The Ambassadors

Feb 14, 2013 [P] rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bitchin

I can’t decide whether I think this is the greatest novel ever written or the most infuriating. Or both. It is a subtle, oh-so-subtle, rumination on regret and missed opportunities. The premise, of a middle aged man dispatched to Paris to help persuade the errant son of his formidable partner to return home to America, was instantly appealing to me. That this ambassador falls in love with Paris, and experiences a reawakening of Lost In Translation proportions, made this a book that could have be...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Mohammed rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, general-fiction, library-books

This book was an unfortunate first read of Henry James.

I was impressed by his elegent prose, his literary techniques like the way he wrote the dialouge, how the writer/narrator came in to the story. "our friend Mr Strether" here and there. I could appreciate intelligently what what he was doing technically but his storytelling in this novel didnt work for me. The surface story was weak to me and the themes,ideas he wrote about have been done better.
Its a novel imho that haven't dated nearly as...more

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

A Perched Privacy

I finish reading this novel feeling exalted and cowed by what a man may accomplish in a work of fiction. Human relationships, so various, so changing, so beautiful, are so variously, changeably and beautifully conceived here that they constitute a cause for moral uplift and terror. Flying from an apparent bedrock of ethical certainties, fine discriminations flutter in the air, and cannot find a sure place to land. All (a word that punctuates the novel like an orgasmic cry) is gu...more A Perched Privacy

I finish reading this novel feeling exalted and cowed by what a man may accomplish in a work of fiction. Human relationships, so various, so changing, so beautiful, are so variously, changeably and beautifully conceived here that they constitute a cause for moral uplift and terror. Flying from an apparent bedrock of ethical certainties, fine discriminations flutter in the air, and cannot find a sure place to land. All (a word that punctuates the novel like an orgasmic cry) is guesswork: who is the "wicked" Frenchwoman holding Chad Newsome back from returning to Woollet, Massachusetts, to take up his responsibility as heir to a great manufacturing concern? how is Lambert Strether, himself a fiance and supplicant to Chad's formidable mother, to convince the prodigal son of his duty? what, really, is one's duty to life?

The third person narrative, told entirely through the perspective of Strether, dramatizes the changes in his consciousness wrought by the atmosphere of the city of Paris. Yet, he does not bring nothing to the alchemical experiment; he carries a sense of advancing age and professional failure, a sense that is old with him, true, but also young enough for its modification, and, even, transformation. For in Chad, Strether sees a younger self that he never had. I use "had" deliberately. The fine women Strether encounters in Paris are described with deep admiration, but young man receives the only extended description of physical person. Arriving at Chad's house, Strether saw another young man smoking on the third floor balcony:

He was young too then, the gentleman up there--he was very young; young enough apparently to be amused at an elderly watcher, to be curious even to see what the elderly watcher would do on finding himself watched. There was youth in that, there was youth in the surrender to the balcony, there was youth for Strether at his moment in everything but his own business; and Chad's thus pronounced association with youth had given the next instant an extraordinary quick lift to the issue. The balcony, the distinguished front testified suddenly, for Strether's fancy, to something that was up and up; they placed the whole case materially and as by an admirable image, on a level that he found himself at the end of another moment rejoicing to think he might reach. The young man looked at him still, he looked at the young man; and the issue, by a rapid process, was that this knowledge of a perched privacy appeared to him the last of luxuries. To him too the perched privacy was open, and he saw it now but in one light--that of the only domicile, the only fireside, in the great ironic city, on which he had the shadow of a claim.

I find this passage extremely moving in its contrast of youth and age, its double seeing, its longing for transcendence and domicile ("perched privacy"), and its tenuous claim of belonging in a great ironic city. The style may be impressionistic--seeing the balcony in one light which may, and will, rapidly change to another--but it is also profoundly human. (less)

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Feb 07, 2008 D rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, fiction-classics

Europe was best described, to his mind, as an elaborate engine for dissociating the confined American from that indispensable knowledge, and was accordingly only rendered bearable by these occasional stations of relief, traps for the arrest of wandering western airs.

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Everything he wanted was comprised moreover in a single boon--the common unattainable art of taking things as they came. He appeared to himself to have given his best years to an active appreciation of the way they didn't come; but...more

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Aug 26, 2009 Irene rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, fiction

Awesome! Marvelous prose in third person narrative of the protagonist, sent to Paris by his dominating fiancée to bring back her presumable errant son, with unexpected consequences. Excellent storyline, full of suspense. Large cast, great character studies. It has been called a "dark comedy," an that it is with a vengeance. I'm not happy about the ending though, but then that's me as a transplanted European ...

My warning: Not an easy read! It took me two weeks.

