Reading James & Wharton (ENGL3001)

James Autobiography - Alicia Losier

2011-12-01T15:33:31Z

James' autobiography was sort of a struggle for me to read. I felt like he works so hard at being a good writer, than information and substance get lost in all those words. Maybe it's just me, and my tendency to lose focus more easily, but I would read and read and then wonder what the heck he was just talking about! The only thing that did connect well for me was when he was at Alice's grave, - I can't remember when he would've written beast in the jungle, but if it were after her passing, I could see that influencing his writing in beast in the jungle.

henry james autobiography

2011-12-01T04:09:48Z

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

James Autobiography

2011-12-01T02:38:35Z

I have to say that I did not enjoy the writings James did on his younger life as much as I did those about his later life. Perhaps because I found the content of the selections about his later life more interesting. When he was writing about Minnie and Alice there was just so much more emotion there than when he was writing about say...peaches. I did enjoy the piece The Galerie d'Apollon. James would be the super not typical boy that, instead of running all over the place bored out of his mind, would be fascinated by all the culture surrounding him when visiting the Louvre. Some of his descriptions, of both his feelings and his surroundings, are just lovely. The piece I found most interesting was The Death of Minnie Temple. You can tell that James loved his cousin very much by the way he describes her. He just absolutely raves about her:
"she was to remain to us the very figure and image of a felt interest in life, an interest as magnanimously far-spread, or as familiarly and exquisitely fixed, as her splendid shifting sensibility, moral, personal, nervous, and having at once such noble flights and such touchingly discouraged drops, such graces of indifference and inconsequence, might at any moment determine."
"she made it impossible to say whether she was just the most moving of maidens or a disengaged and dancing flame of thought."
I found the introduction to this one quite funny because here is this entry devoted to her and it shows a sample of a letter that she sent and she kind of is railing on him! She says, "The trouble is, I think, that to me you have no distinct personality. I don't feel sure to who I am writing when I say to myself that I will write to you. I see mentally three men, all answering to your name, each liable to read my letters and yet differing so much from each other that if it is proper for one of them it is unsuitable for the others."
A bit harsh telling someone that they do not have a distinct personality...especially someone who you are close with.
The entry about Alice was quite heartbreaking. I remember when we were talking about his letter telling of her death in class that somebody said that they felt it had no emotion. That is obviously not the case here, it was really quite touching.

James and Wharton Travel Writing and Non-Fiction

2011-12-01T00:08:16Z

I have to confess that I (by my own fault) wasn't aware of the reading assignment over Thanksgiving break. I don't know if my response is worth anything anymore, but I'll wrap it in with this blog post in any case.

James and Wharton's Travel Writing

The most apparent thing about Wharton's writing, and her travel writing in particular, are the landscapes: "The lake, where we had to wait for our train, lay in unnatural loveliness beneath a breathless sky, the furrowed peaks bathed in subtle colour-gradations of which, at other seasons, the atmosphere gives no hint" (Wharton 601). What I really noticed about her descriptions, about James's descriptions as well, is that she doesn't so much describe the physical properties of her object so much as the impression it leaves on her. I remember reading a short piece on travel writing over the summer that advised this over physical description--most people have seen the pyramids, or the Colosseum if only in pictures and postcards, but the impression they give and how they affect the individual is something unique to the observer and much more interesting to read.

I can't pretend that my perspective is unaffected by the fact that I love Italy (the idea of it at least; I've never been) but I enjoyed Wharton's Italian pieces better than the French ones. Another possibility is that I've become annoyed by reading the names of French towns I can't pronounce in my head which is entirely a flaw of mine, not the writing, but is nevertheless frustrating.

Both James and Wharton also wrote with great fondness about the experience of travelling "off the path;" Wharton ventured into the countryside to find an obscure church, and James writes that he hopes never to lose the ability to get lost while travelling. I'm completely enthralled by the idea of there being whole churches that have just been more or less lost and understand the pleasure there is in finding the beautiful and tranquil lost areas. Biking around campus is great for that exact reason; I'm always finding little fountains, plazas and gardens that are tucked away off of the main pathways. In my (beautiful) hometown I've found all sorts of little places with unexpected architecture or just a secluded bench with a great view of the river.

