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184th out of 295 books
—
51 voters
The Bostonians
‘There was nothing weak about Miss Olive, she was a fighting woman, and she would fight him to the death’
Basil Ransom, an attractive young Mississippi lawyer, is on a visit to his cousin Olive, a wealthy feminist, in Boston when he accompanies her to a meeting on the subject of women’s emancipation. One of the speakers is Verena Tarrant, and although he disapproves of all...more
Basil Ransom, an attractive young Mississippi lawyer, is on a visit to his cousin Olive, a wealthy feminist, in Boston when he accompanies her to a meeting on the subject of women’s emancipation. One of the speakers is Verena Tarrant, and although he disapproves of all...more
Paperback, 480 pages
Published
March 1st 2001
by Penguin Classics
(first published 1886)
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Name's Basil Ransom - status, bachelor. Occupation : I make deals. Occupation at the moment - just having fun. Let me tell you about my evening. It was last evening.
What a politicoliterary gathering that was. The drinks were loaded and so were the dolls. I narrowed my eyes and poured a stiff Manhattan and then I saw...Verena Tarrant. What a dame, a big, bountiful babe in the region of 38-23-36. One hell of a region. She was talking up some of that feminism thing like they do these days, and she...more
What a politicoliterary gathering that was. The drinks were loaded and so were the dolls. I narrowed my eyes and poured a stiff Manhattan and then I saw...Verena Tarrant. What a dame, a big, bountiful babe in the region of 38-23-36. One hell of a region. She was talking up some of that feminism thing like they do these days, and she...more
A claustrophobic and tedious book that has little to offer the casual reader, this is a still-life of a novel with almost no plot, drama, or humor. Olive, Verena and Basil are drawn with microscopic attention to detail, but they are boring narcissistic characters with few illuminating qualities.
Miss Birdseye is the only vibrant character in the whole novel. The exchanges between her and Mr. Ransom are interesting and entertaining. There are exactly 4 such scenes.
Before starting the novel, I wa...more
Miss Birdseye is the only vibrant character in the whole novel. The exchanges between her and Mr. Ransom are interesting and entertaining. There are exactly 4 such scenes.
Before starting the novel, I wa...more
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 characters--O...more
A shallow portrayal of pathetic people caught up in the selfish advancement of their own interests. Two self-absorbed individuals vie for the affections of and control over an enchanting prophetess. As with many of Henry James works, this one also focuses on the movement afoot in the late 1800s regarding the emancipation of women. The substance of the movement is not discussed, only the forces vying for control. I found no great cause, no great plot, no great character development, no great styl...more
A character study of three people: A brash southern gentleman, a nervous female suffragette, and a pretty, pliable girl. Two vie over the affections of the third, but the success in the book is that it makes you like or at least understand them.
Basil is the southerner listed above. He's invited to Boston to visit Olive, the suffragette. While there he falls under the spell of Verena, a pretty girl who lectures with great sweetness. Olive wants to keep Verena away from Basil and other men, partly...more
Basil is the southerner listed above. He's invited to Boston to visit Olive, the suffragette. While there he falls under the spell of Verena, a pretty girl who lectures with great sweetness. Olive wants to keep Verena away from Basil and other men, partly...more
Just lost my input!
Have been on a Henry James streak: The Bostonians, The Wings of the Dove, The Portrait of a Lady Am enjoying comparing characters across the novels, immersing self in the attitudes and manners of turn-of-the-twentieth century, and dueling with that mind of James. Here I was reminded that feminist leaders had been honed by abolition issues, that Southern sensibilities of its white plantation owners were still rooted in chivalry and efforts at adaptation to new sources of livel...more
Have been on a Henry James streak: The Bostonians, The Wings of the Dove, The Portrait of a Lady Am enjoying comparing characters across the novels, immersing self in the attitudes and manners of turn-of-the-twentieth century, and dueling with that mind of James. Here I was reminded that feminist leaders had been honed by abolition issues, that Southern sensibilities of its white plantation owners were still rooted in chivalry and efforts at adaptation to new sources of livel...more
Another step in the slow accretion of my lifelong project of reading the major novels and stories. The Bostonians -- maddening, thrilling, vexing, and troublesome -- illustrates again the principle that at its very highest levels fiction operates upon the reader in a messy and unpredictable way. As I write this, I am about to go to the "Great Books" discussion group at the Yale Club, which typically comprises late middle-aged women and me -- my peeps, in other words -- and which is always enligh...more
I loved this love triangle between a rich lesbian spinster and her poor southern, somewhat laconic cousin, who both vie for the attentions of a young, overrated, free spirited woman on the feminist lecture circuit.
