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The Golden Bowl

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 · rating details · 3,859 ratings · 166 reviews

Widower Adam Verver is a wealthy American who has emigrated with his attractive daughter, Maggie, for the sole purpose of luxuriating in the brilliant shine of gilded society. Then Maggie falls in love and weds a charming Italian prince named Amerigo. Adam, too, finds romance when he meet beautiful young Charlotte. But it is the innocent gift of a golden bowl that shatters...more

Paperback, 640 pages

Published November 15th 2000 by Tor Classics (first published November 10th 1904)

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Sep 18, 2011 Nathaniel rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Good Lord, do I hate this book.

This is very, very late Henry James, when he was hopped up on painkillers and "writing" his novels via dictaphone. Consequently, the entire book reads like a very, very long, barely edited transcript of a dying Victorian intellectual rambling incoherently for hours in turn of the century English, because that's exactly what it is. The narrative is simplistic, is buried underneath clouds of irrelevant and soporific detail, and frankly isn't very interesting to begi...more

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Aug 17, 2009 Teresa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a tour-de-force this book is! In this, even more than in any of the other James' novels I read, there is the story on the surface and the story underneath -- or maybe even stories. Near the end I found the story underneath very chilling, though very subtle. The power of this one scene could change your thought process about what you thought was going on previously. How James gets into the heads of these individuals is amazing -- or should I say masterful, as he is in complete control, and a...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Mariel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Rod Stewart is a Golden God

Recommended to Mariel by: the Rutles wouldn't have a hit record for another eight years

I didn't nod off into my bowl of Golden Crisp cereal even once. Honest Abe and Trustworthy Carl from down the street will vouch for me. (Those are not sarcastic nicknames.)

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Mar 14, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Am still seeking words for the experience of reading The Golden Bowl. Less "fun" than Wings of the Dove, more serious in manner. Chilling. Yet, oddly, the one James novel that could be counted as having a "happy" ending. As often with James, there is the fascination of watching the movements of a complicated machine or curious contraption and feeling a sort of wonder as you follow, or try to, how the dang thing works. Also, as with Wings, I found the book an astounding psychological investigatio...more Am still seeking words for the experience of reading The Golden Bowl. Less "fun" than Wings of the Dove, more serious in manner. Chilling. Yet, oddly, the one James novel that could be counted as having a "happy" ending. As often with James, there is the fascination of watching the movements of a complicated machine or curious contraption and feeling a sort of wonder as you follow, or try to, how the dang thing works. Also, as with Wings, I found the book an astounding psychological investigation, an amazing case study of what I find myself compelled to call the politics of love or the politics of marriage. Or the politics of sex. For at the heart of the book is the portrait of a power struggle, between the American ingenue, Maggie Verver, and the brilliant, gorgeous Charlotte Stant, Maggie's BFF from school days, who also happens to be the lover of the European playboy aristocrat Maggie's father Adam's money buys Maggie for a husband. Blind to the relationship between her husband and Charlotte, Maggie pushes her father to marry Charlotte, thinking to make up to her widower father for leaving him all by himself, prey to every passing gold digger.

One way to register, fictionally, the situation James sets up is to think back to Jane Austen's Emma and Emma Woodhouse's dilemma about how to manage her semi-invalid father's distress when she marries Mr. Knightley at the end of the novel. Essentially, in the Golden Bowl James follows what happens after the marriage -- with the semi-perverse twist that he adds the spice of an adulterous relationship, as if Mr. Knightley had been carrying on with Jane Fairfax and Emma, in her last bit of match-making, had gotten her father and Jane married to one another -- had brought the snake into her own garden.

The passages, at the beginning of volume 2, that trace Maggie's dawning suspicions and doubts about the real relationship between her husband and her step-mother must rank among the most brilliant interior portraits of the contest between awareness and resistance to awareness in all of literature, fictional or psychological; they are worth a hundred psychological studies. And I found it at once inspiring and chilling to watch Maggie proceed from innocent passivity to deliberate agency in pursuit of both knowledge and the political goal of winning her husband--not back but for the first time--from Charlotte, which is the core contest of the book. Maggie's ruthlessness is matched only by her passion, for James makes it clear that the Prince has claimed the sexual avidity of both women. There are passages where James with extraordinary insight shows how the Prince, aware of his erotic power, uses it to blind and dazzle Maggie, and how Maggie, if she is to realize her goal, must exert her own force of will to beat back the appeal, while at the same time feeling the full force of her own desire. For the satisfaction of her desire remains, after all, the ultimate prize she is after. The Prince dangles the prize in front of her tempting her to snatch at it before she has in fact won it -- before he is in her power rather than she in his.