James's writing about London during its period of abandonment was quite interesting; I never would have thought of that as a subject. It brought to mind something I've often wondered about; how would it feel to be in an empty mall? There's something odd about being in an empty place that is normally so full of people.

Wharton's writing about the war is almost unreal. Although, amid the description of people getting shot and bodies laying in flower gardens my mind was preoccupied with the idea of Wharton (as pictured on the cover of our book) dressed in the height of fashion and ducking to avoid sniper fire. It's a very odd mental image.

James's Autobiography

The thought that occurred to me while reading James's autobiographical work (which is more similar in tone to his letters than his other writing, in my mind) is that the man had to have thought something like what he wrote, which is absolutely mind blowing to me. His impressions of everything are colorful (for lack of a better term at hand.) Everything is shimmering and shining.

I was a little bit surprised that the young Henry James had a dancing teacher (although I don't know why it should be surprising,) and I'm jealous of his "polyglot education." Perhaps if I'd only received a similar education I could avoid the frustration of coming upon French and Italian words (unglossed for some mysterious reason) in his and Wharton's writing. Ah well.

Also surprising was the selection of topics. Of course, I don't know what the main pool of topics was that our editor selected from, but the wide range (from dancing teachers and photography to nightmares [dreams?] of art museums and "An Obscure Hurt" [I'm afraid to speculate.])

The quantity of excellent quotes is staggering; I decided at the beginning I wouldn't type them out or I'd be here all night. But the travel writing and memoirs of Wharton and James are by far the richest source of quote material.

Justin Kracht

Travel Writings

2011-11-30T04:10:21Z

I greatly preferred to read the travel writings of Edith Wharton over those of Henry James. As most people will say I enjoyed how she described the landscape of all of the places that she is talking about. It really makes me want to travel around to all these places. She makes you feel like you are really there. On the other hand James's did nothing for me. I guess that I am a little prejudice towards him because I did not enjoy his writings that much, but he was still descriptive just in his own different way.

Travel Writings Wharton & James

2011-11-29T05:15:15Z

I love the way Edith Wharton writes about her travels. She spends paragraphs explaining the scenery which fascinates me that she could be so taken in by it. But I also love it. It makes me think that traveling really must be filling. I am going to Italy next semester so hearing her descriptions and love of the place was so exciting for me. She is SO descriptive. This kind of writing is much different than her short story style, obviously, because it is her own voice. I almost see it as her writing in it's rawest state and the fact that I still like it is relieving. I hope I can be this descriptive with my journaling! She writes everything! As for me, I can't even keep a journal for more than a month.

As for James...woah. It is so weird to read his writings now that we've been reading Wharton. He seems more stiff than Wharton to me, less willing to flow. In his descriptions he speaks more to the place than the setting talking of what he expected and what instead he is experiencing. He talks of the culture. I did enjoy reading his account of Italy though. This too made me very excited!

