Italian Hours

by Henry James, John Auchard (Editor, Introduction, Notes)

"The charm of certain vacant grassy spaces, in Italy, overfrowned by masses of brickwork that are honeycombed by the suns of centuries, is something that I hereby renounce once for all the attempt to express; but you may be sure that whenever I mention such a spot enchantment lurks in it." - Henry James

In these essays on travels in Italy written from 1872 to 1909, Henry James explores art and religion, political shifts and cultural revolutions, and the nature of travel itself. James's enthusiastic appreciation of the unparalleled aesthetic allure of Venice, the vitality of Rome, and the noisy, sensuous appeal of Naples is everywhere marked by pervasive regret for the disappearance of the past and by ambivalence concerning the transformation of nineteenth-century Europe. John Auchard's lively introduction and extensive notes illuminate the surprising differences between the historical, political, and artistic Italy of James's travels and the metaphoric Italy that became the setting of some of his best-known works of fiction. This edition includes an appendix of James's book reviews on Italian travel-writing.

"John Auchard's introduction and notes give the book a double function-the literary masterpiece is retained but acquires a practical function for the modern traveler."--Leon Edel

Genres: Italy, Travel, Classics, Nonfiction, Essays, American, 20th Century

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love HJ's style and are charmed by Italian cities and towns, this is a must read. But, if you find James' writing unbearable, regardless of how much you adore Italy, don't bother -- he's as fusty, complex, and interminable as ever here. And I was smiling on every page.

[Doris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read three of these tales in another edition i.e. in the edition entitled Retour a Florence, an edition of 10/18 in the series of Domaine etranger par Jean-Zylberstein, translated and prefaced by Jean Pavans. As this edition is not available on GR I proceeded by opting for a similar edition, the one that has a sufficient number of tales . For in my edition there are only three tales, two of which are present in this GR edition, being Travelling companions and the Diary of a man of fifty. The third tale is At Isella , not presented at all in this GR edition. but full of beauty and absorption of the minde of thesensible and sensitive traveller in front of the passing through the frontier that this individual is bound to create upon his soul a revalation of timelessness and difference by contrast to what he has just passed
I'll be very brief as I am about to go to my class. These are the tales about Italy, about its culture, and what it is an Italian soul, Italian countryside, its very air and the colour, Italian manner of being, and what it makes living there under constant observance of this very nature -the south. For it is this south, the one of emotion and passion, the one not always concerned with morality or being cheerful. It is the striving , the pursuit of happiness ,of what the soul is at the back of his , her mind to look out for. To go to Italy, to be there, one has,or a traveller has to free himself of all contingencies and be himself or herself with time that passes by which reflects in nature, in the sky, in the ruins, in the churches, in traces or vaguely glimpsed stories in its unfinishedness. The Return to Florence is return to time , time of well- being but not happiness, time of calm and tranquility where only matters human existence facing beauties of genius, art, true sentiments No wonder Travelling companions begins with Last cena bz Leonardo, and with its impact that it gives to the protagonsits and their power of abstraction and absorption by it Only when they have finally come to terms of life and death could they continue and procede bz marriage, a conventionnal end to the catharsis of the Passion. For the Last Cena is death , and its prolongation of life. A book , a novel is in its intertext a close one in these tales, The Charterhouse of Parma and I would say the characters , the Italian ones reminded me as sprung from Les Chroniques Italiennes also by Stendhal where nothing is important but the trepidation of the soul, its inner unreasonigs for being in its plenitude, in the state of being absorbed by its very desire of love and passion. Life is a passion for the Italian soul, living under that clime of despair and contentement for plenitude , that unique aim and art is a passion too , unique aim of the human soul, all-pervading and comprehensive ,and not the dreary uncomprenhended existence one has in between. . These stories are essays about Jamesian view as Anglo-Saxon , as an American with their utility heritage facing Italy of the dream and the art which pervades life itself
Listen to Ange Heureux and A la poursuite de la Fee but above all listen to Nino Ferar's Sud South to capture Italy
Beautiful and sublime. Must hurry, Read on and comment.