There is much, much more to say and note, especially about Adam and Maggie Verver as American characters in contact and conflict with Europe. Suffice it to say that, as one of the astonishing, chilling masterstrokes of his investigation, James portrays Adam and Maggie as ultimately guided by the determination that, having bought Maggie a real European aristocrat for a husband, they are not going to stand for being cheated or satisfied with anything less than the real thing they bought and paid for. They indicated the value they set in the financial price they paid, and they won't, and don't, rest until they've got what they paid for!(less)

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Sep 18, 2011 bowleaf rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Anytime I`ve come across the name of Henry James, despite having not previously read any of his works, by the very intonation of his name it was conferred upon me a sense of a writer of english extraction, highly refined, a tad ponderous and droll.

I read turn of the screw.

I next came upon golden bowl. Or as I affectionately like to call it, 'the bowl' (toilet or otherwise; a point on which I willfully remain obscure).

What a revelation!!!

Stuffy nerdy english major material? I think not!

This is...more Anytime I`ve come across the name of Henry James, despite having not previously read any of his works, by the very intonation of his name it was conferred upon me a sense of a writer of english extraction, highly refined, a tad ponderous and droll.

I read turn of the screw.

I next came upon golden bowl. Or as I affectionately like to call it, 'the bowl' (toilet or otherwise; a point on which I willfully remain obscure).

What a revelation!!!

Stuffy nerdy english major material? I think not!

This is a laugh-fest from start to finish. This is the meandering madness of a curious individual (henry james). I've said it, it's madness (this is the hilarity of course). We have the italian prince, who marries rich girl maggie verver, whose friend charlotte comes and marries maggie's father adam verver, an action done to alleviate maggies shame for having abandoned her quasi-incestual father-daughter dynamic, only oops! charlotte and the prince, well, they've been in a relationship in the past, so the now mother-in-law (charlotte) and son-in-law (the prince) must fight their urges, as their respective spouses (adam [father] and maggie [daughter] spend all their time together, neglecting the prince and charlotte. All the drama and intrigue is seen and discussed at (very great) length between Fanny Assingham (*giggle*) and her husband the colonel; the colonel by the way, being the literary equivalent of a 3 year old with a persistent refrain of questioning.
eg) fanny: what is the what of the who, but you *SEE, it really is the way of the where, oh the poor dearies - - !
colonel: so the what is the who of the where?
fanny: the when isn't going *TO who the why of the what, you see they really are when'ing the while away
colonel: the when is wanting the *WHAT of the where - -?
*caps locks are Henry James'

This continues for several pages. Fanny's husband is very very interested in the lives of the prince and charlotte. He is so very interested that he asks in every minutae the details of their intrigues. Fanny of course never just says they want to boink, it's more fun to spin circles of vague obscurity, page after long page.

Oh, there's also some reference to a cracked golden bowl, I think the metaphor is that the bowl is cracked and imperfect just like their relationships! and even by extension - - - LIFE ITSELF. Cups are mentioned a lot too, they add to this pervading sense of the bowlness of life. It's deep, don't sink. (less)

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Aug 18, 2008 Kathi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Sandra Ottinger

Recommended to Kathi by: Bill Ottinger

This is a remarkable story written by Henry James. It is one of the most difficult reads I have ever finished, but well worth it. James' story revolves around a wealthy father, his daughter, her husband (an Italian prince from a former royal time in Italian history) and an old friend of the daughter's. The relationships that exist & new ones that develop are deep and throughout the novel are problematic. The father & his daughter are extremely close and spend most of their time together...more

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Nov 28, 2009 Lynne-marie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am re-reading the mature James right now and have found The Golden Bowl an ethereal experience. James' use of words as well as his deliberate failure to say things and still communicate epiphany after epiphany is staggering. The sentences fall into one's mind like honey and their sense is as gall. All within the formal right-acting of the drawing rooms of the very well to-do. I feel, reading these books as if I am under a spell. It hurts me that there is only one more of this period of his wri...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Vivien is currently reading it · review of another edition

I want to read more Henry James, because I loved The Portrait of a Lady, but boy, does he make me feel like an idiot. Good heavens. Where is my brain? Why don't these sentences make sense even if I read them three times over?