Travel Writings

2011-11-29T00:03:58Z

So first off, I really want to go to Italy at some point in my life and reading these writings made me so excited to go. Reading Edith Wharton's accounts of her travel was pretty much looking at a mental painting. The way that she uses her words is like an artist painting strokes onto canvas. You can really tell from their descriptions that they both loved the country Italy, even the smallest provincial towns. These are some of the entries that I found that I thought were super representative of Wharton's style:
"The lake lay in the unnatural loveliness beneath a breathless sky, the furrowed peaks bathed in subtle colour-gradations of which, at other seasons, the atmosphere gives no hint."
"there was a tantalizing glimpse of another church, a Renaissance building rich with encrusted marbles one of the nameless uncatalogued treasures in which Italy still abounds."
"The scenery has a studied beauty in which velvet robes and caparisoned palfreys would not be out of place, and even the villages might have been "brushed in" by an artist skilled in effects and not afraid to improve upon reality."
"The French physiognomy if not vividly beautiful is vividly intelligent; but the long practice of manners has so veiled its keeness with refinement as to produce as to produce a blending of vivacity and good temper nowhere else to be matched."
"At Chartres the cloudy splendour is shot through with such effulgence of colour that its vision, evoked by memory, seems to beat with a fiery life of its own, as though red blood ran in its stone veins."
I found it a bit hard to jump back into James after taking a break from reading him. I found myself trying to read his writing in the middle of the room with a bunch of talking people and I read the first paragraph and thought, "yeah there is no way this is going to happen in here". My favorite part of the James travel writings was the parts about Italy. I just feel that I really got the sense of his love for the country. I picked out some passages that I thought were most representative of Jame's style.
"There are times and places that come back yet again, but that, when the brooding tourist puts out his hand to them, meet it a little slowly, or even seem to recede a step, as if in slight fear of some liberty he may take."
"There is an ambiguity about it all that constantly haunts and beguiles. Dear old Venice has lost her complexion, her figure, her reputation, her self-respect; and yet, with it all, has so puzzlingly not lost a shred of her distinction."
"Venice has ever been a garden of strange social flowers."
My favorite:
"Such old, old women with such old, old jewels; such ugly, ugly ones with such handsome, becoming names; such battered, fatigued gentlemen with such inscrutable decorations; such an absence of youth, for the most part, in either sex- of the pink and white, the 'bud' of new worlds; such a general personal air, in fine, of being the worse for a good deal of wear in various old ones."

Travel writing

2011-11-28T15:10:37Z

(A Midsummer Week's Dream: August in Italy & Paris To Poitiers)
There's something about picturing Edith Wharton peering out the window, in Italy, in France, and interpreting the views, in the moment, the same way she writes of them that I just find absolutely mesmerizing, enchanting even. The images she allows my brain to conjure up are so vivid, so arresting. An integral aspect of what makes her descriptions so beautifully perceptible is her ability to weave in seasonal context. The month, the season, the weather, sometimes even the time of day are consistently noted as an essential backdrop to the interpretations of the pictures she paints. "[T]he furrowed peaks bathed in subtle colour-gradations of which, at other seasons, the atmosphere gives no hint" (601). "It is in August that one understands the wisdom of the old builders, who made the streets so narrow, and built dim draughty arcades around the open squares" (606). "[W]hich we reached at the fortunate hour when sunset burnishes the great curves of the Loire and lays a plum-coloured bloom on the state roofs overlapping, scale-like, the slope below the castle"(610). I could go on...

I was also mesmerized by her vast knowledge of art and architecture that she brought to her descriptions. I must admit, most of them went right over my head but I still appreciated them. I don't understand how the publisher decided what and what not to give an endnote. Things that I wanted to no more about were left out. Things that seemed trivial and unimportant got an endnote. Whatever, anyway...She's incredibly aware of the trends and styles of architecture that dominated the time periods in which many of the churches and buildings were built. It's as if she's staring at these old buildings, in awe, yet through greatly educated lenses. "The marble church, a late fifteenth-century building by Battagio (the architect of Incoronata of Lodi), has the peculiar charm of that transitional period when individuality of detail was merged, but not yet lost, in the newly-recovered sense of unity" (602). And it's not just a vast knowledge of architecture she brings; it's art too. "No one who has not looked out on such a prospect in the early light of an August morning can appreciate the poetic truth of Claude's interpretation of nature: we seemed to be moving through a gallery hung with his pictures" (603). The first few times she related views or sculptures or wood carving to an artist I thought of her letter to Edward Burlingame in which she discusses her discovery of the original terra-cottas in a monastery in Florence. That, to me, is just the most vehement testament to her artistic eye and intelligence.

I really enjoyed her personification of France, as a face. "The French physiognomy if not vividly beautiful is vividly intelligent; but the long practice of manners has so veiled its keenness with refinement as to produce a blending of vivacity and good temper nowhere else to be matched. And in looking at it one feels once more, as one so often feels in trying to estimate French architecture or the French landscape, how much of her total effect France achieves by elimination. If marked beauty be absent from the French face, how much more is marked dullness, marked brutality, the lumpishness of the clumsily made and unfinished!" (609-10).