My advise: Read the Preface *after*...more

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Dec 23, 2008 Johan rated it 1 of 5 stars

What a tremendous load of over-articulated crap.
The only reason to write such shite in the era of early Picasso, Freud, Einstein and many other giants of early 20th century is to try to carve out some sort of semblance of a reason to exist...when there really is none. It's one idiot writing about his brethren and sisters for his brethren and sisters. It was published as a serial in The North American Review for minor (read: wannabe) intellectuals in New England in 1903.
Truly an example of the b...more

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May 13, 2013 Leon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Introduction by Colm Tóibín

One of the final masterpieces from one of the world’s greatest authors, Henry James’s The Ambassadors is now available for the first time in a Modern Library edition, with a new Introduction by acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín. A keenly observed tale of a man’s awakening to life, this dark comic novel follows Lewis Lambert Strether, a middle-aged widower, on a mission to Europe to convince his fiancée’s wayward son to forsake the pleasures of Paris and return to Amer

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Introduction by Colm Tóibín

One of the final masterpieces from one of the world’s greatest authors, Henry James’s The Ambassadors is now available for the first time in a Modern Library edition, with a new Introduction by acclaimed novelist Colm Tóibín. A keenly observed tale of a man’s awakening to life, this dark comic novel follows Lewis Lambert Strether, a middle-aged widower, on a mission to Europe to convince his fiancée’s wayward son to forsake the pleasures of Paris and return to America. Rich with fin de siècle detail, The Ambassadors brims with finely drawn character portraits, including one of the Master’s most unforgettable heroines—the beguiling Madame de Vionnet. This was the novel that Henry James himself considered his finest, and no one is better equipped to put it into literary and historical context than Colm Tóibín, whose award-winning novel The Master depicted the inner life of James in the final years of the nineteenth century.

About the Author

Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of six novels including The Blackwater Lightship; The Master, winner of a Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Brooklyn, winner of a Costa Book Award. Twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín is the Leonard Milberg Lecturer in Irish Studies at Princeton University and lives in Dublin and New York.

I

Strether's first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his friend; yet on his learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to arrive till evening he was not wholly disconcerted. A telegram from him bespeaking a room "only if not noisy," reply paid, was produced for the enquirer at the office, so that the understanding they should meet at Chester rather than at Liverpool remained to that extent sound. The same secret principle, however, that had prompted Strether not absolutely to desire Waymarsh's presence at the dock, that had led him thus to postpone for a few hours his enjoyment of it, now operated to make him feel he could still wait without disappointment. They would dine together at the worst, and, with all respect to dear old Waymarsh--if not even, for that matter, to himself--there was little fear that in the sequel they shouldn't see enough of each other. The principle I have just mentioned as operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men, wholly instinctive--the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as it would be to find himself looking, after so much separation, into his comrade's face, his business would be a trifle bungled should he simply arrange for this countenance to present itself to the nearing steamer as the first "note," of Europe. Mixed with everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether's part, that it would, at best, throughout, prove the note of Europe in quite a sufficient degree.

That note had been meanwhile--since the previous afternoon, thanks to this happier device--such a consciousness of personal freedom as he hadn't known for years; such a deep taste of change and of having above all for the moment nobody and nothing to consider, as promised already, if headlong hope were not too foolish, to colour his adventure with cool success. There were people on the ship with whom he had easily consorted--so far as ease could up to now be imputed to him--and who for the most part plunged straight into the current that set from the landing-stage to London; there were others who had invited him to a tryst at the inn and had even invoked his aid for a "look round" at the beauties of Liverpool; but he had stolen away from every one alike, had kept no appointment and renewed no acquaintance, had been indifferently aware of the number of persons who esteemed themselves fortunate in being, unlike himself, "met," and had even independently, unsociably, alone, without encounter or relapse and by mere quiet evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the sensible. They formed a qualified draught of Europe, an afternoon and an evening on the banks of the Mersey, but such as it was he took his potion at least undiluted. He winced a little, truly, at the thought that Waymarsh might be already at Chester; he reflected that, should he have to describe himself there as having "got in" so early, it would be difficult to make the interval look particularly eager; but he was like a man who, elatedly finding in his pocket more money than usual, handles it a while and idly and pleasantly chinks it before addressing himself to the business of spending. That he was prepared to be vague to Waymarsh about the hour of the ship's touching, and that he both wanted extremely to see him and enjoyed extremely the duration of delay--these things, it is to be conceived, were early signs in him that his relation to his actual errand might prove none of the simplest. He was burdened, poor Strether--it had better be confessed at the outset--with the oddity of a double consciousness. There was detachment in his zeal and curiosity in his indifference.

After the young woman in the glass cage had held up to him across her counter the pale--pink leaflet bearing his friend's name, which she neatly pronounced, he turned away to find himself, in the hall, facing a lady who met his eyes as with an intention suddenly determined, and whose features--not freshly young, not markedly fine, but on happy terms with each other--came back to him as from a recent vision. For a moment they stood confronted; then the moment placed her: he had noticed her the day before, noticed her at his previous inn, where--again in the hall--she had been briefly engaged with some people of his own ship's company. Nothing had actually passed between them, and he would as little have been able to say what had been the sign of her face for him on the first occasion as to name the ground of his present recognition. Recognition at any rate appeared to prevail on her own side as well--which would only have added to the mystery. All she now began by saying to him nevertheless was that, having chanced to catch his enquiry, she was moved to ask, by his leave, if it were possibly a question of Mr. Waymarsh of Milrose Connecticut--Mr. Waymarsh the American lawyer.

"Oh yes," he replied, "my very well--known friend. He's to meet me here, coming up from Malvern, and I supposed he'd already have arrived. But he doesn't come till later, and I'm relieved not to have kept him. Do you know him?" Strether wound up.