James focuses in on the men and women of various political movements and his cutting descriptions ring true today. With abolition won, the political left is exhausted by success and turning to other battles, including women's rights. There are battle-weary true believers, hangers-on se...more
James focuses in on the men and women of various political movements and his cutting descriptions ring true today. With abolition won, the political left is exhausted by success and turning to other battles, including women's rights. There are battle-weary true believers, hangers-on se...more
Not quite sure what to make of this. It has a few Jamesian qualities: the enormous significance of details, general tragic view of life etc... But this is surrounded by mind-numbing detail and a set of characters with uninteresting psychologies. James is at his best when he's finding the complexity in the simple. But the main characters here are a caricature of an early feminist; a caricature of a post-war Southern gent; and a girl who's a bit too good to be anything but stupid. When the charact...more
Not one of my favorite James novels, this book is interesting mostly as an early instance of homosexual literature, and for the in-the-moment insight it offers of the women's rights movements of the late 19th century. Verena and Olive's relationship is complex, and made more complex in that it's hard to really like either of them: Verena is so weak, and Olive is so emotionally needy while also being irritatingly domineering. And yet, the psychology of both characters rings true, you can't help b...more
The first Henry James novel I have read and I was impressed. The arch-conservative, poverty-stricken heir to a now-abolished slave plantation, Basil Ransom, visits his arch-feminist, wealthy cousin Olive Chancellor in Boston in the mid-1870s. Between them comes the young, beautiful Venera who has the gift of inspired, spontaneous speech and whom Olive has taken under her obsessive wing to use her as a tool in advancing the feminist movement in America. Ransom falls in love with Venera and the qu...more
The first half of The Bostonians was a bit dull for me. The second half is hilarious. This is a book that grows on you. I remember the exact moment of the book (about halfway through) when I realized it was actually a brilliant, subtle satire. Well, perhaps it becomes less subtle toward the end, but I digress.
The interplay of the characters carries a lot of meaning, and James is oh so clever. I was invested by the end. The last fifty or so pages left me feeling dirty, in a good way. The this-boo...more
The interplay of the characters carries a lot of meaning, and James is oh so clever. I was invested by the end. The last fifty or so pages left me feeling dirty, in a good way. The this-boo...more
En mi humilde opinión es uno de los libros menores de un autor enorme, uno de mis favoritos. Precisamente lo que me gusta de Henry James es que debes desenredar la madeja según lees. En muchos casos debes sacar tus propias conclusiones. A pesar de esas maravillosas descripciones tan detalladas que tiene en común con la que fuera su amiga Edith Wharton, tanto de escenarios, situaciones, emociones o perfiles psicológicos, siempre hay una historia oculta entre lineas. James siempre dice mucho más d...more
Don't remember having read any Henry James and this is one of the freebies I got when the Nook first came out. During the summer that year, they offered like 5 classics a week for several weeks. I got them all!
The Bostonians is not a happy book, but it is rather interesting. According to the introduction, it is supposed to be a book about friendship between two women. But, as it later points out, the situation is more of a love triangle - or battle of possession. The novel is set just after the...more
The Bostonians is not a happy book, but it is rather interesting. According to the introduction, it is supposed to be a book about friendship between two women. But, as it later points out, the situation is more of a love triangle - or battle of possession. The novel is set just after the...more
Another book which just didn't work for me, and this one, I found I was often bored with it. I didn't find the appeal to the book, or to why it's considered to be such a fantastic read.
The writing was extremely well done, which was the saving factor to why I didn't give up on the book entirely. The plot was bland, and while there were some political aspects to it, I wouldn't exactly call it a political books. I didn't see a real connection to the women's movement in the book, just a handful of c...more
The writing was extremely well done, which was the saving factor to why I didn't give up on the book entirely. The plot was bland, and while there were some political aspects to it, I wouldn't exactly call it a political books. I didn't see a real connection to the women's movement in the book, just a handful of c...more
Jul 29, 2011
Karen
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
keep-for-completion-sake,
second-hand
"... she had reached that point of feminine embroilment when a woman is perverse for the sake of perversity, and even with a clear vision of bad consequences."
Goodness, James really doesn't like women, does he? Although, I can't actually deny that the above quote has ever applied to me...
But still, all the women in this book are infuriating, apart from Doctor Prance who, while being the novel's living embodiment of feminism (being a 'lady-doctor' devoted to her work) ironically and emphatically...more
Goodness, James really doesn't like women, does he? Although, I can't actually deny that the above quote has ever applied to me...