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Sep 09, 2008 Anastasia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Henry James and classic lit fans

Recommended to Anastasia by: Mairin

VERY interesting. It took me a little while to complete this book, it is like interval training, but with reading. There are pages of fascinating dialog, the subtleties of which require such focus and attention to appreciate, interspersed with reams of narrative description which require much focus and patience to disseminate. But I found the story fascinating. I made the fortuitous mistake of reading bits of the introduction first, which gave away the dénouement, but kept me glued to my seat un...more

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Sep 21, 2007 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Henry James is always a hard read. Favorite quote from the Golden Bowl...
"My idea is this, that when you only love a little you’re naturally not jealous-or are only jealous also a little, so that it doesn’t matter. But when you love in a deeper and intenser way, then you’re in the very same proportion jealous; your jealousy has intensity and, no doubt, ferocity. When however you love in the most abysmal and unutterable way of all – whey then you’re beyond everything, and nothing can pull you dow...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Smcleish rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in October 2000.

Henry James' last novel was obviously fulfilling to write: he did not write another in the final twelve years of his life. In the context of his earlier novels it is possible to see why this is. The themes of his work (the relationship between American and Europe, the artificiality and deception of human relationships) are treated here in a more relaxed manner; the heated prose he wrote is considerably less tense. It is a novel which sums up a...more Originally published on my blog here in October 2000.

Henry James' last novel was obviously fulfilling to write: he did not write another in the final twelve years of his life. In the context of his earlier novels it is possible to see why this is. The themes of his work (the relationship between American and Europe, the artificiality and deception of human relationships) are treated here in a more relaxed manner; the heated prose he wrote is considerably less tense. It is a novel which sums up and completes what he had to say, so that there was no need for him to write any more.

The Verwers, father and daughter, are Americans who have been settled in England for some time - much more integrated into European culture than their equivalents in earlier novels. Maggie married an Italian prince (named Amerigo, after the explorer whose name was also given to the continent of the Verwer's origin - a symbol of the closer relationship in this novel), and a couple of years later her father married a younger woman, Charlotte. After a while, Maggie discovers that Charlotte has been Amerigo's mistress, both before and after the marriages. Her behaviour from that point, about halfway through the novel, is driven by the desire to protect her father, to whom she is extremely close (and James even hints that they are perhaps too close, describing their relationship at one point as "like husband and wife").

The golden bowl of the novel's title is a symbol of the marriage between the Prince and Maggie. At one point, it is a possible wedding gift from Charlotte to them - to be paid for by Amerigo. It appears to be gold, but close examination reveals that it is in fact gilded glass crystal, which is moreover flawed. After she discovers her husband's infidelity, Maggie buys it as a sign of her knowledge, and then breaks it.

To the reader, The Golden Bowl is anything but fulfilling. Its style, principally conversational like James' other late novels, is convoluted and extremely unconvincing, and positively invites skimming. The characters are not particularly believable, and some of them are really annoying (family friend Fanny Assingham is the principal offender). It is a novel with an interesting idea, and that is perhaps the best to be said for it.(less)

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Jul 25, 2011 Kezia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

The story that isn't told is far more intriguing than the one James tells. A fabulously wealthy widowed American father and his daughter have lived virtually alone in rarefied air. They each marry spouses portrayed as opportunistic - the daughter marries a charming but penniless prince of the Italian royal family, and the father marries a clever, fashionable, far younger woman about his daughter's age. The story unfolds as these spouses sink their hooks into our heroes.

However if we were to hol...more The story that isn't told is far more intriguing than the one James tells. A fabulously wealthy widowed American father and his daughter have lived virtually alone in rarefied air. They each marry spouses portrayed as opportunistic - the daughter marries a charming but penniless prince of the Italian royal family, and the father marries a clever, fashionable, far younger woman about his daughter's age. The story unfolds as these spouses sink their hooks into our heroes.

