These autobiographical selections really show the way James was
as passionate about and responding to things in his real life as he
was in what he put down in his fiction writing. Even with "The
Peaches d'Antan" James crafts a wonderful little description
of the memories he has and makes it rather poetic. In the scenes
described in "Madame Dubreil", i just have to say that it's rather
hard (and quite funny) to imagine James in some of these
situations. It's always so easy to see him as like an older (and larger)
distinguished person just so focused on his work. Some of these
(especially "An Obscure Hurt") are really able to humanize James
in ways that some of his other writings do not. Even though many
of these still deal with situations involving upper class people
(perhaps it's just the fact that we know that these things are true
events), they are easy to connect/relate with and have sympathy
for (especially the last two selections--minnie temple and alice
james)
matt
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