What are the Works of Henry James that are worth reading? This nigga wrote a lot

I liked Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller immensely but found the golden bowl to be a uther bore. I really need to give him another chance.

He looks like the old gypsy man who lives down my street, in that pic.

Almost all his novels and novellas are worth the effort. Perhaps the keenest observer of character since Shakespeare - the characters in the Bostonians are walking about on college campuses right now with the same delusions
He represents the perfection of the classical english novel form, which Joyce and the other modernists went on to subvert. His later prose gets very dense though.

BUMPO

Because englishmen wrote poems and plays. Also Hardy.

I like some of his essays and travel pieces. The Art of Fiction. Also Leon Edel's biography of him is fantastic.

>Perhaps the keenest observer of character
What? His characters tend to be shallow as hell. Their motivations are usually either imperceptible or palpably absurd.
Take Portrait of a Lady. There isn't a single character in that book that strikes you as more than a marionette. Recollecting them, certain physical markers and eccentric acts seem to come mind.

This is true, but it took James awhile to get going as a novelist. I don't know why Portrait's required reading, it's not a fair indication of how good he became. Read Wings and youll feel as if youre reading an entirely different writer. Because (you) are.

Nice quints. I'll look into that and The Golden Bowl soon. I don't expect things to get better, however.

Switch out Golden Bowl for Ambassadors. If youve read Turn and liked it (there's no comparing that and Lady) youll appreciate later James.

>The Beast in the Jungle
Holy hell that was very important to me when I was younger and it hasn't remotely entered my mind in at least three years. What a feeling. It's like something was just unlocked inside me. Thanks for this user.

There ought to be a word for this feeling.

What one gets there is to the root of a real fear that has no name via description alone in the form of a narrative. What James at his best SHOWS like few other authors is the rise and fall of particular feelings that otherwise have no name.
James NEVER explains away anything, he just shows. If (you) want to be spoonfed how youre supposed to feel about the characters youre reading about in the fictions (you) choose then read someone else. That the characters themselves often misfire in their judgements of others is viola: just as it is in life.

Try portrait of a lady or the ambassadors. I had a hard time getting into golden bowl as well.

That's completely false. The novel as we know it has its origins in England.

I wasn't intending to slight native English talent. I love Dickens (who is rated poorly by Leavis) more than any of those writers mentioned by Leavis, but I can recognize from a critical standpoint that he's correct in saying Austen, Eliot, James, and Conrad did the most of any novelists in advancing the English novel preceding the modernist era. Dickens, on the other hand, never did any experimenting with form, though obviously he is by far the greatest author of the 19th century.

Maybe you had thought by English novel I meant "British English novel," but the way I understand the term is "novels written in English."

This guy gets it. He perfected the classical form of the novel in English. Conrad is the bridge between that style and the modernist.

>Dickens never
Both Bleak House and Great Expectations were in their day experimental novels, as would have been Drood.

So what are some Henry James novels to avoid?

I nominate What Maisie Knew. Awful. I still regret reading it in its entirety. I wouldn't respect the critical judgment of anyone who thinks this novel is good.

In what way were his novels experimental?

Princess C., but I thought Wings brilliant.

Short answer's alternating perspective, voices in BH, and the impressionistic form of GEx (it really cannot be compared to any of the Dickens coming before except the first twenty or so pages in Tale). Neither are out there like Shandy was in its day, of course, but absolutely what was or has been in English through the years other than Ulysses, Wake?
I'm sure that concluding question can be answered, by the way.

There are some novels between Shandy and Ulysses that reach pretty close to them, but they aren't read much today. I'm thinking of Sartor Resartus and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, both by Scottish authors. Still, those novels are very idiosyncratic. I prefer Leavis' big four of Austen, Eliot, James, and Conrad as the greatest developers of the novel up to Joyce; though their novels seem pretty tame today, you can tell by comparing their younger to mature works that they were constantly thinking about how to represent the narrative of their stories in new ways.

If you were to go by that parameter, writers between Sterne and Joyce, there are probably plenty of writers we could argue over whether or not they are more experimental than Dickens, which leads to the point I really meant to make, that Dickens didn't view his craft the way a self-conscious author such as Austen or Henry James did. (Dickens is somewhere between James and Trollope in experimenting.) So yes, you're right in refuting the hyperbole that "Dickens never experimented." However, by that hyperbole, I meant to say Dickens was not any kind of avant-garde writer the way Leavis' novelists were. I agree with everything you wrote, I just wanted to clarify my position.

What Masie Knew is a masterpiece, basically perfect in every way. I wouldn't respect the critical judgment of anyone who thinks this novel is bad.

Nobody has ever written a better book about divorce, parental selfishness, the impact on kids etc

That's fair. Perhaps it's fairest to say that Dickens 'developed,' he moved, at a certain point he wanted to try new things and did, though not with the expedition and 'earnestness of purpose' of for instance James, who very early could write a mean short, and turn a good essay, but had severe difficulties with the novel (form).
To shift gears, have read Sartor twice (good example) and think that perhaps C's French Rev is one of the most.. entertaining? experimental histories (experimental anythings) I have ever read. I've had a little copy of Hogg's book on my shelf since undergrad days but for whatever reason have never picked it up. Now I suppose I must.

The Ambassadors
Washington Square
The Princess Casamassima
The Tragic Muse
What Maisie Knew
The Wings of the Dove
The Spoils of Poynton
The Awkward Age

That's some praise for an utterly mediocre book by any measure. That you find meaningful depth in such a trivial and flat novel is disturbing to me, but as the masses love their Coelho, inevitably some readers of literature will appreciate mediocrity and go to their graves defending it.

