The Reverberator

by Henry James, Choire Sicha (Introduction)

Henry James, one of the great literary stylists, an incomparable analyst of human relations, and---who knew?---a startlingly prescient media critic. This little-known novel from one of his most fertile creative periods could have been written for today's news-hungry, celebrity-obsessed times.

Pretty American Francie Dosson travels to France with her father and less pretty sister. En route they meet scandal sheet journalist George Flack, who promptly falls for Francie. On their arrival in Paris he tours the Dosson sisters through its high society and bohemian circles, unwittingly introducing her to his rival Gaston Probert. Flack---a forerunner of a phone-hacker if ever there was one---is dismayed by this competition for the guileless Francie, but soon finds a way to turn the situation to his advantage, as well as that of his readers.

The Reverberator  is James at his most incisive, not to mention most caustic, and perhaps funniest, and one of very few of his novels to win the praise of his harshest his brother William James. It's also a remarkably timely take on privacy, press freedoms, and our own inquisitive natures.


ebook 978-1-61219-157-7

Genres: Fiction, Classics, American, Literature, Literary Fiction, 19th Century, Novels

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1888

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

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This proves that Henry James had a sense of humour if your standards of evidence are really low. I liked it a lot but now I look back on my Henry James years as a kind of affliction, perhaps like reformed dopeheads might glance back wistfully at their marijuana years. And there is, come to think of it, a not wholly unfair comparison to be made between the endless mesmerising coiling entangling fronds of elongated thought which waft and drift and never seem to quite conclude and when they do eventually it takes another hour to remember what the beginning of this long leisurely loblolly train of thought actually... actually.... yeah. That's it. I remember what I was trying to say. Smoking a lot of dope and reading a lot of Henry James. It's nearly the same thing.

[Sketchbook · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title refers to an American newspaper, not a coveted sex toy. A major character, George Flack, pushy, funsy fella in Europe, rollicks the plot by sending a gossipy "Abroad" col home about some Americans in Paris, c 1888. Henry James frowned upon the Press and its vulgar excuse to "Get a story" -- any story, especially if it's trivial. Interestingly, "Flack" is the word used for any publicist (pr person) who is paid to promote a client or "plant" a story in the Press. Our august Press - ink/online - is 85% dependent upon "flackery" to fill its space. Mostly it's the editors who have 3d rate minds. James based his comedy of manners on a reporter who betrayed a US ambassador by scribbling an off-record chat. James >unintentionally< leaves our sympathies w Flack and Francie. A tempest in a demi-tasse.

Francie, our heroine, a beautiful but naive American girl, finds her silly marriage to an aristo threatened by what she innocently tells Flack, who pursues copy for a column (and loves Francie). It's a Comedy of Innocence that foreshadows the people-celebrity oriented trash that consumes ink/tv/online. Except now it's Big Bizness. The Only Media Bizness.

After disappointmenting sales fr The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima (swell NET password, eh?), James settled on this jeu d'esprit. For lumpkins who find James long-winded, I suggest this neglected fable (2d tier Js), where Francie and her daddy keep marrons glacees on every table.

[Enrique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finales del S. XIX y ya por entonces se inicia la prensa de sociedad, la prensa rosa, digamos, con los dilemas que siempre ha llevado aparejado este tipo de publicación: ¿dónde acaba la libertad personal y comienza la libertad de prensa?¿cuál es el límite para que se puedan publicar según qué temas, que pueden afectar a eso que jurídicamente se cataloga de forma un poco indeterminada como honor y la buena fama de una persona?

Este ha sido para mi el gran descubrimiento de este libro, creo que es el más precoz en tratar esta temática. Por otro lado nunca pensé que el 1880 fuera tema de interés o de debate. Henry James en ese momento está todavía en el momento de una escritura realista, limpia y pulcra (luego vendrá con Otra vuelta de tuerca su momento mágico, más imaginativo).

Otros temas del libro son las relaciones de pareja y los protocolos ridículos a seguir en ese momento, las familias, la pujanza de la burguesía norteamericana y el dinero de la industria como referente, frente a la nobleza decadente y pazguata europea, la falta de prejuicios de esa sociedad emergente frente a los snob y clasistas franceses.

Le bajé una estrella por el final, que no me pareció que estuviera a la altura del libro.

