts through all the extant data found in the copious letters between Henry James and his brother (the equally famous William James) and others of his family and acquaintances, other biographies, and the vast writings about this ex...more The Genesis Seeds of Genius: Meditating on Henry James

Colm Toibin's fine novel THE MASTER is an act of art in and of itself. This is a well-researched biography of one of America's greatest novelists but it is also a novel, a great work of literature that sifts through all the extant data found in the copious letters between Henry James and his brother (the equally famous William James) and others of his family and acquaintances, other biographies, and the vast writings about this extraordinary family . But what Toibin has achieved is more a dissection of the mind of a man who produced so many great books, showing us the gradual development of influences that, once digested, became such great books as 'The Turn of the Screw', 'The Portrait of a Lady', 'Washington Square', etc. THE MASTER opens with the expatriate James' embarrassing failure as a playwright ('Guy Domville') while his compatriot Oscar Wilde is enjoying tremendous success in another nearby London theater. This parallel plays significantly throughout the novel as a point of reference for James' periods of self doubt, fear of his own like sexual longings that ended Wilde's career in a famous trial, his odd transplantation from America to the United Kingdom and Italy, etc. Toibin's novel (by inference of his chapter titles) takes place from 1895 to 1899, but using the flashback and flash forward technique we are privy to the whole history of the James family (the premiere intellectual family in the latter 19th century), Henry's childhood and avoidance of serving in the Civil War, and all of the famous people who surrounded him (and at times slept with him in the case of Oliver Wendell Holmes). In a sensitive way, Toibin addresses the ambiguous sexuality of Henry, touching reverently and yet sensually on his platonic relationships with a manservant Hammond, his houseboy Burgess Noakes in Rye, England, and his magnetic attraction to the Norwegian sculptor Hendrik Andersen. Yet Toibin devotes equal energy to exploring Henry's long-term friendship with the writer Constance Fenimore Woolson who committed suicide in his beloved Venice, his sister Alice who dies young and has a suggested lesbian relationship, Lady Wolseley who decorates his home in Rye, and his own brother William. Along the way are hints and digressions about novels in gestation and in final form. And as if this tome of information weren't enough to satisfy the reader, Toibin writes with such magnificent prose that the book literally sings. "As an artist, he recognized, Andersen might know, or at least fathom the possibility, that each book he had written became an aspect of him, had entered into his driven spirit and lay there much as the years themselves had done. His relationship with Constance would be hard to explain; Andersen was perhaps too young to know how memory and regret can mingle, how much sorrow can be held within, and how nothing seems to have any shape or meaning until it is past and lost and, even then, how much, under the weight of pure determination, can be forgotten and left aside only to return in the night as a piercing pain." And in the final chapter: " 'The moral?' Henry thought for a moment. 'The moral is the most pragmatic we can imagine, that life is a mystery and that only sentences are beautiful, and that we must be ready for change, especially when we go to Paris, and that no one,' he said, raising his glass, 'who has known the sweetness of Paris can properly return to the sweetness of the United States.' "

Erudite, elegant, and sensual. Colm Toibin has mastered it all in this exceptional book. Read it slowly - to absorb over a hundred years of history and the development of the intellect, and to savour the seeds of genius in a great mind. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp(less)

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Jan 13, 2010

Corley rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250400)

Read in January, 2010

One way to think of this is as Henry James biographical fan fiction done by number one fan/genius gay Irish novelist, because it really feels like a James novel, just less wordy and minus extraneous plot points. There is the presentment of a rich internal voice mediated by a highly mannered exterior life, epitomized by polite verbal exchanges that seem to a Mr. Tom Postmodern as so subtle that meaning is almost, but obviously not quite, elided.

However, and here's the genius, while in...more

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Dec 27, 2008

Heather Hadlock rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: literary-novels

Read in December, 2008

This is a deeply poignant book. I liked how Toibin wove themes and characters from James' novels into the story of James' life, creating a portrait of a hyper-sensitive spirit who moves through life both starving for and terrified of intimate connection. The portrait of James' ambivalence about people and relationships is totally convincing and full of nuance.

