The Wings of the Dove (Penguin Classics)
by Henry James
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Book Summary Information
Author: Henry JamesEditor: Millicent Bell
Introduction: Millicent Bell
Editor: Philip Horne
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-24
ISBN: 0141441283
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of The Wings of the Dove (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: It's Not So Easy to Read People ...
Summary: 5 Stars
... to 'read' their characters, I mean, or intentions, and particularly in a scripture, a stricture or structure if you will, of Life as a narrative wherein duplicity and evasion are pervasively 'read' as good breeding and proper manners, so that even those who persuade themselves of intimacy are liable to the misreading of each other's character, not to mention of their own, an ambiguity which is, of course, both the usual modus operandi of Henry James's later fiction - the illegibility, as it were, of each unto each other -and the essential topic of The Wings of the Dove. [It's not so easy to read Henry James, either, as that little parody of his style is intended to demonstrate. 'The Wings of the Dove' is undeniably -- indefensibly, some might say -- a 'difficult' novel. In fact, it's the epitome of what many readers dislike about James's work. It's as difficult, on every level, as anything ever written in English, short perhaps of Finnegan's Wake. The sentences are knottily syntactical, the whole narrative is manipulatively oblique, and the central theme appears to be that any interpretation of persons real or fictional must ineluctably remain provisional until proven wrong.]
The persons are six: the beautiful but penniless Kate Croy; the personable but penniless Merton Densher; Kate's purse-proud and domineering Aunt Maud; Lord Mark, whom I cannot characterize without serving up a 'spoiler'; Milly Teale, an American heiress of ineffable ... well, precisely of what sort of ineffability our author is loath to specify; and Milly's devoted companion Susan Shepherd. Each of them serves, in various portions of the novel, as the interior protagonist, the mind that the author purports to 'read' while perversely withholding any explicit insight. Their mutual deceptions and confidences -- all six of them have wildly inaccurate perceptions of their interrelationships -- remind me strongly of a six-voice polyphonic madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo. replete with false cadences, shockingly dissonant suspensions, and bizarre chromaticisms. It would be a disservice to the reader to summarize the plot of this novel; one is not meant to have a clear sense of its directions, let alone its denouement.
As I said, James withholds. "Withholding" is his strategy, I think, for compelling the reader to experience the 'illegibility' of existence moment by moment. Milly, for instance, is purportedly afraid that she has a grave illness. But is she really ill, or neurotically hypochondriac? And if really ill, how seriously and immediately? And can anything be done for her, ill or not? Don't wait for me, or for Henry James, to answer! Then there's the question of what to make of Kate Croy's unsavory father, the second personage introduced into the novel. Surely Kate's relationship to her father is the key to her character? Surely there's a secret in their past? But Kate denies Merton Densher's - and the reader's - right to enquire about it, and Henry james complies. Metaphorically, this book is like an unopened letter, tossed impulsively into the fire, which contained the very piece of knowledge that would make everything fall in place but which can now never be retrieved. In fact, such a letter WILL figure in the narrative. James is determinedly unhelpful, methodically vague, craftily obscure. Every adverbial thicket is part of his scheme to enmesh the reader in complexity. In short, he MEANS to make your reading painful. As my personal trainer says: No Pain, No Gain! That was, come to think of it, more or less what my college literature professor meant also, when he declared The Wings of the Dove to be a great novel.
Is it too arrogant of me to suppose that 'Wings' will perplex, annoy, and ultimately bore the average reader? Very well, I'll risk being arrogant. Even the above-average reader may find it hard-going. Some critics have asserted that it's James's best. James himself, in later years, regarded it as unsuccessful. It's tremendously ambitious, stylistically, structurally, psychologically. I admire ambition in a novelist.
Summary of The Wings of the Dove (Penguin Classics)
An incomparable Henry James?s novel in a new edition
Featuring a new introduction, it is a brilliant and sophisticated satire of manners and morals in the best Jamesian tradition. The Wings of the Dove is an indelible take on the tragic love triangle in which two poor yet ardent lovers seduce a dying woman in the hope that she will leave them her fortune.
Featuring a new introduction, it is a brilliant and sophisticated satire of manners and morals in the best Jamesian tradition. The Wings of the Dove is an indelible take on the tragic love triangle in which two poor yet ardent lovers seduce a dying woman in the hope that she will leave them her fortune.
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