Mr. Goodwood is the most sympathetic character in all of literature

Name a better book about divorce. Or a book that isn't trivial.

Comparing James to Coelho reveals a lot about you, and how mature you are

Though I'm sure I must've encountered the theme many times, I can't remember any books about divorce specifically since I'm not in the habit of categorizing books that way in my memory. I only categorize by quality. It works better for me given how many books I've read.

I didn't find The Ambassadors or The Wings of the Dove trivial. My favorite James pieces are likely found among his short stories FWIW.

With regard to your anger about my remark on Coelho, you of course misread what I wrote. I did not compare James to Coelho. I stated that as the masses (i.e. those who do not read literature) love their Coelho, it's inevitable some readers of literature will appreciate mediocre literature. If you think about it for a moment, the implication is that Coelho is garbage appreciated by barely literate morons while WMK (rather than everything Henry James) is a mediocre novel appreciated by some readers of literature. It was mostly an observation about discernment. The masses have very little of it, but just because some people read literature does not automatically transform their discernment into a fine instrument. After all, there have been many readers of literature who appreciated the works of someone like John Galsworthy, which to those who have read some of his deservedly forgotten and absotutely horrendous pieces would surely seem like a laughable idea, and yet it is not. (And yes, you will still find my observation offensive for personal reasons, but I only say it because WMK simply isn't a bright man's novel.)

>It was mostly an observation about discernment. The masses have very little of it
This whole post has to be bait. Surely nobody has this little self awareness

Ah yes, hopefully you're not the person I responded to because it would be a bummer if I responded to a complete moron at that length.

>gets called out on his adolescent pomposity
>proceeds to double down

I'm not surprised you had no meaningful point to make in response or any interest in discussion. Only juvenile greentexting.

You're spot on with Dickens and James. I get the impression Dickens might have experimented more had he lived longer.

I've also had both books sitting around for awhile and can't get compelled to finish them. Bravo on finishing Sartor Resartus. I've only read the book on Heroes and Hero-Worship some years ago. I remember his prose was a challenge to read. Did you read Carlyle in university? Have you ever read Matthew Arnold?

What a pretentious post. Why even bother?

Yes, and to some people reading a book is pretentious. Why even bother indeed.

There's something wrong with your brain, bro. Do you even eat healthy?

I think your posts in this thread have not had the effect you think they have had. You aren't coming across as erudite and intelligent (though I'm sure you are intelligent), but as immature and self involved.

When young men wear fedoras and badly fitting suits they think it makes them look classy and sophisticated, and half the humor is derived from how oblivious they are to the difference between their self image and how they actually look.

Lol

Hardy is a hack writer, as are most victorian poets

Best answer.

A very dull, feminine writer, his novels were far too verbose

Aspern Papers my guy. a true page turner if there's ever been one

I did read C in U. SR (for the first time) when having stupidly signed up for a graduate level Vic Lit class when I was 19. I could handle the reading in general, but my eyes weren't yet 'mature enough' to take in Carlyle (in that mode) at that time. Luckily a buddy of mine my age also took the class, and we pretty much read the thing out loud in the basement of the ug library while pretty much making a joke of it. If youre ignorant as to what the content refers to, it's actually a funny novel-thing.
After Kant, Hegel, some Fichte, some Schelling, most all Coleridge, grad and the rest, it of course makes perfect sense as a sweet, homey (one can almost feel Jane baking and brewing tea in the adjacent room) even informative- yet ultimate dumbing down- of the Schelling-(moreso than Hegel)-esque. It's a supremely enjoyable work of art nonetheless, and it's sad that this proto-Nietzsche, so instrumental in the careers of Dickens, Emerson, and the man who claimed to despise him, Nietzsche himself, has somehow fallen by the wayside. Of course like Nietzsche he too went mad, just not so palpably, which I guess is somehow less forgivable. That second reading came when I was 25. Also read most if not all of the essays in Past and Present in the same class, which was more manageable stuff, then.
So far as Arnold is concerned I've been through the poetry, many of the literary essays, but have yet to read C&A. This reminds me that I have yet to read Newman's magnum opus as well!
Back to James. If you ever find yourself holed up with an illness or broken limb I recommend Edel's biography of James to wile away the time. It is one of the most wonderfully wise biographies I have ever read, but mammoth, and therefore a commitment.

The Madonna of the Future

Because (you) can't help it, because (you) love it, of course! Personally I think youve been a good foil in this thread, and your honesty beyond question. I don't agree with your taste but that cannot be disputed. James perhaps requires more time and patience than it's sane to give him or any other author in 2017.
Oh, well.
I'm anyway grateful that a thoroughly Veeky Forums thread has been kept alive and I credit your posts for having abetted that. Thanks.

I wish he could keep up the best use of his method for more than a dozen pages. His novels go to hell so fast.

Thanks for the tip on Edel and the James biography. Seems to me I will have a long way to go until I can "get" Sartor Resartus. The Victorian essayists are sadly neglected by many readers but I continue to see them cited in some of the literary mags I read. It's an era that fascinates me because I think the US could learn a lot about being a global power by studying the Victorians.

Refreshing to see there are posters on here that go beyond the usual Tolstoyevsky posts. Keep on doing what you do user.

Do you even know what a hack is? That's not a word you can just throw around to put down any author you don't like. Hardy was definitely not a hack, but probably the greatest author of the late Victorian era.

Kek
Milk maids and mustachio'd villains

>Milk maids and mustachio'd villains
Yeah, those are the main characters of Tess, but what of it?