It wasn't till after he had spoken that he became aware of how much there had been in him of response; when the tone of her own rejoinder, as well as the play of something more in her face--something more, that is, than its apparently usual restless light--seemed to notify him. "I've met him at Milrose--where I used sometimes, a good while ago, to stay; I had friends there who were friends of his, and I've been at his house. I won't answer for it that he would know me," Strether's new acquaintance pursued; "but I should be delighted to see him. Perhaps," she added, "I shall--for I'm staying over." She paused while our friend took in these things, and it was as if a good deal of talk had already passed. They even vaguely smiled at it, and Strether presently observed that Mr. Waymarsh would, no doubt, be easily to be seen. This, however, appeared to affect the lady as if she might have advanced too far. She appeared to have no reserves about anything. "Oh," she said, "he won't care!"--and she immediately thereupon remarked that she believed Strether knew the Munsters; the Munsters being the people he had seen her with at Liverpool.

But he didn't, it happened, know the Munsters well enough to give the case much of a lift; so that they were left together as if over the mere laid table of conversation. Her qualification of the mentioned connexion had rather removed than placed a dish, and there seemed nothing else to serve. Their attitude remained, none the less, that of not forsaking the board; and the effect of this in turn was to give them the appearance of having accepted each other with an absence of preliminaries practically complete. They moved along the hall together, and Strether's companion threw off that the hotel had the advantage of a garden. He was aware by this time of his strange inconsequence: he had shirked the intimacies of the steamer and had muffled the shock of Waymarsh only to find himself forsaken, in this sudden case, both of avoidance and of caution. He passed, under this unsought protection and before he had so much as gone up to his room, into the garden of the hotel, and at the end of ten minutes had agreed to meet there again, as soon as he should have made himself tidy, the dispenser of such good assurances. He wanted to look at the town, and they would forthwith look together. It was almost as if she had been in possession and received him as a guest. Her acquaintance with the place presented her in a manner as a hostess, and Strether had a rueful glance for the lady in the glass cage. It was as if this personage had seen herself instantly superseded.

When in a quarter of an hour he came down, what his hostess saw, what she might have taken in with a vision kindly adjusted, was the lean, the slightly loose figure of a man of the middle height and something more perhaps than the middle age--a man of five--and-fifty, whose most immediate signs were a marked bloodless brownness of face, a thick dark moustache, of characteristically American cut, growing strong and falling low, a head of hair still abundant but irregularly streaked with grey, and a nose of bold free prominence, the even line, the high finish, as it might have been called, of which, had a certain effect of mitigation. A perpetual pair of glasses astride of this fine ridge, and a line, unusually deep and drawn, the prolonged pen--stroke of time, accompanying the curve of the moustache from nostril to chin, did something to complete the facial furniture that an attentive observer would have seen catalogued, on the spot, in the vision of the other party to Strether's appointment. She waited for him in the garden, the other party, drawing on a pair of singularly fresh soft and elastic light gloves and presenting herself with a superficial readiness which, as he approached her over the small smooth lawn and in the watery English sunshine, he might, with his rougher preparation, have marked as the model for such an occasion. She had, this lady, a perfect plain propriety, an expensive subdued suitability, that her companion was not free to analyse, but that struck him, so that his consciousness of it was instantly acute, as a quality quite new to him. Before reaching her he stopped on the grass and went through the form of feeling for something, possibly forgotten, in the light overcoat he carried on his arm; yet the essence of the act was no more than the impulse to gain time. Nothing could have been odder than Strether's sense of himself as at that moment launched in something of which the sense would be quite disconnected from the sense of his past and which was literally beginning there and then. It had begun in fact already upstairs and before the dressing--glass that struck him as blocking further, so strangely, the dimness of the window of his dull bedroom; begun with a sharper survey of the elements of Appearance than he had for a long time been moved to make. He had during those moments felt these elements to be not so much to his hand as he should have liked, and then had fallen back on the thought that th...

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Jul 27, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars

Originally published on my blog here in July 2000.

One of James' late novels, The Ambassadors is in some ways an experiment in minimalism. The plot is rudimentary (a rich woman sends emissaries from Wollett, USA to Paris to disentangle her son from an unsuitable relationship), background virtually non-existent (most chapters are principally dialogue), and the characters ciphers. It is only the interactions between the characters which are interesting - and even these tell us virtually nothing abo...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Elizabeth Urello rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

I’m sure Henry James is a genius and all, but untangling his prose is like trying to talk to a verbose, over-educated person who’s drunk off his ass but refuses to pass out. For example, he might start off with “The effect of the man’s speech was as if he were a tippler who…” then meanders here, there, and over there to the other bar, and then wanders back toward you, but veering off at the last second, borrows several drinks (by which I mean to imply words) off surrounding tables (by which I me...more I’m sure Henry James is a genius and all, but untangling his prose is like trying to talk to a verbose, over-educated person who’s drunk off his ass but refuses to pass out. For example, he might start off with “The effect of the man’s speech was as if he were a tippler who…” then meanders here, there, and over there to the other bar, and then wanders back toward you, but veering off at the last second, borrows several drinks (by which I mean to imply words) off surrounding tables (by which I mean, words that ought to belong to other sentences entirely), and then, seeing the end of the sentence approaching (which, by continuation of our metaphor, would be meant to suggest the end of the night, or bed, or the end of drinking festivities, which drunk would prefer at all accounts to avoid and so stalls to keep off at a distance), he throws any number of adverbs, barstools, prepositions, gerunds and the like in between himself and that end, and once you are fully convinced he has lost all sight of his aim in telling you the original anecdote he had introduced, he sometimes arrives back at that point, but other times, he does not, and if you were to map his meanderings, it would take a smarter person than most readers nowadays to derive any sense from it, and at that point, the other woman whirled right out of the room, and the first, though not affected by the same thing to the same degree of the latter, or rather, it was the same thing, but she did not derive from it the same intent, but was nevertheless affected in a different way of her own, said, “My word, what a lot of…” but then hung fire.

