Classics and the Western Canon discussion
James — The Portrait of a Lady
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Week 11 — Chapters 51-55; The Book as a Whole
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Part 2 — EnglandHenrietta and Mr Bantling meet Isabel at the London train station. Mr Bantling has been to Gardencourt, and Ralph is failing but resting easy at the moment. Isabel and Henrietta discuss how Isabel left things with Osmond and Pansy, and Henrietta reveals her own news — she and Mr Bantling are going to be married and live in London.
Isabel arrives at Gardencourt the next day and meets her aunt, who seems unchanged. She tells Isabel that Lord Warburton has visited Ralph with news that he’s engaged to be married shortly. Isabel imagines the effect on Osmond when he learns that Pansy’s chance to marry Lord Warburton is over.
Isabel sits with Ralph over the next three days. He knows she is there but is too ill to speak until the third day. Ralph knows he is dying and wants to talk with her. He is concerned that Osmond made it difficult for her to come to see him. She asks him if it is true ” you made me rich-that all I have is yours?”
“He turned away his head, and for some time said nothing. Then at last: 'Ah, don't speak of that—that was not happy.' Slowly he moved his face toward her again, and they once more saw each other. 'But for that—but for that—!' And he paused. 'I believe I ruined you, he wailed.
She was full of the sense that he was beyond the reach of pain; he seemed already so little of this world. But even if she had not had it she would still have spoken, for nothing mattered now but the only knowledge that was not pure anguish--the knowledge that they were looking at the truth together. 'He married me for the money,' she said. She wished to say everything; she was afraid he might die before she had done so.”
They talk awhile. Ralph asks about her marriage:
'It is all over then between you?'
'Oh no; I don't think anything's over.'
'Are you going back to him?' Ralph gasped.
'I don't know—I can't tell. I shall stay here as long as I may. I don't want to think—I needn't think. I don't care for anything but you, and that's enough for the present.”
That night, Ralph dies. Isabel stays on with her aunt after the funeral, postponing any decision on what to do next. Lord Warburton comes to see her aunt, who brings him out for an awkward conversation with Isabel.
Caspar Goodwood also comes to speak to Isabel. He tells her he understands her situation and that he can help her. He suggests that they can go away together:
”Why shouldn't we be happy—when it's here before us, when it's so easy? I'm yours forever--forever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. What have you to care about? You've no children; that perhaps would be an obstacle. As it is you've nothing to consider. You must save what you can of your life; you mustn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part…You took the great step in coming away; the next is nothing; it’s the natural one.”
Isabel suddenly feels as if she has never been loved before, that his love is the real thing. Nonetheless, she asks him to leave her alone. He kisses her:
“His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and it was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in his hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and made one with this act of possession. So had she heard of those wrecked and under water following a train of images before they sink.”
Isabel runs away towards the house. ”She had not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a very straight path.”
Two days later, when Caspar Goodwood asks at Henrietta’s house in London, she tells him Isabel has left for Rome.
Were there any surprises for you in this week’s reading? I think one person at least realized the relationship between Madame Merle and Pansy early on, but it was a surprise to me when I first read the book.Why do you think Isabel returned to Rome? What do you think of the author’s decision to end the story at that point?
To borrow one of Lily’s questions, does the title “The Portrait of a Lady” fit the book? Does Isabel change over the course of the story?
Did/do others of you read the serialization of stories in magazines? As some of you have already "called me on," I have accompanied this re-read of TPoaL by other's comments thereon. (As one of them said, any great book is often the book itself as well as the reactions that have grown up around it. My comment -- try any Biblical passage against which thousands of sermons have been preached. And any (Talmud?) scholar who demands his students read the individual words, the sentences, the verses, the context.) But what I found fascinating for James and TPoaL was the similarities and differences for different authors (say Dickens and so many others) as they meshed time constraints, mail deliveries, needs for cash flow, anxious editors, against the aesthetic demands of the story they were spinning. And the match of tale with the patience of the subscribers. (Where would wedding festivities have fit?)
Did James need to create Osmond's sister to eventually "expose the family secrets" to Isabel? I would have thought that in an such an "enclosed community", rumors would have been part of the milieu. Or was that a reinforcement of Isabel's "American naiveté/innocence"? Or...?I am not sure of the "ideas" of Isabel that supposedly attracted Osmond, other than perhaps some admiration of his collection and his knowledge thereon. Also, to me, there seemed a parallel between Isabel and Ralph, wherein she became sort of a surrogate for the adventurer that he might have wanted to be if his health had permitted -- and that very similarity became part of a convivial bond, even though Ralph came to rue its toll on Isabel.