[Fionnuala]

This volume contains the novella The Aspern Papers, and two shorter pieces that almost read like travel writing, The Diary of a Man of Fifty and Travelling Companions. All three conjure up the atmosphere of American ex-pat communities living in style in Florence, Rome and Venice at the end of the nineteenth century.

[Ari Levine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect bedtime reading, if you're hoping to dream about impossibly precious time-travel vacations for aesthetes, or wondering how much better your real-life vacation to Florence and Rome would have been in the late nineteenth century.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those that like this sort of thing (Henry James waxing aesthetically about Italy) this is the sort of thing they will like.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

What to make of late James?
He has his own way—he makes it all right. It now becomes just a part of the charming solicitation that it presents precisely a problem—that of giving the particular thing as much as possible without at the same time giving it, as we say, away.
There are considerations, proprieties, a necessary indirectness—he uses, in short, a little art.
We come to understand that, all along, the beauty of the matter has been in the absence of all momentum—elsewhere so scientifically applied to us, from behind, by the terrible life of our day—and in the fact that, as the elements of slowness, the felicities of deliberation, doubtless thus all hang together.
The last of calculable dangers is to enter his works with a rush.
He has no genius for stiff morality, and indeed makes few pretensions in that direction. He scruples but scantly to represent the false as the true, and has been accused of cultivating the occasion to grasp and to overreach, and of steering a crooked course. Some may wonder is it the style that has brought about the decrepitude or the decrepitude that has, as it were, intensified and consecrated the style? There is an ambiguity about it all that constantly haunts and beguiles.
I read him for as long as I could; for he struck me as a real ironic artist, cherishing a disinterested, and yet at the same time a motived and a moral, passion for the grotesque.

[Pakobylka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ani nevím, co napsat- kniha to je jistě kvalitní, nabitá informacemi a postřehy. Jen se bohužel vůbec nedá číst. Ten jazyk druhé poloviny 19. století, to jak autor střídavě v komplikovaných souvětích popisuje každý záhyb roucha na Giottově obrazu a střídavě lehce zašifrovaně naráží na detaily málo významných společenských událostí té doby, to se prostě nedá. Mám podezření, že překlady do jiných jazyků jsou nějak uzpůsobené čtenáři (protože jinak nechápu ty nadšené ovace některých), já ale v češtině dala jen některé části kde se pojednávalo o místech, kde jsem přímo byla a týkalo se to spíš míst a architektury než výtvarného umění. Trochu škoda, těšila jsem se, jak se navnadím před cestou do Itálie. Ale v reálu jsem se musela až smát, jak neuvěřitelně a neskutečně nudné to bylo.

[Philip · Rating 2 out of 5]

Italian Hours by Henry James takes us on pretty well-known Italian sights. But is it possible for this particular author to express himself, albeit with a true talent for sentence construction, and notwithstanding his undeniable grasp of vocabulary, though sometimes rather mis-placed, I might say!, ever, despite his quest to communicate the immediacy of experience, to write a simple sentence?

[pepperowa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miesiące zajęło mi dokończenie tej książki. Chociaż opisy miast były niezwykle poetyckie i momentami wręcz wzruszające, to tak samo mocno egzaltowane. Niemniej, odnalazłam tutaj najpiękniejsze weneckie weduty malowane przez autora - przede wszystkim - grą światła. Po tak dobrym początku, poczułam się lekko zawiedziona opisami florenckimi - ale to jedynie moja subiektywna opinia fascynatki.

• „Nie ma przyjemności prostszej aniżeli oglądanie wspaniałego Tycjana, chyba że świetny Tintoretto albo przechadzka do Świetego Marka - to okropne, jak łatwo popada się w rutynę - gdzie oczy mogą odpocząć w półmroku. Nic wreszcie prostrzego niż pływanie gondolą, wystawanie na balkonie czy kawa u Floriana. Z takich powierzchownych rozrywek składa się dzień wenecki, a jego urok wynika z wywołanych przez nie emocji”.

• „[…] ale czerwiec jest ze wszystkich miesięcy najdoskonalszy. Dni są wtedy gorące, ale nie zbyt upalne, a noce piękniejsze niż dni. O poranki Wenecja różowi się bardziej niż kiedykolwiek, a o zmierzchu przybiera wyjątkowo złociste tony. Zdaje się, że puchnie i wyparowuje, mnoży wszystkie swe odbicia i blaski […]. Gondola jest wówczas twym jedynym mieszkaniem, dni spędzasz między morzem a niebem”.