However if we were to hold up a mirror to these two couples, we would see a father and daughter with an almost incestuously close relationship, whose attentions to each other exclude all others. We see Maggie, now a princess, benefit from the social status of a title conferred on her by her marriage to the Anglophile prince. We see Adam, Maggie's father, rush into a marriage with an attractive woman half his age in an attempt to stave off his many boring, unattractive, and age-appropriate gold-digging suitresses. We see them choose each other's company time and time again, leaving their spouses to fend for themselves, and each other.

Frankly, it's this mirror-image plot that ropes in the reader, yet by putting the focus on Maggie and Adam, I could only guess at half the story. Unfortunately I found the style of this still "modern" novel too ambiguous, too between-the-lines to process much of it. Too much "what did he/she know, and when did he/she know it?" for me to follow. Only the presence of the two couples' mutual friends, Fanny and Colonel Assingham, provided exposition or clarity, if you can call it that, and their conversations are too few and too far between. In addition there is the Jamesian tendency of drawing out a few mere seconds, such as the interval between one character's question and the expected answer, into paragraphs spanning two or more pages. Too much, and yet, too little. Too much prose for me, not being a big fan of James in the first place. Too little to hold my interest in terms of characters, since I didn't feel much affection for any of them other than the cheeky, amusing, memorable Fanny Assingham.
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Nov 23, 2010 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this, the last of his final three major novels, James employs his characteristic inimitable and elliptical style, using long and complex syntax combined with nuanced half-thoughts and utterances that suggest rather than state, that allude to rather than demonstrate, that imply rather than assert, such that his characters and situations are built up gradually by the reader’s catching hints and making inferences, just as occurs in “real life” outside the pages of fiction. To follow the narrativ...more In this, the last of his final three major novels, James employs his characteristic inimitable and elliptical style, using long and complex syntax combined with nuanced half-thoughts and utterances that suggest rather than state, that allude to rather than demonstrate, that imply rather than assert, such that his characters and situations are built up gradually by the reader’s catching hints and making inferences, just as occurs in “real life” outside the pages of fiction. To follow the narrative and make sense of the story requires a degree of attentiveness and sensitivity not often required in contemporary fiction and is one of the principle delights of reading James’ writing, the effort being amply rewarded. The story is told by a non-omniscient third person narrator, and since there is little action and much dialogue, the reader must interpret conversations in much the way we do every day with each other, trying to understand just what the speaker is trying to communicate and to conceal.

The plot is easily told. The fabulously rich American industrialist and art collector Adam Verver and his beloved daughter Maggie are residing in London. Prince Amerigo, an impoverished Italian nobleman, marries Maggie, having of necessity given up his lover, Charlotte Stant, whom he cannot afford to marry. Maggie knows nothing of his history with Charlotte, but, because she thinks her father is now lonely, she engineers the marriage of Adam and Charlotte. Over the following few years, the foursome is inseparable. Eventually Maggie discovers the hidden relationship between Amerigo and Charlotte, and the remainder of the book follows the trajectory of the results of that discovery.

This is one of my favorite novels, a tour-de-force of psychological sensitivity and masterful writing. The tale is timeless, plumbing the themes of desire and jealousy, openness and concealment, rationality and emotion. A joy to read, the novel also inevitably leads the reader to reflect on language, the role and function of conversation, and the subtleties of interpersonal interactions in daily life. Highly recommended!
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Nov 16, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Golden Bowl is a simple story, very much like a traditional fairy tale. Early on, an Italian prince marries the daughter of a very wealthy American collector. A threat to a "happily ever after" ending is soon introduced, and the story line details how the four primary characters -- The Prince, The Princess, Adam Verver (The Princess' father) and Charlotte Stant -- interact in the face of this threat.