[Ronald Wendling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry James and the Scandal Sheet: A Review of The Reverberator (1888), revised 1908

Readers of James have not shown as much interest in this short novel as in many of his other works of fiction. Mistakenly regarded as a comparatively lightweight performance, The Reverberator nevertheless deals forcefully with two characteristically Jamesian ideas: 1) the responsibility of writers to do more than merely please their readers and 2) the improbability of ever marrying the culture of the new world to that of the old.

At the center of the first theme is George Flack, an American in Paris who admits unashamedly that his only motive in writing is to cater to his audience or, as we might put it now, to get lots of “likes.” Flack works for an American newspaper called The Reverberator, and what his readers want is society gossip, especially about Americans living in Europe. The paper endlessly reechoes superficially fascinating tidbits like where Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So are headed after Paris (Biarittz perhaps?) or what scandalous doings Americans on the social make in Paris have secretly been up to. The narrator appears to delight in these trivialities as much as the Reverberator’s readers, and James builds his satire on the erroneous premise that he and his narrator think alike.

At the center of James’s new world/old world theme is Francie (Fidelia) Dosson, the prettier of two American Dosson sisters travelling in Europe with their remarkably non-protective father. You might call Francie a ditz if her innocence did not save her from doing any intentional harm. Her sister Delia, on the other hand, guilefully tries to use Francie’s good looks to move the Dosson family up the French social ladder, and success seems to come with Francie’s engagement to Gustave Probert. Gustave is the only character in the story with the aesthetic sensitivity James associated with Europe and valued highly.

George Flack meanwhile, shockingly alone with Francie in the Bois de Boulogne, induces her to spill a true story about the Probert family’s history of scandalous indiscretions. And Flack, playing on Francie’s gratitude to him for introducing her to Gustave, of course immediately publishes that nasty story in The Reverberator.

It is surprising that this novel is not more popular in a time like ours when how people consume information is such an issue. Almost all the Proberts expectedly react to the wrong doings Flack has revealed about them with outraged indignation, and they blame their publication on their future daughter-in-law’s treachery. The less affected Dossons, Francie included, find it hard to see what all the fuss is about and respond defensively. But the crucial question is whether the dispute dividing the two families will obliterate the plan of the Europeanized Gustave, as a Roman Catholic not easily shocked by corruption, to marry Francie, the new world innocent. Here we have a Jamesian Franco-American plot conflict that revisits a similar one in his earlier novel, The American (1877)

Do the clashing perspectives of these feuding families determine the outcome, or can the couple muster the bipartisan humanity to overcome it? The Reverberator must be read if James’s answer to this question is to be discovered, and that effort will necessarily involve more than just being pleased. But trying to bridge seemingly unbridgeable differences is a problem that should sound familiar to us.

[Ms Lecturas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Escrita a finales del siglo XIX, esta novela tiene todos los ingredientes de una trama actual.
Henry James supo remarcar las diferencias sociales y la dificultad de aceptación entre ellas en una trama llena de amor, odio, celos, incomprensión, manipulación...
Una muy buena lectura.
📖❤️

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, concise and generally lighthearted satirical novel from an author who has a reputation for being anything but those things. Aside from a few characters who are presented as a "type," (and who are grouped together as a mass, and given, it must be admitted to typical behavior), each of the characters in this rapid novel emerges with full complexity and suggested psychology. By this point in his career, James had mastered the art of the emotional climax, and it is fascinating to see how much suspense and drama he can create from very rarefied emotional and moral material. The satire, such as it is, hinges on the role of the press in modern life, but it is somewhat subsumed by James's usual fascination for American vs. European sensibilities, which ultimately comes to define the novel's conflict.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

The misunderstandings in trans-Atlantic relationships are exacerbated by a gossip columnist.

[Lee Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another yet rather rare lighter Henry James novel. It works fine but it's not exactly, to my mind, the best era for lighter fiction. By this midpoint of his career James had lost most of the Dickensian affectations, but he hadn't quite foreseen, it seems to me, the possibilities and new brevity of modernism. So this is just a fun, acceptable light novel in the vein of Much Ado About Nothing juxtaposing the nouveau riche American view of slanderous celebrity journalism with the older Francofied American expat crowd's view. As is usual in James a very naive young girl represents American innocence--here a naivete verging on idiocy, as in James' earlier "Daisy Miller." At first I found it a tad offensive, and not a little sexist, but, in the end, the plot is solid and the second half of the novel redeems our heroine some and puts the stolid old school expats to shame for their pretentious sensibilities. In the end, since we never get to read the gossip article that causes all of the stir for ourselves, the plot takes on the Yojimbo strategy, in which each person who reads the article has a wildly different take on it as per their own personality. That, I suppose, is a bit modernist at heart, but here it's used in a lighthearted rather than heavy or philosophical manner.