• „Weneckie życie to po prostu literacka konwencja […]. Obecnie to najbardziej melancholijne z miast zmieniło się w piękny grobowiec. Nigdzie indziej przeszłość nie została pochowana z podobną czułością, smutną rezygnacją i nostalgią”.

• „Zasadniczy urok Florencji, jej geniusz, który sprawia, że chętnie przyjmujemy wszystko, co z nią związane, polega na tym, że okruch swojego czaru rzuca na mokre jeszcze gips i zaprawę”.

• „Starsze uliczki, przytulone do nowych alei, drążą w sercu miasta wąskie, mroczne przejścia, które na swój sposób dodają mu romantycznego uroku. Czasami, kiedy przystajemy, aby przyjrzeć się im bliżej, pragnąc dostrzec snujące się po nich cienie, wyglądają jak korytarze z przeszłości, mistyczne niczym drabina Jakubowa”.

• „Przeszedłem pod łukiem Pałacu Pittich, który mógłby być bramą etruskiego miasta, aby spędzić popołudnie między omszałymi posągami, harmonijnie umieszczonymi na tle ściany cyprysów, i spojrzeć z góry na stłoczone wieżyczki i jasnobłękitne wzgórza gdzieniegdzie upstrzone białymi willami”.

[Andrzej · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry James w liście do brata pisał, że właśnie w Italii znajduje niewyrażalne "coś", " niedającą się zanalizować cudowność". Książka do smakowania. Po prostu iść z autorem i kontemplować, podziwiać włoskie cudowności.

[Stuart Fail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This man was an unbelievably good writer. His descriptions were poetic and simple and precise. Wonderful book for lovers of Italy.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The luxury of loving Italy
I bought this book of Henry James's travel writing prior to a trip to Sorrento last week, remembering how I'd previously come across stimulating extracts from it in a compilation ( Venice: The Most Triumphant City ) on a previous visit to that country. Originally published in 1909, James assembled the present book from essays that he'd written for periodicals over a period of almost forty years, adding a couple of new pieces and a preface. It's an interesting and pleasant collection, although - given the author's well-known occasional fondness for verbiage - not the easiest holiday read. I have to say that my attention was wandering in places (which I don't remember happening the last time I picked up one of his books - specifically The Portrait of a Lady , which I found completely engrossing), but there are rewards for perseverance: until reading this, I hadn't been aware of James's expertise in the visual arts (in fact, it's mentioned on p xxi of the introduction that John Ruskin wanted Cambridge to offer James the post of Slade Professor of Fine Arts while James was only in his thirties), and he devotes a lot of his time in Venice and Rome to criticism of the paintings and sculpture he finds in the churches and galleries.

There are also less technical passages about his impressions of carnival in Rome and Florence, the papacy (the period covered by the essays includes Victor Emmanuel's capture of Rome from the Pope, which resulted in Italian unification) and the countryside around Rome. And occasionally a very light touch shows through in his eye for detail, as in a charming description (p 224) of a little boy in Siena eating a water-ice and having his spoon taken away from him by his mother ("he was no friend, it appeared, to such freedoms; he was a prefect little gentleman and he resented it being expected of him that he should drink down its remnant").

Finally, it should be said that - no doubt inevitably - the book's geographical coverage is uneven: most of the pieces are about Venice, Florence and Rome, and James only ventures south of Rome in the final essay ("The Saint's Afternoon") in which, happily, I was able to read about his impressions of Capri just a few hours after we'd been there.