The narration of The Golden Bowl is anything but simple. Most chapters are presented from th...more

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Oct 16, 2009 Eva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Golden Bowl was a fascinating book. The emphasis on subtle and indirect communication, family dynamics, sacrifice, judgement of character, and even the complexity of the main character's eventual solution impressed me once again with James' care for detail, and especially for his deep understanding of the intricacy of human relationships and interactions. Compared to his other novels, The Golden Bowl is direct in format and is thus easier to follow, as it is focused directly and indirectly o...more

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Sep 08, 2010 Ahowell1 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I studied English lit as an undergraduate, the work of Henry James was not included. Upon attempting The Golden Bowl years later, I am both fascinated and mystified. Yes, it's true that the whole story takes place in the minds of 5 characters, and little action occurs. It's also true that James' sentences are a mile long. The Golden Bowl is still an intense reading experience, and strangely beautiful - despite the fact that some of it is irretrievably lost in translation. Like the gift that...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Veronica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Veronica by: Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

The good news; this was the best James I’ve read thus far. The bad news; I cannot say that I enjoyed The Golden Bowl.

Obviously, I am no fan of Henry James, but I do believe I enter into each novel with hope and an open mind. This being the third James on the Modern Library list, I hoped for the best and while it was a tad easier to read than The Wings of the Dove and The Ambassadors, it was not much so.

What worked were the personal tidbits James feeds the reader allowing for a very intimate unde...more The good news; this was the best James I’ve read thus far. The bad news; I cannot say that I enjoyed The Golden Bowl.

Obviously, I am no fan of Henry James, but I do believe I enter into each novel with hope and an open mind. This being the third James on the Modern Library list, I hoped for the best and while it was a tad easier to read than The Wings of the Dove and The Ambassadors, it was not much so.

What worked were the personal tidbits James feeds the reader allowing for a very intimate understanding of the characters. He did this so well in fact, that characters I felt ambivalent toward, I began to dislike as I learned more about them.

What did not work was the buildup to two major events with an eye for the tiniest of detail that followed with only the aftermath. For instance, the Prince’s wedding is being planned with much drama surrounding it and we suddenly find him married with a child. Mr. Verver’s wedding to his daughter’s acquaintance takes a similar turn where there is a proposal and suddenly they are married and quite setteled in.

Prince Amerigo is one of the characters I came to dislike. At first he appears to be a charming and handsome Italian prince who has fallen on hard financial times. He later shows his judgmental side which along with his infidelity made it easy to lose sympathy for him.

Mr. Verver seems to epitomize the fat greedy American accumulating objects of wealth and so absorbed with his daughter that he fails to see anything going on around him.

The daughter of Mr. Verver, Maggie becomes the Princess after marrying Amerigo. She seems to be the only character with character. She is very thoughtful and appears somewhat sheltered. When she realizes she has been betrayed, she does not lash out, but rather moves in for closer observation and says much with so few words.

Charlotte Stant is a certainly the she wolf in sheep’s clothing. She plays the poor, yet worldly American to the hilt and even as her deceit unravels, she continues the charade as thought her own performance has confused her with the truth. The more I got to know her, the less I liked her.

Were I to meet with Mr. James, I would try to discuss his later works as they do seem to show improvements.

My rating for The Golden Bowl is a 6 out of 10.
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Jun 30, 2012 Josh B. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is possibly one of the most tedious, overwrought books I have ever read. On that negative note, I have enjoyed other books by Henry James, mainly The Portrait of a Lady, which was actually quite good. It appears that his late works, The Golden Bowl, Wings of the Dove etc, are in his most annoying, self-indulgent style, and most of them are practically unreadable.
And this book is indeed unreadable. Henry James style is overly wordy and verbose, his sentences go on for paragraphs. I found mys...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Sasha marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: my-ebooks, part-way-through

Just awful. I have only read 74 pages, most of which were introduction. This is one of James late novels. Maybe the last? 1901 or 2? Don't really care which or when. I am NOT a James fan and picked the novel up for my first book club and it is impenetrable. Viz-

"Well, as it came to pass, he got the word or two, for Mrs Assingham's preoccupation was practically simplifying. The little crisis was of shorter duration than our account of it; duration would naturally have forced him to take up his ha...more

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Sep 30, 2009 TheGirlBytheSeaofCortez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Although The Portrait of a Lady will no doubt always be Henry James' most read and most loved novel, I think The Golden Bowl is his masterpiece. Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl, along with The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove, constitutes James' final, and most complex, phase as a novelist.