The enigma of James' sexuality was handled in a subtle and nuanced way. It's a fantastic fictional evocation of "the clo...more This is a deeply poignant book. I liked how Toibin wove themes and characters from James' novels into the story of James' life, creating a portrait of a hyper-sensitive spirit who moves through life both starving for and terrified of intimate connection. The portrait of James' ambivalence about people and relationships is totally convincing and full of nuance.

The enigma of James' sexuality was handled in a subtle and nuanced way. It's a fantastic fictional evocation of "the closet" - a person so closeted, he's not even out to himself. I felt Toibin did a very elegant job of dealing with James' sexuality without anachronism. The un-nameable and inadmissible quality of his desires, or the desires that he might have had if it had been socially and psychically possible for him. The layers of personal and social inhibition are also sensitively handled: obviously there were men in James' time who knew their own homosexual/homoerotic desires and pursued them privately despite social prohibition, but James' psyche was much more stunted and occluded than that. (A typically un-subtle and un-nuanced reaction from the Slate Audio Book Club: one of the members offhandedly said that this novel "claims that James had an affair with Oliver Wendell Holmes." Well, not so much.)

The novel is... dare I say ... JAMESIAN in its handling of the psychological weight that can hang on the most minute interactions and, even more, the avoidance of minute interactions. Like James himself, Toibin captures the heaviness of silence, of the unspoken, of an averted glance or unanswered question. He also depicts the sensitive, lonely protagonist as passive-aggressive and cruel, for example in his relationship with Constance and the months preceding her suicide. And he persuades me that a person could at once be obsessed with other people and relationships, and almost pathologically avoidant of them.

The book leaves me wondering about the relationship between art and the artist's psyche... could James have written as he did if he had been a more "emotionally healthy" person, i.e. one able to speak openly and connect with other people? How did his unique achievement as a novelist -- the attention to nuance, the psychological realism and complexity, the thorough representation and analysis of those moments between people when "nothing happens" and yet everything is altered -- relate to his damaged psyche? Maybe those questions are sophomoric. But in reading this book I enjoyed thinking about them.

Merry Christmas to me! this book was a true Christmas vacation treat.(less)

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Apr 11, 2009

Lisa Frankfort rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: ah--england-, glbt, lit-fic

Read in January, 2007

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 06, 2009

Yulia marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0743250400)

bookshelves: to-read

Read in September, 2009

I'm finally ready to read this after having finished Portrait of a lady, Wings of the Dove, and three other shorter works by James. Toibin's writing was oppressively static when I first tried it, but now that I've rendered myself impervious to unceasing fogs, unverifiable rumors, and knotted syntax, I'm suddenly more curious as to how Toibin elucidates the stagnant mystery that is the making of the over-rated one.

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Dec 20, 2009

Mag rated it:

(review of isbn 0771085842)

bookshelves: british, fiction, read-more-than-once

Owns a copy — Read in July, 2005

This is a creative biography of Henry James. The book shows Henry James as an acute, albeit passive, observer of life. He doesn’t express opinions or take active part in any aspect of life from politics to sexuality. His life is full of avoiding life, and he seems to be solely expressing himself in writing. He is shown thriving on stories and happenings of others, which he reworks into his own literary creations. He is juxtaposed with Oscar Wilde, who serves as an anti-thesis of James, and at ...more

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Mar 29, 2009

Dagmar rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

Read in April, 2009

This book is essentially a biography of Henry James.

I was on a mission to read this book - I had downloaded it a few years ago after reading some good reviews. First, I decided I would culture myself by reading some Henry James, so I read The Portrait of a Lady. The reviews made it sound like it wasn't necessary to have read any Henry James, but I'm glad I did. I think having read Daisy Miller and perhaps a few others would have been helpful, too.

