Henry James was a prolific writer of stories, in addition to his many great novels. There are over a hundred in the twelve volumes of the Collected Tales - many of them so long that they become 'long short stories' or even novellas, as in the case of The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers. The three stories in this collection are fairly typical - long, quite complex, and not at all seeking brevity to make their point. In fact the tale which gives the volume its title is one of James' least-known stories, and wasn't even included in the Collected Tales. It's also rather unusual, because it's written in the form of a journal. James normally likes to keep the narrative and the point of view tightly under his own control in the form of a first person or omniscient third person narrator... Read more >>
08 April 2009
The Diary of a Man of Fifty [Henry James]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Roy
Good review. James' homo-eroticism is evident in hisz work, I agree, but did hwe not have close relationships with a couple of women? Notr physical of course, but at least emotional?
Yes - he had very close relationships with women - some even close enough that marriage SEEMED to be on the cards.
But he always found reasons why it wouldn't be a good idea to take the plunge (so to speak).
And at the end of his life he sort of fell in love with a young Swedish sailor.
Post a Comment