Originally reviewed 4 October 2010

[Romulus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cud, miód.
Proza Henry Jamesa nie jest dla każdego. Ale chyba każdy odnajdzie swój smak w tych wędrówkach autora po Italii. Najszybciej ci, którzy łączą w sobie miłość do Italii i szacunek do twórczości Jamesa (w moim przypadku). Testy powstały na przestrzeni 150 - 120 lat temu. I czasami zachwycają aktualnością. A może tym, że od czasów Jamesa Italia nie zmieniła się. Dobrze to widać na przykładzie Wenecji, której autor poświęca dużo miejsca. Już pod koniec XIX wieku James stwierdzał, że to miasto umarłe, miasto muzeum, miasto atrakcją turystyczna. I kiedy miałem okazję przedzierać się jego ulicami wśród tłumu turystów, stwierdzałem to samo. Znajoma, która nam pokazywała Wenecję pierwszy raz mówiła, że w tym historycznym "centrum" mieszkają tylko ci, którzy obsługują turystów. Życie weneckie toczy się gdzie indziej. Kiedy spacerowałem z Jamesem po Florencji, czy po Corso w Rzymie, czułem się tak jakbym tam był. Nie chodzi tylko o oczywistości (że w centrum historycznym tych miast nic się nie zmieniło), ale i o pewien nastrój, spojrzenie na czas i miejsce. Choć nie śmiem się porównywać z Jamesem. :) Nie ta liga i nigdy nie będzie. :)

Henry James w tym zbiorze kontempluje Italię. Jest bliski współczesnemu czytelnikowi z XXI wieku, dzięki ponadczasowemu spojrzeniu, ale styl jego refleksji to nadal XIX wiek, bliski jego prozie, tylko lżejszy. Można się w tym rozsmakować czytając tę książkę partiami, powoli, pamiętając, że to przewodnik bardzo specyficzny, pozornie trudny, ale pełen wyczucia i elegancji języka.

[Liam Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry James's writing is an antidote to modern attention deficit. His sentences force me to concentrate in a way that nothing else I read, particularly online, does. The essays that comprise the volume were written over a span of just shy of 40 years: the earliest immediately after the Papal States were stripped of their last vestiges of secular authority in 1870, and the last in 1909, the year the volume was originally published.

I found James's youthful style much more appealing than that of his dotage, by which point I feel his style had become schtick. But, that being said, James's ruminations, in the volume's final essay, on the introduction of that newfangled machine, the automobile, and what it means for the traveler, are startlingly prescient, and his sense of history (as opposed to the knowledge of history) imbues his travel writing with genuine romance, with a deep understanding, which he ably communicates, of why we travel. From the first essay, on Venice, "There are some evenings in June when there are too many gondolas, too many lanterns, too many serenades in front of the hotels. The serenading in particular is overdone; but on such a balcony as I speak of you needn't suffer from it, for in the apartment behind you--an accessible refuge--there is more good company, there are more cigarettes."

A man after my own heart.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review of the original 1909 edition of "Italian Hours" which, as it was out of copyright, was the edition I used to record the work for Librivox. That volume contains a collection of essays covering decades of James's Italian travels - ranging from his twenties to his old age (the age of the automobile).

Like most people who've been there, Henry James and I love Italy with a passion. I enjoyed revisiting and learning and researching as I read along and had a chance of seeing Italy through the eyes of a cultivated art-lover.

Yet I am ambivalent about this work. It is rich and dense and historically interesting. We see Italy from before its unification to the pre-war years through the sensibilities of a highly refined and insightful observer. The earlier essays, in particular, delighted me.

Unless they were revised decades later for publication in book form.

The revised essays and the last essays are examples of the notorious "late style" of Henry James. Sometimes this reader just wanted to smack him for being willfully obscure.

[Lorraine Tosiello · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank goodness this man is a great novelist, because he is neither a good travel writer nor a good memoirist. If one has never been to Italy, this will not help you conjure the feel of it, if you have been, then you know it misses the descriptive mark by tenfold. In brief moments, he almost achieves a kind of atmosphere, as the "most painterly of writers" (it's been said somewhere...), for example:" ...the Alban Hills, which in January and February kept shifting and melting along the whole scale of azure, were almost monotonously fresh, and had lost some of their finer modelling. But the sky was ultramarine and everything radiant with light and warmth..." But also wrote this (and didn't edit it out): "...that charm of Italian vegetation that comes to us as its confession of having scenically served, to weariness at last, for some pastoral these many centuries a classic." Say what? Read Daisy Miller instead!