The Golden Bowl, set in England and in Italy during 1903 to 1906, is the story of four people, two men and two women, and two marriages. Two marriages whose core holds the same secret, the same unackno...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Jee Koh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Heady Draught

In The Golden Bowl, James finds the perfect metaphor for his material and his method. The comforts of life, enjoyed by rich Americans Adam Verver and his daughter Maggie, are rounded and finished off by their collection of art. To this connoisseurship of life and art, they add the Italian Prince, immensely cultured, immensely poor, whose marriage to Maggie initiates the plot. The marriage also initiates a crack in the blessed cup since the Prince was intimately involved with Maggie'...more Heady Draught

In The Golden Bowl, James finds the perfect metaphor for his material and his method. The comforts of life, enjoyed by rich Americans Adam Verver and his daughter Maggie, are rounded and finished off by their collection of art. To this connoisseurship of life and art, they add the Italian Prince, immensely cultured, immensely poor, whose marriage to Maggie initiates the plot. The marriage also initiates a crack in the blessed cup since the Prince was intimately involved with Maggie's friend Charlotte Stant before the marriage, but chooses to hide that intimacy from his bride. Maggie's marriage disturbs the loving equilibrium between father and daughter who advises him to re-marry, so that he will not be alone. The circle closes when Adam Verver, to please his daughter, marries Charlotte, and the impoverished girl accepts the older man for the sake of her passion for the Prince. This outline is but a mould, whereas the novel itself is the golden bowl.

The work is divided into two parts, the first told mainly from the Prince's perspective, the second from the Princess', that is, Maggie's, both in a limited third person point of view. "Point" is perhaps the wrong word for the rich and subtle depiction of the consciousness of each protagonist, a consciousness compared in the novel to wine filling a bowl. The work is a heady draught. It is an intoxicating drama of realization, a drama I now see as the essence of James's late novels. In The Wings of the Dove, Merton Densher realizes what he is asked to do by his lover Kate Croy, in wooing the dying heiress Milly Theale. In The Ambassadors, Lambert Strether realizes the truth in the relationship between the young man Chad Newsome, whom he comes to Paris to save, and his mistress Madame de Vionnet.

In both novels, as in The Golden Bowl, what is realized is far less important than how the realization comes about. How does the Prince come to understand the bowl of marriage in which he has been offered from father to daughter, and the bowl of passion which Charlotte offers to him? How does the Princess come to grasp the bowl of deception in which the illicit lovers have so tenderly placed herself and her father? But if human consciousness can hold so rich a brew, it cannot hold everything. We never find out what exactly transpired between the Prince and Charlotte during the Matcham weekend, the sum total of their "affair." That memory belongs to Charlotte, who has to leave her lover finally, the man for whom she would do anything.

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Apr 20, 2011 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Hands down my favorite Henry James novel. It was one of the last novels he finished, and I think it's apparent how far he had progressed the themes he'd been dealing with throughout his entire writing career. Readers are once again faced with ethically complex situations that have no clear solutions, and characters with such depths that, even after 500 pages, remain fresh and interesting.

The review from here on out will be talking about the novel overall, so spoiler alert!

What I think is most i...more

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Sep 11, 2007 Will Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Obsessively self-analytic characters, half-innocent social gestures supersaturated with significance, self-mocking-yet-serious flashes of grotesque melodrama, architecturally ornate similes of the inner-life, and delphically weird, beautiful sentences -- who can say no?

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Nov 08, 2011 Isaac rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have to admit that I didn't finish The Golden Bowl. I was reading it for a class and after a certain point, having fallen behind in the reading, there just didn't seem to be any benefit in trying to catch up. 300 pages seemed to me to be enough of a fair chance. I didn't have the heart to read another 300.

Judging only from The Golden Bowl I can say with glee (mostly because of all the raving about what a fantastic prose-stylist James is) that there are bad writers. And then there is Henry Jame...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Cyril rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm pretty sure that Henry James does not like me. I'm pretty sure I do not like him, and the proof is in The Golden Bowl . There is a remarkably high verbiage-to-lucidity ratio in this novel, probably because James never read Elements of Style or followed its dictum to avoid unnecessary words. Of course, he died before that guide came out, and so it's hard - but not impossible - to blame him. As you trudge through the the desert of words in this novel and try to decipher who "she" or "he" refer...more I'm pretty sure that Henry James does not like me. I'm pretty sure I do not like him, and the proof is in The Golden Bowl . There is a remarkably high verbiage-to-lucidity ratio in this novel, probably because James never read Elements of Style or followed its dictum to avoid unnecessary words. Of course, he died before that guide came out, and so it's hard - but not impossible - to blame him. As you trudge through the the desert of words in this novel and try to decipher who "she" or "he" refer to, you may realize that the book is actually about something.