(In Argonne)
First of all, I cannot believe how close she is to the fighting! When she was near the garden with Sister Rosnet, watching through a field-glass the "rush of French infantry up the slopes, the feathery drift of French gun-smoke lower down, and, high up, on the wooded crest along the sky, the red lightning's and white puffs of the German artillery" (619). Can you imagine American tourists traveling throughout Iraq and Afghanistan that close to battle? No way!

I thought her descriptions of the wartimes, as a neutral, mostly objective spectator, were wonderfully refined and offered a great perspective. She was simultaneously aware of the hideousness of the war and the undeniable historical significance of the war. This quote is just great, "War is the greatest of paradoxes: the most senseless and disheartening of human retrogressions, and yet the stimulant of qualities of soul which, in every race, can seemingly find no other means of renewal" (615). I also loved this quote, "These poor wretches, in their thousands, are daily shipped back from the front to rest and be restored; and it is a grim sight to watch them limping by, and to meet the dazed stare of eyes that have seen what one dare not picture" (614).

I also really enjoyed that she described the evacuated towns and villages that she drove through. I thought these descriptions were integral in portraying an all-encompassing tone and the ripple effects. She describes "deserted villages," "the curious absence of life," "villages along the road [that] all seemed empty--not figuratively empty but literally empty," and stretches of travel where "we had the road to ourselves." I think these descriptions really help drive home the expansive impact of the war, not just on those fighting, but also on those trying to live their normal lives.

I just finished reading Wharton's travel writing and wanted to jot these thoughts down while they were fresh. But I have class now, I'll get to James's later tonight.

Letters KGM

2011-11-17T15:50:19Z

Both Wharton and James's letters were interesting, although I found Wharton's much more intriguing. I found James's letters to be similar to his writings that they were very long winded and dull. The letters to Hendrick C. Anderson left me questioning the depth of their relationship and I feel that it hinted toward a relationship that was homosexual in nature. Both James and Wharton's letters seemed to become more depressing through the years, with the deaths that James was forced to deal with and with what seemed to be a failed relationship in Wharton's case. With the letters Wharton wrote she seemed fairly friendly and it seemed like she was enjoying the correspondence with a friend. Her writing style was relaxed and seemed relatively happy, except for the letters to W. Morton Fullerton. The letters to Fullerton became increasing depressing to read as Wharton was seeking his attention, and not getting it. It seemed as if he was driving her crazy by his silence. Unfortunately I feel like I have done the same thing to girls in my young years. The James letters seemed very formal, where Wharton's which much more relaxed and enjoyable to read

Letters Kirwan

2011-11-17T14:58:12Z

As I was reading Wharton's letters I thought that I could sense the way she spoke was purposefully manipulated to be pleasing to who she was speaking to. The way she spoke to the women was different from the way she spoke to the men. It was more, I don't know how to exactly describe it, but flitting? Not as serious? The way she spoke to the men was more intelligently, or at least had more of an air of trying to show her intelligence.

James letters made me laugh because I read Wharton's first, and hers varied in length but usually were not very long, and then there is Jame's with all long letters with very few short ones, with long, long paragraphs, in true Jamesian style. His first letter to William I found to be very enjoyable in his descriptions, and his structure. It wasn't his later prose, he had short succinct sentences and a sort of liveliness to his writing that was quite a bit more engaging than a lot of his stories. This isn't to say that his stories weren't engaging just that they took more effort on the part of the reader to stick with and initially get caught up in, while the letter was immediately interesting.

The one concerning the death of Alice, was off to me in a way. It seemed more like he was exercising his writing skills in how well he could describe her death and condition than he was actually upset by her death. I don't know, I guess I thought he had a close relationship with her, and that letter seemed very cold and off-putting. I suppose it might be just that they had be expecting this for a while, and that it was best for Alice, due to her quality of life, but still I would have expected a little more lamenting or sorrow.