[Cathy Patton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Italy, I have visited it 10 times, but I hated this book. So wordy! So boring! I was an English literature major in college so am used to writing from James' era, but these essays are so tangential and mostly pointless. There were a few pages that did take me back to the lovely country, but they were few and far between, not worth the long dry spells between those fond recollections.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading these fabulous pieces recounting Henry James' travels through Italy, it becomes readily apparent that no one does or ever will write sentences like these again. This does not mean sentences about Italy, but sentences about anything. The sentences here are both overwhelming and of a surpassing beauty at the same time.

[Kevin Christiansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable late 19th and early 20th century reflection of Henry James travels to a number of cities and villages in Italy. Reading Italian Hours was particularly timely for us given our recent trip to Italy. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of some of the places we visited, especially Florence and Siena.

[Martyna Wieczorek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spędziłam z tą książką cały rok właściwie. To zupełnie nie te czasy, ale miłość do Włoch jest ponadczasowa i robi mi ciepło w środku fakt, że już ponad wiek temu ktoś wyraził po części coś, co ja czuję. :) I klasycznie: tęsknię!

[Barbora Bo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Veľmi pekne spravená kniha, no žiaľ štýl, akým píše Henry James je pre mňa úplne nečitateľný. 🤯
Tak siahodlhé vety a opisy, že si až hovorím, že asi to nemá vo výbave 🤷🏻‍♀️ vytvoriť jednu jednoduchú vetu.

[vicvicvic]

i actually don’t have to finish this for class yay

[James Joyce · Rating 1 out of 5]

Henry James ought to get a running kick in the arse for writing his tea-slop about Italy

[Giuseppe Sepe · Rating 3 out of 5]

...one hour of the lagoon is worth a hundred pages of demoralised prose.

[Brad Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of recollections of James' time in Italy makes me want to go back to Italy (mostly Tuscany)!

[Sol · Rating 2 out of 5]

its impossible to read this book and not want to travel to italy. James touches so many important issues that come with tourism while describing how beautiful each part of italy is. his main argument is how artificial tourism has become and how we travel just to see what others have seen. thinking about it even now we all have a picture of where we are visiting, you know what empire state looks like before seeing it.
the only reason i gave it two stars is because of how slow it is. it took hours before finishing a section. since there isn't a main plot or story to follow but a traveller in italy it does get boring. the only reason you should read this is to hear his arguments for the artificiality of tourism not for a journey or exciting story to follow

[Andrew Ives · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book irritated me in the extreme and I had to give up after 20% after reading the parts about Venice, then some later parts about Milan. To say this book was overly verbose would be an understatement. Reading Henry James is somewhat reminiscent of reading a long-winded Google translation of some prosaic Japanese in English. Almost all direction and meaning is hidden behind a flurry of adjectives and the kind of wishy-washy twaddle that only art critics can concoct. In addition to this, the Kindle version I read omitted all pictures and the HTML tags appeared as tags all over the place. Even if you're a fan of travelogues or Italy in general as I am, chances are you won't enjoy this as I didn't.

[Jen Holman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally got this book with the intention of reading James' memoirs of his time in Italy from front to back. For those who managed to do so, kudos. However, as you may expect from James, it is quite wordy and after a while you can find yourself feeling quite swamped - and so I have found it much more pleasant to use the section headings and index to find the relevant passages and read them as a I travel to those places myself. Since it was not written chronologically in the first place and is really a collection of essays and observations which was later compiled, this works well. In the end I don't know that I can say that I have read every single page, but I can say it has been a delightful companion to me throughout our travels in Italy.

[Mindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I set out to make my reading list for our Italy trip and really liked some of the snippets I came across when flipping through Italian Hours. I'll admit that it sometimes read like Italian Hours ... and Hours .. and Hours, but those little bits that so captured the sights and experiences that we were also having in Italy kept me going. I gathered some quotes throughout that I'm planning on putting in our photo album. I liked the witty and humourous moments, especially James's description of the passeggiatta and how the locals sit and watch everyone walk around That one made me laugh out loud!

[Davidm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began reading this while in Italy this year. . .and then had to finish. . . if you don't like James. . .well, it's all James all the time in this nonfiction collection of James' Italian memories. . . there are beautiful paragraphs, even gorgeous pages, but there are dry spots as well. . .and James' patronizing attitude can at times be annoying.