What it's not about is the drama of a love triangle, or a love square, as in this case. That would be much too easy for you, dumb reader. A love quadrilateral is definitely present, but that's not really what it is about. One thing it may be about, and I could be wrong about this, is the deception of the innocent, in this case the innocent is Maggie Verver, who, although the sole daughter of the wealthy Adam Verver, is more wallflower than Paris Hilton. The deceptors include the Prince, who marries for money, the mooching Charlotte Stant, and the conscienceless meddler Fanny Assingham. The deceived Maggie, whose "eww!" relationship with her father is partly to blame for the problems, learns about the deception fairly early on, but decides to play the part of the martyr instead of the aggrieved, and engages in her own deceptions and machinations (it's really not as devious as it may sound). In the end there is a car chase and many explosions and a tidy Hollywood movie ending and the hint of a sequel. Oh, and vampires. Yeah, vampires. Aren't you sorry now that you stopped reading on page five? Anyway, I don't really want to get too much into this, since James can say it much worse and with far more words. I would like to point out, however, that there is a dichotomy between the outward signs of propiety -including the propiety of James's words and style of writing - and the suggested sins. I would also like to point out that no one really wins. That's all.

One last thing that really bugs me. In several of James's novels he presents poor people, in this case, Charlotte. James does not appear to understand what poverty is, since there appears to be no difference in lifestyle between the rich and the poor.

One other last thing, and this time I really mean it: Do any of the characters do any work? They just seem to lounge about all day with nothing to do. Get a job, you hippies!(less)

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Apr 22, 2012 Makii rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Me costó mucho sentarme y leer este libro. En partes se me hacía muy largo para contar algo mas bien sencillo. Asi igual, la historia es muy buena. Ver como se entrecruzan la vida de estos cuatro peculiares personajes, un padre y una hija y dos ex-amantes, que se encuentran cazados con ¿las personas equivocadas? ¿tenía que ser asi? Ver como un padre hace uso del dinero por sobre personas con ¿necesidades? para satisfacer los caprichos de su hija, es tan común en las sociedades, e injusto para co...more

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Oct 09, 2007 Maria rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: hadtogiveup

Henry James - you are awful. I will spend no more of my life reading you. What is the point?

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Jul 06, 2011 Jen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction

I keep trying to like Henry James...and it's very possible that this wasn't the best book to force down my own throat. James was good friends with my favorite author Edith Wharton, and I seem to assume that affinity will extend to their books. But while I easily can lose myself in a Wharton novel, Henry James' books seem to drag on every word.

The other problem was that I had watched the movie first. And so I kept waiting anxiously for milestones in the movie and expecting the same things to hap...more

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Feb 18, 2007 Anjali rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this is the single most painful book i have ever encountered.

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Jan 12, 2011 Antonia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I appreciate James' literary craftsmanship and his amazing eye for detail. However, the pace of his narrative seemed exhaustingly slow, even for a detail-oriented person like me (I loved Woolf's "To the Lighthouse," for example - albeit, the second time I picked it up). The quality of James' writing is amazing, but somehow, the narrative payoff just wasn't there - at least at that time in my life (I was about 30 when I read this). Ten years later, I might appreciate more how the depth of his por...more

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About Henry James

Henry James, OM, son of theologian Henry James Sr., brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an American-born author, one of the founders and leaders of a school of realism in fiction. He spent much of his life in England and became a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for a series of major novels in which he portrayed the...more

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The Wings of the Dove (The Modern Library Classics)

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“My idea is this, that when you only love a little you’re naturally not jealous-or are only jealous also a little, so that it doesn’t matter. But when you love in a deeper and intenser way, then you’re in the very same proportion jealous; your jealousy has intensity and, no doubt, ferocity. When however you love in the most abysmal and unutterable way of all – whey then you’re beyond everything, and nothing can pull you down.” — 38 people liked it

“It is no wonder he wins every game. He has never done a thing in his life exept play games” — 12 people liked it

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