All a Novelist Needs: Colm Tóibín on Henry James

by Colm Tóibín, Susan M. Griffin (Editor)

This book collects, for the first time, Colm Tóibín’s critical essays on Henry James. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel about James's life, The Master, Tóibín brilliantly analyzes James from a novelist's point of view.

Known for his acuity and originality, Tóibín is himself a master of fiction and critical works, which makes this collection of his writings on Henry James essential reading for literary critics. But he also writes for general readers. Until now, these writings have been scattered in introductions, essays in the Dublin Times, reviews in the New York Review of Books, and other disparate venues.

With humor and verve, Tóibín approaches Henry James’s life and work in many and various ways. He reveals a novelist haunted by George Eliot and shows how thoroughly James was a New Yorker. He demonstrates how a new edition of Henry James’s letters along with a biography of James’s sister-in-law alter and enlarge our understanding of the master. His "Afterword" is a fictional meditation on the written and the unwritten.

Tóibín’s remarkable insights provide scholars, students, and general readers a fresh encounter with James’s well-known texts.

Genres: Essays, Biography, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2010

About the author

Colm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Cymru Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best way I can describe this book is that it is like having the most wonderful conversation possible about Henry James.

Not many people I know have read Hank's stuff. Apparently, people do still read him––they make movie adaptations, and so on––but the chance of running into someone who wants to have a deep conversation about Washington Square is to the point that I'd have to be painfully naive to expect it to ever happen.

Even my own reviews, of Portrait of a Lady and Los Bostonians, while being some of my more popular, haven't resulted in much discussion.

So to get someone who has clearly read all of James, including the massive tomes of letters and notebooks, as well as a library of books on and about the man and his work, is a real treat. To boot, the book is short and broken up into small very readable chapters. At times I wished they would go on for longer (the chapter called Pure Evil, for example, about The Turn of the Screw; awesome...), but like a good social visit, it is always better to be too short than too long.

Tóibín gets the tone right. He gets James, and that isn't easy to do considering how "supersubtle" (James own account of himself) he is. James' detached yet thoughtful and heartfelt viewpoint on things resonates strongly with some people. It's understandable if one isn't part of that group, but for those that are, this is a fantastic companion piece to the fiction which is the source for so much conversation––even if those discussions are only in your mind.

[Sean Carman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this slender collection of essays from the New York Review of Books, BookForum, and other publications, Toibin writes about the connections between Henry James' writing and his life. In "Pure Evil" he traces the origins of his classic horror tale "The Turn of the Screw." "A Death, a Book, an Apartment" describes the historical sources of The Portrait of a Lady. "All a Novelist Needs" addresses James' novel The Golden Bowl, and contains this wonderful passage, which fairly sums up, in a single paragraph, Toibin's conception of the art of the novel:

This is all a novelist needs, nothing exact or precise, no character to be based on an actual person, but a configuration, something distant that can be mulled over, guessed at, dreamed about, imagined, a set of shadowy relations that the writer can begin to put substance on. Changing details, adding shape, but using always something, often from years back, that had captured the imagination, or mattered somehow to the hidden self, however fleetingly or mysterious.

Toibin's style cuts against the dominant trend in contemporary fiction. His view, as he writes elsewhere in this collection, is that a novel need not draw principally from the inner life of its author. It can be invented from the imagination as much as, if not more than, borrowed from experience. The argument also makes an elegant point about James' fiction: that he wasn't just writing about his own closeted sexuality, but about the secrets and interior experiences of the society to which he belonged.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

n this book of essays, Colm Toibin, author of The Master, a fictionalized account of a period from Henry James’ life, attempts to lay out how both he and James came to write their fictions. More than a tribute to James’ work, Toibin explains across many works the complex processes whereby James metamorphizes bits of life (anecdotes heard, figures glimpsed, experiences recalled) into art. As Toibin puts it, “As James imagined his books, he saw life as shadow and the art he produced as substance. He believed that language and form, the tapestry of the novel, could produce something much richer and more substantial than mere life, could produce something that offered what was chaotic and fascinating, a sort of complex and golden completion.” In his analysis of Portrait of a Lady, Toibin examines the question of just what James took from the life of his cousin, Minny Temple, who died quite young, and quotes from James’s own journal: "Poor Minny was essentially incomplete and I have attempted to make my young woman more rounded, more finished. In truth everyone, in life, is incomplete and it is [in] the work of art that in reproducing them one feels the desire to fill them out, to justify them, as it were." Toibin remarks, “Here, in a few sentences, was the philosophy of the novel, which made all the difference to James and makes all the difference to us now when we read him and consider his vast dedication to his art. He believed that his novels, in all their shapeliness and formal grace, in all the nuance and shadow offered, in all their drama, were richer than life, more complete than life. This does not mean he held life in contempt. Rather he longed to shape it, offer it, with his great talent and industry, significance and a sense of completion.” As James imagined his books, he saw life as shadow and the art he produced as substance. He believed that language and form, the tapestry of the novel, could produce something much richer and more substantial than mere life, could produce something that offered what was chaotic and fascinating, a sort of completion. 
The essays in this collection address many of James’ greatest works, his stories, as well as recent biographies, studies, and collections of letters and documents. Toibin also discusses his own work and growth as a writer, what he has learned from James, and how he began writing his own novel The Master. In a final tour de force, Toibin takes a scrap from Henry James’ journal, and spins it out into a story, re-imagining James’ own creative process. A fabulous collection of essays, really all a Henry James lover needs.

[Richard Epstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of excellent essays. Tóibín is at his best here when he's writing about James; when he tries to write like him, my attention first wanders, then dissipates. Then I nod off. But for the most part, these sparkle. On the other hand, if you weren't already interested in James, seriously interested, you wouldn't pick this book up, let alone finish it. It's not a primer.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Henry James, but these essays were fascinating, both for the insights into James' life and family, but even more for the lessons Toibin has gleaned from studying him. This might not be for everyone, but for a writer of fiction, it's totally absorbing.

[Sorcha Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is quite the eye-opening exposé of Henry James.

From the critical essay in this book, I was furious and each essay presented a different emotion for me.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not the biggest Henry James fan, but I would read Colm Toibin's thought son pretty much anything if he felt like publishing about it. I especially love the essay about his visit to Jameses' house and the short story about Lady Gregory he uses as an Afterward.

[Theresa Conte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays gives great insight into the creative process of the contemporary novelist (Toibin) and his literary patron saint Henry James. If you have studied the writings of either author, this is a must read.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful writer's perspective on some of James' ambiguities and obscurities. When you know more about how a thing is made, you understand it better.