This was the audio...more

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Jan 10, 2009

Siria rated it:

(review of isbn 0330485660)

bookshelves: 21st-century, historical-fiction, irish-fiction

Read in January, 2009

I can't but admire Tóibín's work for the beauty of its prose and the delicacy with which he recreates the kind of man Henry James might have been—an introvert who nevertheless valued his observations of the world around him; a man whose fears and whose repressed sexuality kept him from emotional intimacy. There's a wonderful clarity and a sensitivity to Tóibín's writing—he neither judges nor forgives his subject—and as a character study, it might well be unsurpassed in my previous read...more

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Jul 30, 2009

Nancy rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: 20th-century-classics, biographies

Read in August, 2009

This book was a distillation of the things I most enjoy in a book:
. . . it was quiet and contemplative;
. . . it was informative in an unassuming way;
. . . it focused on character, not plot;
and, all that combined to draw me in to the life of an author whom I never enjoyed. So, it was also surprising.

I read one or two Henry James novels many years ago and was almost taken aback by my inablity to "get" them. I don't even remember which of his better kn...more

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Dec 14, 2009

Jan rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

Read in December, 2009

recommends it for: lovers of literature, American History

Colm Toibin's portrait of literary Master Henry James is certainly gorgeous; gorgeous are the quality of its prose and the windows that the author is glad to open into the life of America's nineteenth century elite, scarred by the Civil War, but also proud in its cultural nascence.

Emotional and psychological complexity are the least we could expect from such a portrait of the Master, so let us start with this pride, written in various ways across the James family, as much the subject...more Colm Toibin's portrait of literary Master Henry James is certainly gorgeous; gorgeous are the quality of its prose and the windows that the author is glad to open into the life of America's nineteenth century elite, scarred by the Civil War, but also proud in its cultural nascence.

Emotional and psychological complexity are the least we could expect from such a portrait of the Master, so let us start with this pride, written in various ways across the James family, as much the subject of the book as its son Henry. Branching from the Puritan pride of the family's forebears and dissolute Henry Sr's pride in the inevitability of Northern triumph are William, the bright light of Harvard's faculty and one of the fathers of psychology, and Henry, at a young age firsthand witness to Hawthorne, determined to carry forward America's new literary heritage.
At least, this is how the official biography would place things.

Toibin succeeds in unfolding a narrative that pushes this current of pride into ever smaller and more contrary eddies: Henry's feelings at having watched two brothers go to war while his mother coddled a wishful frailty, at having lost a sister and friends to diseases both physical and spiritual, at watching Oscar Wilde's star and "shame" both burn brighter than his own. Overall, we get a strong picture of the push and pull in Henry's life of various obligations: on the one hand to friends and family, and on the other to his own (artistically) powerful loneliness. The general impression is of a man in charge of his own destiny, but half engaged and half detached, uncertain or unwilling to fix the impact that he can have on the lives of others.

One way in which this work differs from James' own has to do with the demands of biographical realism. After all, his books take place in the constant chatter and bustling play of society, but "The Master" is more a story that takes place in recollection and reflection, and it's difficult to imagine a better portrayal of a master's mind.

(less)

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Oct 27, 2009

David rated it:

(review of isbn 0330485660)

I read this to try and get an idea of what Henry James was all about, and found it a very moving book, but it didn't help me with getting a lever on James's novels. You need time to sit and sit over his long sentences and psychological actions, as a lot of the action takes place in the characters' heads. I watched a few movies like Wings of the Dove also, but suspect they only scratch the surface of the reading experience. I tried to read The Golden Bowl because Graham Greene - a big fan - descr...more

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Jul 26, 2009

Janne rated it:

(review of isbn 0743250419)

bookshelves: 09-books

This book was my introduction to Colm Toibin; I had never heard of him until I read an article about him in the NYTimes magazine and a review of his new book in the NYTimes book review. I loved this book and am now ready to go on to others by him. The Master is about Henry James; not his biography, although we get a very good idea of his family life and his time growing up. Toibin manages to get into the writer's head; we feel we are present at the moment James sees an event or a story that ...more

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Jan 24, 2009

Philipp rated it:

(review of isbn 1587248255)

My favorite of Toibin's books thus far. Great view into the mind and life of Henry James as well as being stylistically brilliant.

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