So, that’s what reading The Ambassadors is like all the way through. The other problem with the book is that it was written in a time when Americans had a hard time believing anybody on Earth was actually fucking, since nobody in America was. The premise of the book is that the narrator has been sent to bring back his fiancé’s son, who is having an illicit affair with a married (she’s permanently separated from her abusive husband) woman in Paris, but when he gets there, he really likes the woman and he really likes Paris, and he really likes the son more than he did before, and so he decides the son might be better off there. But he convinces himself (somewhat) that maybe the son’s relationship with the married woman isn’t technically sexual, and then (spoiler alert…?) at the end, he has this big realization when he can’t pretend anymore that it isn’t. Except, being a modern young woman, I didn’t get that AT ALL, and read the whole thing assuming that he knew they were a full-fledged couple, but that he didn’t, in these particular circumstances, think it was immoral. So then, when his grand realization came, I was all, “Oh, wait, hold on. This was a thing? Oh, I guess it was THE thing. Where have I been?”

JUST SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, HENRY JAMES!! Actually, this is a really hilarious novel when looked at in hindsight, but as you’re thwacking through the jungle of it, it’s pretty tiresome, and also, I think I am far too stupid to understand this book.
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May 26, 2011 Bruce rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lambert Strether is dispatched to Europe to bring home the wayward son of his fiancée, Mrs. Newsome back to Woollett, Massachusetts to assume his proper place in the family manufacturing business instead of wasting his time in Paris. He’s obviously in the clutches of a bad woman. But when Strether arrives in Paris and is introduced to the woman, he’s charmed by her and the loveliness of her grown daughter. Also he finds Chad Newsome to be much improved and refined by the influence of Madame de V...more Lambert Strether is dispatched to Europe to bring home the wayward son of his fiancée, Mrs. Newsome back to Woollett, Massachusetts to assume his proper place in the family manufacturing business instead of wasting his time in Paris. He’s obviously in the clutches of a bad woman. But when Strether arrives in Paris and is introduced to the woman, he’s charmed by her and the loveliness of her grown daughter. Also he finds Chad Newsome to be much improved and refined by the influence of Madame de Vionnet.

The novel dissects Strether’s opinions of his mission and what he should do as it changes first one way and then another in a tortuously florid sentences using vapid and abstract language. Here’s an example from the final part of the book. Strether has come to see Chad for the final time before leaving. The characters are realistic, the emotional power of the revelations to Strether and the reader are striking, but the wording is hideously stiff and slow.

“He was disturbed, as it were, only for him, and had positively gone away to ease him off, to let him down—if it wasn’t indeed rather to screw him up—the more gently. Seeing him now fairly jaded he had come, with characteristic good humour, all the way to meet him, and what Strether thereupon supremely made out was that he would abound for him to the end in conscientious assurances.” (from page 412 of the text included on the first disc)

Throughout the book my reactions alternated between: What does that mean in English? What in the world are they talking about? And just get on with it!

In Oscar Wilde's dialog "The Decay of Lying" he has his character Vivian, expounding on the lack of imagination in contemporary fiction, say:'Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible 'points of view' his neat literary style, his felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire.'"

I felt that it was a painful duty to endure listening through to the end of the book. In the droning tedium of his diction I heard a style that was vacuous, phrasing that was tedious, and nothing either swift or satirical in the book.

James, Henry. The Ambassadors. Old Saybrook : Tantor Media, 2010. 412. PDF eBook

Wilde, Oscar “The Decay of Lying: An Observation” Plays, Prose Writings and Poems.New York : Knopf, 1991. 75. Print.
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Jan 20, 2011 William Ramsay rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've decided to read Henry James. He's considered one of our greatest writers, after all. Up until now I've found him almost impenetrable. But I've decided to try. This is the first in the eight books I've chosen.
Two impressions came to mind as I was reading. One was remembering as a young man my friends telling me I just had to meet these certain people who were oh so interesting and advanced. Meeting them never lived up to expectations. They were always just ordinary - or worse utter bores f...more

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Dec 23, 2010 Akemi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: school

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Don't read if you haven't read the book and think you will! It is essential that you read this book without knowledge of what's going to happen...

This is one of James' later novels, and thus very dense and difficult to read. But, unlike something like Beast in the Jungle, the payoff was much greater to me and made the difficulty worth it in the end. The Ambassadors has it all— humor, memorable characters, beauty, and intellect. While I struggled to get into it at first, the more I got used to th...more Don't read if you haven't read the book and think you will! It is essential that you read this book without knowledge of what's going to happen...