James letters to Hendrick Anderson were confusing, I don't know that if I had never heard of James's homosexual rumors that I wouldn't have picked up on something off in the letters on my own? Perhaps that was the way two men who were friends spoke to each other in their times of grief back then? But it seems over the top even for those times, but then again James letters to H. G. Wells are produced with that same kind of over the top??? exuberance and affection, and descriptive language so it is really almost impossible to judge for me, in my time, because things were so different back then, people talked differently and had different social codes. I think that if I had lived back then I would be able to determine whether or not these letters, or his works in general, betray a homosexual quality about him, but as of now there's too much difference in backgrounds.

Letters

2011-11-17T13:59:56Z

I enjoyed reading the letters of Edith Wharton and Henry James. I think it is so sad that in our society today letter writing as correspondence is almost non-existent. I think it will be interesting to compare their writing styles to those of social media today, just because I already know that they are going to be drastically different. You asked for lines we thought were interesting, here is what I came up with:
James
"-an ancient monastery, perched up on top of a hill and turreted with little cells like a feudal castle. I attacked it and carried it by storm--i.e. obtained admission and went over it."
"..but that I would hurl myself upon Rome and fight it out on this line at the peril of my existence."
"I went reeling and moaning thro' the streets, in a fever of enjoyment."
"-sitting dim within the shadows of his coach with two uplifted benedictory fingers--like some dusky Hindoo idol in the depths of its shrine."
"I've seen troops of litle tonsured neophytes clad in scarlet, marching and countermarching and ducking and flopping, like poor little raw recruits for the heavenly host."
"I take possession of the old world-I inhale it-I appropriate it!"
"This sitting still to write makes me swim and roll about most damnably."
"Paris itself meanwhile is a sort of painted background which keeps shifting and changing, and which is always there, to be looked at when you please, and to be most easily and comfortably ignored when you don't."
"You are too far away-you are to absent-too invisible, inaudible, inconceivable. Life is too short a business and friendship too delicate a matter for such tricks-for cutting great gory masses out of 'em by the year at a time."
"You have become a beautiful myth-a kind of unnatural uncomfortable unburied mort."
"My heart fairly bleeds and breaks at the vision of you alone, in your wicked and indifferent old fair-off Rome, with the haunting, blighting, unbearable sorrow."
"I've gone through Death, and Death, enough in my long life, to know how all that we are, and all that we have, all that is best of us within, our genius, our imagination, our passion, our whole person being, become then but aides and channels and open gates to suffering, to being flooded."
Wharton
"How well I knew those bitter times, when great trials & small inconveniences pile themselves on the tired body & strained nerves, & how often have I experience the fact that when one goes on board ship exhausted & praying for rest, one has a rough voyage & exasperating landing!"
"I could not do anything if I did not think seriously of my trade; & the more I have considered it, the more has it seemed to me valuable & interesting only in so far as it is 'a criticism of life.'-It almost seems to me that bad & good fiction (using the words in their ethical sense) might be defined as the kind which treats of life trivially & superficially, & that which probes deep enough to get at the relation with the eternal laws; & the novelist who has this feeling is so often discourages by the comments of readers & critics who think a book 'unpleasant' because it deals with unpleasant conditions, that it is high solace & encouragement to come upon the recognition of one's motive."
Tali Sinjem

Correspondence

2011-11-17T03:59:22Z

I loved reading the letters of both Wharton and James because of the story just beyond reach that has to be filled in (for some of the letters) and the pure depth of emotion of others. Letter writing is truly a fading art; My attempts to keep up correspondence with my friends have been only dubiously successful because I don't know how to write a letter. I'm used to such instant mediums (email and Facebook) that a letter feels awkward and almost conceited to write, as if I'm taking up too much of the conversation. Wharton and James's letters are masterful, and Wharton's in particular shed light on a lot of her writing. It's like reading the tour guide (or a least a history) of a city after living in it for a short time. As far as lines I particularly enjoyed:

The entirety of the first letter in James--the tone of that the young James has is the same solemn, earnest tone I see in the later letters.

From "On the Grand Tour:" "I attacked it and carried it by storm--i.e. obtained admission and went over it," and "Thank Father for his ten lines: may they increase and multiply!"