Here’s what James had to say about the ending: “The obvious criticism of course will be that it is not finished – – that I have not seen the heroine to the end of her situation – – that I have left her en l’air – – This is both true and false. The whole of anything is never told; you can only take what groups together. What I have done has that unity – – it groups together. It is complete in itself – – and the rest may be taken up or not, later.” The Notebooks of Henry James
I'm not sure I liked the ending, even if I thought it was fitting. But we get so much of Isabel's thoughts throughout all the novel, it was jarring to suddenly have "And she left, to go back to Italy. To do what, you ask? Only she knows (and maybe not even her)". I was like : NO! We are immersed in her thoughts, and now we get "so you guess the end".I was also very surprised by the character of Caspar Goodwood : what makes him come back, again and again, to Isabel? She didn't give him encouragement the last time they spoke, so why does he think she'll change her mind?
Is Madame Merle wicked? I think she is clearly the mastermind here. She came up with the marriage scheme and persuaded Osmond to participate. And she knew his character well enough to anticipate the marriage was likely to be unhappy for Isabel. In Dante’s Inferno, those who betrayed their friends are in the lowest circle of hell. On the other hand, with the final revelation that she is Pansy’s mother, it appears she may also have been trying to benefit Pansy with her scheme by giving her a good stepmother who might give her some financial means that Osmond can’t and won’t. So maybe she was a good mother in her way, but a very bad friend?
Susan wrote: "Is Madame Merle wicked? I think she is clearly the mastermind here. She came up with the marriage scheme and persuaded Osmond to participate. And she knew his character well enough to anticipate th..."In hindsight, I don't think Madame Merle was ever Isabel's friend : she liked her, she appreciated Isabel's qualitues, but friendship is too strong a word. Madame Merle is like Osmond, she's selfish. She goes from house to house, making herself agreeable. It's like a job to her. I think Isabel was like that for Madame Merle. Why alienate Mrs Touchett's niece, when the Touchetts are so wealthy? And then Isalbel is rich in her own right, so ... here come the plot to mary her to her good friend Osmond. And I think you're right, she did it for Pansy too.
La_mariane wrote: "I was also very surprised by the character of Caspar Goodwood : what makes him come back, again and again, to Isabel? She didn't give him encouragement the last time they spoke, so why does he think she'll change her mind?."Because he's an American. He's an aggressive go-getter who won't take no for answer. He doesn't care about decorum or social niceties -- he just wants what he wants, and he sees no reason why he can't just take it. Henrietta is the same way. It's interesting that this stereotype persists to this day. When TikTok was banned in the US for a few hours someone said, "It's like all the loud kids went home."
But Isabel is not like this. She understands Americans, and at the end she definitely feels something for Goodwood (if I can interpret the "white lightning" that way) but for some reason she turns away. She turns toward the old world and the confinement of convention, and when she marries Osmond she commits to it.
Susanna wrote: "I liked Henrietta. I'm glad things worked out for her. I love how she treated Mr. Bantling like her little puppy."I liked Henrietta, too and thought she evolved over the novel as represented by her changed relationships, with Ralph and with Mr Bantling. And she is a good friend, crossing the Atlantic because she thinks Isabel is unhappy, accompanying Ralph home to Gardencourt, meeting Isabel at the train station with news of Ralph, etc.
Even though Mrs Touchett was grieving the loss of her son, I was struck by the apparently thoughtless cruelty of her words to Isabel: 'Go and thank God you've no child, said Mrs Touchett, disengaging herself. I was reminded that Isabel, too, had lost her child several years earlier.
I feel like this book would be well worth reading again.
Roger wrote: "I feel like this book would be well worth reading again."Hear, hear!
Have any seen the movie of a few years ago? I found it another perplexing reading of the story James.told. I think for me another rereading would be like rereading Homer— whose Iliad I found myself pulling to find the passage of Hector and his wife with their child. The “logic” of the juxtaposition? Especially if James was exploring living a moral portrait/life.Sometimes I wondered what my reading would have been with a different title, one of several possibilities: English speaking gentile ladies; Cousins; ….
Lily wrote: "Have any seen the movie of a few years ago? I found it another perplexing reading of the story James.told. I think for me another rereading would be like rereading Homer— whose Iliad I found myself..."I saw the 1996 Jane Campion movie when it came out. Looking at the cast, there were some wonderful actors involved, including John Gielgud as Mr Touchett and Shelley Duval as the Countess Gemini. As I remember, it was pretty faithful to the book, but it’s been awhile and I could be misremembering.
Btw, I agree with you about the Victorian serializations — what an ability those authors had to hold the story all in their memories with no chance for second thoughts — not to mention having to produce the each installment on time to the printers. My hat is off to them (metaphorically speaking).
Susan wrote: "Even though Mrs Touchett was grieving the loss of her son, I was struck by the apparently thoughtless cruelty of her words to Isabel: 'Go and thank God you've no child, said Mrs Touchett, disengagi..."The words we say to those grieving are so easily thoughtless, but don't Mrs. Touchett's words say as much about her connections to her son, which could be easy to minimize -- given her lifestyle, as they do about Isabel. Now, you may mean Mrs. Touchett was being thoughtless about the closeness possible of the relationship between cousins (vs mother child)? (Maybe I underestimate the significance of James treatment of Isabel and Osmond's loss of a child.)