This is one of James' later novels, and thus very dense and difficult to read. But, unlike something like Beast in the Jungle, the payoff was much greater to me and made the difficulty worth it in the end. The Ambassadors has it all— humor, memorable characters, beauty, and intellect. While I struggled to get into it at first, the more I got used to the style of writing and the more I came to know about Strether's predicament, the more invested I became. I will hopefully re-read it someday, considering a) I think that's part of the point of the book, and b) I imagine a lot of things make a lot more sense that way, or at least reveal new things to think about. The fact that James manages to keep the reader just as oblivious to the real nature of Chad and Madame de Vionnet's relationship as Strether is amazing. Mind-boggling, really, that he can do that to a reader even in 2010. My favorite part of the book, and probably what really captured me, is Strether's day in the French countryside, living out his Lambinet fantasy. There can't be many chapters that are more beautifully written than this one, from the description of the countryside to the appearance of Chad and Madame de Vionnet floating down the river, suddenly upending everything you and Strether previously thought. Other highlights for me included Sarah Pocock's "I think it's hideous" line in response to Strether's plea that Chad has improved under Madame de Vionnet's influence, Waymarsh's "sacred rage," Waymarsh in general, Mamie's meeting with Strether and her statement "I know everything"...the list goes on.

As with Portrait of a Lady, the ending of The Ambassadors can be seen as disappointing— why can't he just stay in Europe and marry Maria? There's nothing left for him in America! And it's Woollett, for God's sake! I don't think the ending has to be bleak, and Strether himself seems fairly optimistic about it. Strether says he has to leave in order to be right, which to me means that in order to do justice to the expansion of consciousness he underwent in Paris, he can't live "happily ever after," so to speak. He can't enter into an overdetermined ending of the narrative; he has to jump out of the marriage plot ending and go back to America, where who knows what will happen? Also, if the point of Strether's revelations is that meaning is malleable, as in the meaning of virtue in the "virtuous attachment," then his statement that in order to be right, he can't get anything might mean that he can't get things in the sense of understanding things, like "Ah I get it now!" Because the only thing you can "get" is that those aha moments don't exist; that there is no one meaning to "get," not only in Strether's understanding of the world but in the reader's interpretation of the novel. And hence, the need to re-read.(less)

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Sep 28, 2009 Gina added it

Are you a Henry James fan? Well, one has to be a bit possessed and a very good parser of the Jamesian sentence to qualify. I just finished The Ambassador one of his last three books: the other two are The Golden Bowl and The Wings of the Dove. No doubt he is the most intellectual and introspective of writers, but I adore him. He is absolutely his character, Lewis Lambert Strether sent as an ambassador by his New England Doyen friend to retrieve her wayward son from the clutches of an evil Frenc...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Eva rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the most difficult James I have read yet. Unlike his other books, "The Ambassadors" was not easy and engaging. I feel like this book was dedicated to a pursuit of complexity in conversation - I regularly reread passages to understand his meaning. Despite that and perhaps because of this conversational bent, the book itself is immensely enjoyable. It was like reading a play - there is a great deal of time devoted to setting scenes and frames of mind, internal soliloquys, and copious inter...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Sunshine rated it 4 of 5 stars

My word – what a compositionally dense book! Even the dialogue requires a level of energy and attention to innuendo and nuance that discourages any hopes of a light read. The sentence structure inflects the heaviest meaning on a single pronoun at times, which requires an ever vigilant awareness.

Strether’s own perception must be copied by the reader to notice and appreciate the minutae of inferences and unspoken languages. Marie (Madame de Vionnet) is a mesmerizing figure simply because we see he...more

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Dec 27, 2010 Veronica rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Okay, so I had a bit of a sour taste in my mouth after reading James’ The Wings of the Dove, but I truly went into The Ambassadors hopeful that I would enjoy something from his repertoire. Sadly, I did not. As a matter of fact, it was akin to being stuck at a party listening to a very dull person chattering on while trying to plan an escape route.

I again found my thoughts wandering and had to frequently reread several sentences and pages. I admit I may have missed some excellent prose as I was f...more Okay, so I had a bit of a sour taste in my mouth after reading James’ The Wings of the Dove, but I truly went into The Ambassadors hopeful that I would enjoy something from his repertoire. Sadly, I did not. As a matter of fact, it was akin to being stuck at a party listening to a very dull person chattering on while trying to plan an escape route.

I again found my thoughts wandering and had to frequently reread several sentences and pages. I admit I may have missed some excellent prose as I was far away throughout my read of this novel.

The protagonist, Lewis Lambert Strether is sent to Paris to collect the son of his fiance so he may return to Massachusetts where it is hoped he will run the family business. I believe he was meant to be an aging gentleman who had reached a point in his life where he was questioning the value of his life. I found him to be somewhat of a dullard.

Maria Gostrey befriends Strether in Paris and becomes his confidante. She aids him in his endeavor and eventually falls in love with him (why is a mystery to me). This could and should have been a very alluring and interesting character, but James failed to bring substance to her.

Chad Newsome is the sought after son of Strether’s betrothed who is enjoying the artist’s life in gay Paris. The 28-year-old lad is having an affair with a 38-year-old French woman. His character lacks true substance. He inexplicably leaves his mistress and life in Paris to return to the family’s business without ceremony.

A book riddled with lifeless characters whose actions dumbfounded this reader.