From "The Literary Scene in Paris:" "Paris itself meanwhile is a sort of painted background which keeps shifting and changing, and which is always there, to be looked at when you please, and to be easily and comfortably ignored when you don't," and "asked me what I thought of incest as a subject for a novel--adding that it had against it that it was getting, in families, so terribly common."

From "The Friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson:" "I want to leave a multitude of pictures of my time, projecting my small circular frame upon as many spots as possible."

There was also a passage about London and its being alternately exquisite and dismal that I can't find now.

Wharton

"We are none of us Americans, we don't think or feel as the Americans do, we are the wretched exotics produced in a European glass house."

There were many more of Wharton's, but I my mind is slowly becoming inoperable and I read Wharton's letters a while back.

Justin Kracht

Letters

2011-11-17T03:22:18Z

I was so surprised with James's letters to find out who some were addressed to. I never thought he would have any interest in corresponding with writers like Stevenson or Wells--the style, content etc. are so very different between him and them. Also i didn't really imagine they would care too much to write with him. It's interesting that James was friends with these quite popular writers, without being very much of one himself. Like the content and execution of so many of his stories, it seems, James's commitment and dedication to his own unique talent, art, aesthetics etc. comes through in his letters, which is nothing less than a reflection of his own life. He took these things so seriously that it seems to have unfortunately ended any friendship he had had with Wells. The letters to Hendrik Andersen were perhaps the most interesting of the bunch. As the editors' so like to inform and repeat to us, these have often been interpreted as a basis for James's homosexuality. As with his stories though, this is only conjecture. They can just as easily be read in a non-romantic friendship type of love than the former.

Letters

2011-11-17T02:11:01Z

I am curious about how they picked which letters were important to include in the anthology. Her letters to Sara Norton are such friendly correspondences. I think my favorite letter was to William Brownell where Wharton is speaking to her writing. I'm always interested to hear where authors inspiration comes from. Wharton's own ideas of her writing are interesting--"I conceive subjects like a man, that is rather more architectonically and dramatically than most women, and then excuse them like a woman." I'm not sure she's a feminist the way she speaks of women and writes of them which seems odd to me since she was going after a career during a period when men ruled.

Teddy is ALWAYS sick. What a downer.

The way she writes to Fullerton is so eloquent. But it totally reminds me of "The Letters" with her anxiousness.

"The week since I wrote last has managed to get itself lived"

In her letter to Fullerton on 185 you can actually feel her anguish with the way she writes. I think it is such a talent to be able to do that--not only to describe characters feelings, but your own as well.

"You woke me from a long lethargy, a dull acquiescence in conventional restrictions, a needless self-effacement. If I were awkward and inarticulate it was because, literally, all one side of me was asleep"--reminds me of Plato

It is so weird to see correspondence between Wharton and James

"You see I'm getting a little confused about my sex!" Oh gosh.

It's weird to read Henry James after being away from him for so long. His letters are exactly as I remember his stories though.

"I would like very much to belong"

I really love the way he writes his letters. They are so thoughtful. It's much different from his writing which is also interesting to me. Understandably each story will have something different to it but his own "stories" in his letters feel so different to me. "The Death of William James" really hit me. I can feel the pain as he writes. It's such a good letter.

It is no surprise to me that his letters are much longer than Wharton's, although her correspondences with Fullerton were longer. Maybe that's because there was more passion for him? Does that mean James has more passion in general? Who knows.

Summer notes

2011-11-16T02:30:33Z

I am sorry that this is so late

First off I really really enjoyed Edith Whartons imagery she uses for describing the nature around her. She does it so beautifully that it almost makes it seem that I was there. One thing I noticed that I mentioned in class is that I see a comparison with the story of Charlotte Temple that I am read in another class. Both stories have a girl, much like Charity and they both get impregnated by a girl and then the man that they love leaves them for another women. So that is what I was meaning. I also enjoyed the comparisons of class between the two communities the ones in the town and the ones up on the mountain. I really enjoyed this story.