Thomas wrote: "But Isabel is not like this. She understands Americans, and at the end she definitely feels something for Goodwood (if I can interpret the "white lightning" that way) but for some reason she turns away. ..."Or the reappearances of the image of "bolt" in close readings of the text? The tensions that appear again and again between mental, physical, communal, societal commitments? (I can't seem to let this read "go." One of the NYT opinion writers, in an article I haven't been able to find again, puts Henry James into contrast with the stories that arose from US westward-ho pioneers and adventurers. James, Hawthorne, Emerson versus Lewis&Clark, gold rush, cattle drives, broken prairie adventures -- not stopping for Dreiser or -- and I am having trouble aligning timelines of Amer. writers.)
Susan wrote: "...You must save what you can of your life; you mustn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part…You took the great step in coming away; the next is nothing; it’s the natural one.”"I found myself thinking of the probable differences of the impact of this statement at the time James wrote it than it would have in a story in a world some 100-120 years later, which have much more broad social acceptance of divorce and acceptable reasons therefore. Is it a lot, or not so much as it might seem, depending on who, where? (Did Mrs. Touchett already know how to live independently within the social boundaries of her class and financial needs?) (Is Touchett a play on words -- touch it -- applicable to in some way or another to each family member portrayed?)
Susan wrote: ,,,"'I don't know—I can't tell. I shall stay here as long as I may. I don't want to think—I needn't think. I don't care for anything but you, and that's enough for the present.”That night, Ralph dies. Isabel stays on with her aunt after the funeral, postponing any decision on what to do next."
Susan -- your comments here, as well as dwelling on the time Isabel sat thinking after the party re Rosier/Pansy/Osmond, really helped me understand why this novel is one that illustrates the transition that was occurring in novels -- stream of consciousness, thinking/reflecting were replacing (or "becoming") events in the narrative flow, right along side what had physical, rather than solely mental, existence. (Yes, I know. Lit majors here already recognized this.... But my training was elsewhere.)
Part 1 — Rome
Isabel receives a telegram from her aunt in England that Ralph is dying and would like to see her if it is convenient. When she tells Osmond that she must go to see Ralph before he dies, Osmond says he doesn’t see any need for her to go: ”I've an ideal of what my wife should do and should not do. She should not travel across Europe alone, in defiance of my deepest desire, to sit at the bedside of other men. Your cousin's nothing to you; he's nothing to us.” He argues that for her to defy him and go is to dishonor their marriage.
He almost persuades Isabel because ”Marriage meant that in such a case as this, when one had to choose, one chose as a matter of course for one's husband” and “What he thought of her she knew, what he was capable of saying to her she had felt; yet they were married, for all that, and marriage meant that a woman should cleave to the man with whom, uttering tremendous vows, she had stood at the altar.”
As Isabel is struggling with the decision, the Countess Gemini tells her that Pansy is not the daughter of Osmond’s first wife; she is the daughter of Osmond and Madame Merle. They had an affair, and since Madame Merle was then separated from her husband who was in South America, she could not pass Pansy off as his. Osmond’s first wife having recently died, he was able to deceive people about the circumstances of Pansy’s birth.
Isabel wants to know if Osmond has been faithful to her. Countess Gemini replies: ”Well, it depends, my dear, on what you call faithful. When he married you he was no longer the lover of another woman—such a lover as he had been, cara mia, between their risks and their precautions, while the thing lasted! That state of affairs had passed away; the lady had repented, or at all events, for reasons of her own, drawn back: she had always had, too, a worship of appearances so intense that even Osmond himself had got bored with it. You may therefore imagine what it was—when he couldn't patch it on conveniently to any of those he goes in for! But the whole past was between them.” Countess Gemini also confirms that Madame Merle arranged Isabel’s marriage with Osmond for his benefit and Pansy’s.
Shaken by these revelations, Isabel plans to leave that evening for Gardencourt, but first she goes to see Pansy at the convent. ”She must go and see Pansy; from her she couldn't turn away”.
At the convent, she meets Madame Merle, who realizes from Isabel’s manner that she knows the truth. Isabel sees her stepdaughter and tells her she is going to see Ralph. Pansy has had enough of the convent; she is ready to comply with her father’s wishes about her marriage. She asks Isabel not to leave her, and after considering, Isabel says she won’t desert her.
On the way out, Isabel meets Madame Merle, who has waited to see her. She tells Isabel she has Ralph to thank for her inheritance from Mr Touchett.
”Isabel stood staring; she seemed today to live in a world illumined by lurid flashes. 'I don't know why you say such things. I don't know what you know.'
'I know nothing but what I've guessed. But I've guessed that.'
Isabel went to the door and, when she had opened it, stood a moment with her hand on the latch. Then she said—it was her only revenge: 'I believed it was you I had to thank!'” Madame Merle tells her that she is going back to America.