Quotes:

Four of the letters were from Mrs. Newsome and none of them short; she had lost not time, he now could measure the probable frequency with which he should hear. They would arrive, it would seem, her communications, at the rate of several a week; he should be able to count, it might even prove, on more than one by each mail. If he had begun yesterday with a small grievance he had therefore an opportunity to begin to-day with its opposite. He read the letters successively and slowly, putting others back into his pocket but keeping these for a long tie afterwards gathered in his lap. He held them there, lost in thought, as if to prolong the presence of what they gave him; or as if at the least to assure them their part in the constitution of some lucidity.

He wasn’t there for his own profit–not, that is, the direct; he was there on some chance of feeling the brush of the wing of the stray spirit of youth. He felt it in fact, he had it beside him; the old arcade indeed, as his inner sense listened, gave out the faint sound, as from far off, of the wild waving of wings.

I’m now not really so certain that I would enjoy speaking with Mr. James. Dare I say, If I saw him sitting in a corner alone at some such gathering, I think I’d have the wits about me to make a retreat, post haste!

My rating for The Ambassadors is a 4 out of 10.(less)

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Jan 19, 2013 Carol rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After a trip to southern England last summer where I saw Henry James home in Rye, I was motivated to read "The Ambassadors." Many years ago I had read "The Turn of the Screw" which scared the hell out of me (I don't like spooky stuff.) I knew James other novels were not like that so I decided to give it a go. Well, I must say that this was really a tough slog especially in the early part of the novel.

His reputation for inscrutable obtuse one-paragraph sentences is well deserved. I find his styl...more

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Jan 28, 2008 Ainsley rated it 5 of 5 stars

There's something about Henry James. He writes in baroque. His themes are delicate and complex. His books are almost painfully self conscious, and you get the impression that you are reading with the author hovering nervously in the background like a concerned butler. His greatness shines through despite his anxiety. The Ambassadors is one of his best works, and survives re-reading well. One of my favourites!

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Jan 05, 2013 Bill Hammack rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love Henry James, but he is an acquired taste. I have read the Ambassadors three times, and parts of it many times. While working in DC - 2005 - I got two copies: One for home and one for my office - a few years ago I added a third copy to my office at home.. I followed James advice and read it five pages a day being careful "not to break the thread." I did break the thread twice - so I read it in three extended chunks. (I read five pages a day at the State Department -- if anyone saw me I was...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Cat rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013

When Strether travels to Paris in order to rescue his fiancée's son (if Mrs Newsome is not Strether's fiancée, then I understood this book less than I thought) from an undesirable situation involving a dubious woman (or so everybody thinks), he thinks he will be able to control everything. Only that, he's not counting on Chad Newsome's cunning, some women's charms and, of course, Paris with its marvels. And nothing will go according to plan.

This is the general view of what this book is about; it...more

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Nov 25, 2012 David rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Ambassadors Henry James (1909) #27

January 25, 2008

If James were to get paid, say, a dime for every comma, and a quarter for every semicolon that he ever wrote, I’m sure that he would have made more money off this fictitious punctuation propriety than he ever got paid for all of his books. Check this out (form the second page of the novel):
“There were people on the ship with whom he had easily - so far as ease could, up to now, be imputed to him – consorted, and who for the most part plunge...more The Ambassadors Henry James (1909) #27

January 25, 2008

If James were to get paid, say, a dime for every comma, and a quarter for every semicolon that he ever wrote, I’m sure that he would have made more money off this fictitious punctuation propriety than he ever got paid for all of his books. Check this out (form the second page of the novel):
“There were people on the ship with whom he had easily - so far as ease could, up to now, be imputed to him – consorted, and who for the most part plunged straight into the current that set, from the landing-stage, to London; there were others who had invited him to a tryst at the inn, and had even invoked his aid for a “look round” at the beauties of Liverpool; but he had stolen away from everyone alike; had kept no appointment and renewed no acquaintance, had been indifferently aware of the number of persons who esteemed themselves fortunate in being, unlike himself, “met”; and had even, independently, unsociably, alone, without encounter or relapse and by mere quite evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the sensible.”
Fuck. See what I mean? The whole book reads like this. Riches to be had beyond his wildest dreams. If I didn’t know Joyce, I would say that this guy was the king of run-ons (see Ulysses).
My copy of this book (a handsome hard dust-jacketed - for lack of the proper terminology) is also illustrated. I kind of found this amusing, for reasons not entirely clear to me. Maybe I associate illustrations with books that children may (although in this day in age probably would never) read. God help little children that would read this book. On an unrelated side note (actually becoming a theme in my rants on this list), the main character, affectionately referred to though out this book as “our friend” had the unfortunate name of “Lambert Strether”. Not as bad as “Dick Diver” or “Morton Densher”, but still….
This book was, admittedly, many times better than the last book I had an unfortunate run in with (see The Wings of the Dove). There was even a part of this book; I guess the climax, (oh my God, I’m beginning to use the same punctuation structure as James! – wait – do I get paid dimes and quarters for this too?) that I actually found to be a decent read. I guess it started in chapter 30 (a long tedious price to pay) when he started equating his visit to rural France to walking through a painting. That was a pretty interesting analogy, and he pulled it off well. Things kept me attention through chapter 34, when things started to wind down a little. The end of the book managed to successfully capture the mood of melancholy and disillusionment, but I found the ending rather weak.
If James wasn’t already deceased (and if I were a real literary critic instead of some smart-assed know-it-all) I would suggest that he drop writing and take up a job as a janitor or a factory worker. Tedium seems to suit James very nicely and there is a lot of tedious work to be done outside the literary realm. I sure hope that my next read is better than this one.