But still, all the women in this book are infuriating, apart from Doctor Prance who, while being the novel's living embodiment of feminism (being a 'lady-doctor' devoted to her work) ironically and emphatically...more
A pesar de mi poca experiencia con Henry James, me atrevo a decir que no es un autor precisamente fácil: sus descripciones son exhaustivas hasta el paroxismo, el ritmo de la narración es concientemente lento, es pulcro y detallista hasta la exasperación… A veces se pasa de la raya, como en ‘La copa dorada’ (libro que confieso que no tuve fuerzas para terminar), pero a veces se queda justo al límite como por un milagro de equilibrista consumado, como es el caso de ‘Retrato de una dama’ y también...more
I read this book when I was in my mid-20s and really loved it. James explores the relationship between two young women, both of whom are involved in the movement for women's equality in the late-18th century. The setting is very much in the shadow of the US Civil War, and conservatives are becoming militantly anti-feminist. Basel, the aspiring lover of Verena, bemoans the fight for equality. HIs comments echo the views of many other men of the time: "The whole generation is womanised; the mascul...more
For James, this is a deceptively accessible book. While nominally the characters go on and on about their relationship to feminism, the real drama of the book turns on the roles of women in classical Jamesian tropes such as repressed sexuality and the ways in which distinctly human impulses are both aided and thwarted by their available social means of expression. James' use of a narrative voice that is simultaneously external to the story, yet maddeningly allusive, indirect, and not, perhaps, a...more
Jan 04, 2013
Dusty
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
graduate-school,
read-in-2012
The Bostonians is the second James novel I read this fall/winter. Ultimately, I think it's a better read than The Princess Cassamassima -- more believable relations between characters, a sharper satiric focus -- but the two make a fascinating combination. I say this not only because they were written one right after the other but because they both profile James at his least socially withdrawn: They're commercial ventures, both serialized in various magazines, and although their politics may be u...more
Classics need not be serious, and they needn't be taken seriously. The Bostonians carries a lot of weight somehow, because it is a controversial meditation on "the woman question." Supposedly it has a razor-sharp edge and a searing statement to make about both chauvinism and the radical feminist movement. Profundity can be an unfair assumption to make of older books, and James's thorough description and troublesome loquacity do not help.
So let's get this straight: the rival characters are hardl...more
So let's get this straight: the rival characters are hardl...more
Dopo il primo scoglio...
delle 40/50 pagine iniziali, procedere diventa più semplice anche se non mi sento di consigliarlo a chi non è un lettore appassionato.
Lo stile letterario è barocco e chi è abituato agli scrittori contemporanei lo troverà ostico.
La storia è comunque molto interessante e come dicevo all'inizio del commento, dopo il primo scoglio mi sono lasciata trascinare...tanto da farne una questione personale. (commenti a margine annessi)
E' inutile sottolineare quanto odi Ransom e...more
delle 40/50 pagine iniziali, procedere diventa più semplice anche se non mi sento di consigliarlo a chi non è un lettore appassionato.
Lo stile letterario è barocco e chi è abituato agli scrittori contemporanei lo troverà ostico.
La storia è comunque molto interessante e come dicevo all'inizio del commento, dopo il primo scoglio mi sono lasciata trascinare...tanto da farne una questione personale. (commenti a margine annessi)
E' inutile sottolineare quanto odi Ransom e...more
James is so sharp and mean in this – it’s not what I expected at all, and I kind of loved it. The story is set post-Civil War and concerns the women’s rights movement of the time. Olive Chancellor is a frigid, yet highly emotional, spinster who is obsessed with the idea of women’s suffering and oppression. She takes up a begrudging acquaintance with her Mississippian cousin Basil Ransom, who is the perhaps the least ridiculous of the three principle characters, despite being cast as the stereoty...more
It's wry and droll. It's funny, like how you might go "hmph" as you read. The female characters are varied, absurd, and feel real, as real as archetypes of women reformers can feel--I love Doctor Prance who does her own thing and says what she thinks and is characterized more by her vocation as a scientist than by her gender. Then the whole thing unravels. Spoilers to follow. I understand that people don't always choose who they love, that our perception of someone might become more generous bas...more
I have always wanted to read a Henry James novel because he is well respected and thought of in the literary world. The back jacket of The Bostonian intrigued me with its plot line of women’s suffrage and the fight for equal rights so I decided this would be the perfect Henry James novel for me.
Well, the first 100 pages were a chore, complete with the thought of giving the book up entirely! The main character did not enter the storyline for the first 30 pages or so and the text seemed to ramble...more
i read this one for my lawyers in fiction seminar. it's a bit of a stretch to call this a novel about a lawyer, though one of the main characters is one. i suppose the most relevant connection to lawyering is the use of persuasion.
this novel's about two cousins-- olive chancellor, a wealthy feminist bostonian woman, and basil ransom, a southern conservative with strong mysogynist leanings-- who spend the entire book fighting over a young girl named verena tarrant. verena's supposedly really hot...more
this novel's about two cousins-- olive chancellor, a wealthy feminist bostonian woman, and basil ransom, a southern conservative with strong mysogynist leanings-- who spend the entire book fighting over a young girl named verena tarrant. verena's supposedly really hot...more
I read this book for my Lawyers in Fiction class, but it doesn't really have much to do with lawyers or the law. It is the story of the struggle for Verena Tarrant, a young woman with a talent for oratory, a struggle between Basil Ransom, a conservative man who has left the defeated South, and Olive Chancellor, the upper crust Bostonian who tries to possess Verena in the name of bringing her out for the women's movement.
The book has many interesting themes - it made for a good discussion in cla...more
The book has many interesting themes - it made for a good discussion in cla...more
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
Dec 03, 2007
Liza
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
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
Jan 20, 2008
Patricia
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
the young and impressionable.
Shelves:
classics
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 thin...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 thin...more
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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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“Miss Chancellor would have been much happier if the movements she was interested in could have been carried on only by people she liked,and if revolutions, somehow, didn't always have to begin with one's self--with internal convulsions,sacrifices,executions.”
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“Wherever you go, madam, it will matter little what you carry. You will always carry your goodness.”
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