2.5
A,T,J
(less)

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Apr 26, 2013 Laurie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013

This is a book that is always listed as a classic. So, with hopes for my own edification, I dove in to The Ambassadors. I really liked James' Portrait of a Lady. This novel turned out to be one of those books I am glad that I read, however, it was really difficult and time consuming. I told myself it was a good brain teaser because I had to concentrate very hard when reading in order to comprehend the sentences and paragraphs. Also, I did quite a bit of reading sentences and paragraphs twice. I...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Dan Wool rated it 2 of 5 stars

It's official: I hate reading Henry James. Or rather, he confirms that my taste in writers is decidedly is post-WWII. He is far too verbose with too little of a plot. Only English professors in tweed jackets smoking pipes would think this is a classic.

I do get it. James is a master of providing depth of character, pointing out the delicate relational details between different people and examining social mores. But damn that's boring! It takes forever to go anywhere and when it does, it's not th...more

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Mar 21, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Ambassadors is not a charming book, though it is full of charm. The syntax is notoriously difficult in places, though not beyond the pale of what was being done by more emotionally direct authors like Proust. The plot is simple and almost classical in its staging, with an elegance that is absent in the stereotypically sprawling, 'loose, baggy monsters' of 19th and early 20th century fiction. From one angle, this simple, almost predictable story (a predictability that James addresses in one o...more The Ambassadors is not a charming book, though it is full of charm. The syntax is notoriously difficult in places, though not beyond the pale of what was being done by more emotionally direct authors like Proust. The plot is simple and almost classical in its staging, with an elegance that is absent in the stereotypically sprawling, 'loose, baggy monsters' of 19th and early 20th century fiction. From one angle, this simple, almost predictable story (a predictability that James addresses in one of his characteristically rich but baffling prefaces) is a fault, and could be said to rely on the progressive contrasting of cliches in the form of characters that ultimately stand in for entire civilizations. From another angle - the one I see things from - the elegant simplicity of the plot allows the narrative to take on the enormous weight of James' psychological observations, while the risk of cliches is surmounted by his ability to portray the ambiguity of emotional relationships.

The satisfaction of the novel is to be had in the appreciation of these relationships, and the uncertainty as to what they are based on, what they amount to, and where they are going. As with much of James' other fiction, he is escorting us into a world inhabited mainly by women, in which the male characters do their best to find their way. Unless you find yourself falling in love with Madame Vionnet, or Maria Gostrey, and hoping that Strether will, too, your interest will probably not carry through to the conclusion. And if you don't admire the fact that at the height of the Gilded Age, James made his main character an unsuccessful middle-aged has-been, or that in a deeply sexist period he chose for his heroine an older, unhappily married woman who loves a younger man, you probably just won't get James.

From the start, James' book comes across as a sort of a deliberate experiment, almost a formalist exercise. His intent from the beginning is to tell his tale of an older man's late blooming solely through the mind of the man himself as recounted by an unobtrusive narrator. That imposes restraints, which ultimately generate some impressive results, but which are also constraining. While the first scene of the more conventional Portait of a Lady employs more conventional Victorian prose to describe an inviting English setting, The Ambassadors begins with one man wondering if he wants to meet another man when his ship docks in port: not particularly sexy. As the story progresses, however, James can't help but generate interest, partly because he begins to run lines of erotic tension between almost all of the characters, and partly because he can't help but charm the reader with loving depictions of a rainy night in London, or a cafe table in Paris. What is there not to like? That is precisely what James asks both his characters and readers throughout the book. Lambert Strether does his best not to succumb to these charms, but James sees to it that he does, and gives ample evidence for why he ultimately should.

James' rigor in keeping within the bounds of Strether's skull, however, exacts a price. Though an enormous amount happens in The Ambassadors, it happens in thought bubbles that have become so large, in effect, that for long stretches of the narrative they block out the scenery. The lyrical moments on Parisian boulevards, the masterful evocations of private spaces or the French countryside, charged moments of dialogue between characters who sense that their mutual feelings extend well beyond what they are willing to express, all of this is frequently squeezed to the margins of what often reads like the self-conscious chatter of college roommates. It's useful again to draw a contrast here with The Portrait of a Lady, where by admission James spent much more time building out a world of concrete description with which to surround his characters. Here, much of that description is gone, and instead we are in the mind of Lambert Strether and his lady interlocutors as he tries to comprehend the irrepressible emergence of his inner slacker.

There is some precedent for this: the book is a story of persuasion, as exercised primarily by ladies upon the men in their lives, as concerns the delicate interrelations of money and marriage. Jane Austen hovers like a muse through all the pages of the book, a muse disavowed by the author, but determined to trespass. As with Austen, this muse is verbal. It is preoccupied with social nuance and the constant jostling of relationships. It is, fundamentally, feminine. Whatever 'happens' will not be concrete; it will probably be a new arrangement of social relationships. Hemingway said stories end with either death or marriage. The Ambassadors can be credited as original for ending with neither.

That may be, in fact, the source of its modernism, and James' success. Beyond the offbeat characters and the unseemly relationships, the novel offers little resolution other than the unraveling of a number of lives. The freedom they achieve comes with a large dose of uncertainty. Yet I would argue that the conclusion is unworthy of the characters it treats, and that Maria Gostrey in particular is woefully neglected, if not shamefully used as a narrative device. We never learn about Maria, Strether's confidant and fellow psychological ruminant; she simply humors him with her wit and moderate bohemianism. Her promising personality is the most tragic victim of the confinement of the story to Strether's head. And by turning away from Maria's ever-more explicit declarations of affection, Strether not only strains credulity, he approaches the Puritanical, New England stereotype that James has supposedly spent 500 pages criticizing.

For all that, The Ambassadors is a brilliant achievement. (less)

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May 10, 2011 Carrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is not a full review, simply a few of my thoughts.

The Ambassadors is the first written of James's last three novels. The book is humorous, and it is indeed a lively commentary on the mores and morals of small town New England when placed in opposition to Parisian life. It is a period piece and should be read as such. It is also biased towards the Parisians, perhaps to be expected.

While I enjoyed the book for the most part, there was a distinct moment where the story could/should have ended,...more

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Aug 08, 2010 Alison rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is not a review so much as a reaction. This is a great and surprising book. BUT, not one to take with you as your only book on a three-week Italian vacation: you need time, commitment, and above all focused attention to get anything out of it. You may think you'll want to do the whole Jamesian youngish-female-American-in-Europe thing, and have his lovely thoughts mirroring your own inevitable self-revelation, but in fact, when you aren't busy DOING the whole youngish-female-American-in-Euro...more

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Jun 16, 2009 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In his preface, James discusses the making of a work of art, the writing of a (the) novel, the process by which a theme is chosen, grasped, and then enfleshed. He talks about how, a single scene with Strether having captured his fancy, all else in the story fell into place, both the preceding and following events and understandings. In a sense, this makes the process seem a bit too intuitive to me, a little as if the author is a mere conduit for the Muse, but that is probably not what James mean...more In his preface, James discusses the making of a work of art, the writing of a (the) novel, the process by which a theme is chosen, grasped, and then enfleshed. He talks about how, a single scene with Strether having captured his fancy, all else in the story fell into place, both the preceding and following events and understandings. In a sense, this makes the process seem a bit too intuitive to me, a little as if the author is a mere conduit for the Muse, but that is probably not what James means to imply; rather he seems to be suggesting that if the critical and pivotal moment in the character’s life is envisioned and understood, then what led to the point in time is in a sense predetermined, and logical consistency makes what follows inevitable - it is up to the author to discover what this consistent story is, and when he does, the story is successful. James discusses the challenges of writing a novel from the perspective of the main character when not writing in the first person (which makes the main character both subject and object). Thus, Strether cannot be self-revelatory, and so James supplies him confidantes in order to reveal his thoughts and character. Using his usual wonderfully complex syntax, James essentially writes a preface that is, in fact, an encomium to the novel form.

James, in all his writing, builds pictures by dribs and drabs, small hints relinquished seemingly reluctantly, all adding up over time. And always, always, there is the labyrinthine language, to be explored as one explores small avenues and alleyways of a delightfully unknown city, continuously quaint and fascinating. Always, especially in conversations, there is much verbal fencing so that the situation remains somewhat opaque, only slightly admitting rays of light now and then. Reading the novel is like building a jigsaw puzzle, small piece by small piece, nuances and hints being all important even when their importance in hardly apparent. The reader must engage in a continuous attempt, a subtle ongoing minuet, to understand nuances, shades of meaning, to interpret and understand in a labyrinth of shaded allusions, just what motivates people, what they intend, what they aim for. The question arises whether we really ever understand another person’s motivations. Can we in fact really ever understand our own? And like Strether, do we constantly function with unconfirmed assumptions, unwarranted conclusions, guesses and hypotheses that have little basis or justification, often preferring to proceed on such bases rather than attempt to confirm or refute by simply asking directly?

The plot of this novel is crafted impeccably, event balanced by event, character balanced by character. I shall not discuss the plot here except to say that the twists and turns are surprising and yet, in retrospect, predictable, the denouement delayed by false resolutions, the end unexpected but fitting. I think this is one of the finest novels I’ve read, certainly one of the most satisfying.
(less)

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Jun 29, 2009 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009

“The Ambassadors”, by Henry James

This is Daisy Fuentes Miller, reporting to you live from the set of MTV’s “Real World Gay Paree”. Six strangers, from totally different backgrounds, thrown together, forced to live under the merciless glare of the Hankcam, which documents their every move for posterity. Let’s see what happens when the gloves come off, and things get real.

Strether: Hi. I’m Strether. I’m engaged to Chad’s mom. She’s pissed at him, and sent me over to bring him back to Connecticut...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Mitchel Broussard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-college, classics, on-my-nook

Did I finish it? Not gonna lie: no. But did I get farther than I ever got for any book I never wanted to read for school? Hell yes. 73% farther according to Goodreads. And I get all the hubbub about James. His style in this book forces the reader to slow down, go back over, re-evaluate how you see what you're reading just like Strether is re-evaluating his entire life. I get it. It's so meta I might barf. But that doesn't excuse the way it comes off as pious and disgustingly pretentious. I mean...more

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Apr 10, 2009 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars

His very best.

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