On to The Aspern Papers. Looking forward to rereading that one as I think it may well be my favorite James of all.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've read any Henry James. In fact it's over twenty years - I remember reading The Turn of the Screw and Portrait of a Lady at university with mixed emotions - I loved the former, and was almost bored by the latter. As evinced by the shelves of my local university library, James was very much in fashion and the critical darling during my university years, but the intervening decades have seen his star (along with many other Victorian novelists) wane.

Which brings us to The Reverberator, one of James' "lighter" works, but still a novel of manners, of the new meeting the old,of America colliding with Europe, and even, from the viewpoint of 2022, a glimpse into the future of celebrity culture and social media!

The story in a nutshell revolves around Francie, an ingenue American, who is courted by George Flack, who writes for the American society newspaper The Reverberator. He unwittingly introduces her to Gaston Probert, a member of a French/American family that has married into aristocracy and who falls head-over-heels for Francie. Flack tricks Francie into telling him all about the Proberts, and he then publishes a muck-raking story about them, much to the disgrace and embarrassment of all. After prolonged musing, Gaston decides to throw up his family for the sake of Francie.

The novel is light, and made of of discreet scenes (it was first published in installments in Macmillan's Magazine) of a very Jamesian character: much intricate description of location, sensibilities and feelings foreboding some action, but with the action often happening "offstage".

It's interesting to me how tastes have changed - the book now feels very old-fashioned, which I don't think I would have thought twenty years ago. James' long-winded exposition is from a previous time: interestingly the short introduction notes that this edition uses the early edition, not the later "updated" (i.e. more wordy) revision that James made later. If you mainly read more modern fiction, this book feels almost baroque.

As a social commentary, there is much that is of its time, but also some prescience. The Reverberator shows us that the social media storms of today are not something new, just a more instantaneous expression of something that has been actually going on for millennia. James is also no doubt poking fun at both the mores of the French and the Americans - Gaston and his family are almost unbelievably stuck-up and stuffy, Francie too innocent to be true, and Delia (Francie's older sister) too archetypically pushy and snobbish. Francie and Delia's father, like many older men in James' books is wealthy but ineffectual.

Thinking about it, The Reverberator is a nice way into the work of Henry James: it's less complex than some of his greater works and so is easy to get into, but still with all that makes James who he was. Not sure about this one - I imagine people these days will rarely read any Henry James, and if you are only going to read one James work, it should probably be one his better known ones (The Turn of the Screw is probably the best place to start), but The Reverberator is a nice light piece of Victoriana.

Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Echo" to zabawna i zdecydowanie zbyt krótka opowieść o uroczej Amerykance, dwóch pretendentach do jej ręki i intrydze tkanej grubymi nićmi. Nie brakuje tutaj piekielnych knowań ambitnego dziennikarza, misternych planów starszej siostry, drobnych oszustw zakochanego młodzieńca i manipulacji prawdziwych lwów salonowych. Na kartach tej powieści niewinność zderza się z wyrachowaniem, naiwność z przebiegłością, Ameryka z Europą, a nam pozostaje ocenić, kto wyszedł z tego pojedynku zwycięską ręką. Bo Henry James nie słynie z udzielania jednoznacznych odpowiedzi i często to, co wydaje się być oczywistością, nabiera innego znaczenia po zmianie perspektywy. I tak "Echo" jest satyrą na życie wyższych sfer – obnaża ich zakłamanie i obłudę, kąśliwą opowieścią o uległości, podporządkowaniu i sile tradycji oraz celną odpowiedzią na działania prasy – ich szaleńczą pogoń za tanią sensacją i czynienie z ludzi zabawek. To też, a może przede wszystkim, opowieść o różnicach, które dzieliły Amerykanów i Europejczyków w XIX wieku.

Więcej na: http://przy-goracej-herbacie.blogspot...

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

"She seemed to be doing nothing as hard as she could." I feel as though, of this whole book, this is the quote which most accurately epitomizes the essence of what I've just read. A lot of nothing going on, to be sure. In fact, the story was unrelentingly snail-like in it's progression; it doesn't really take flight until chapter 9 of the 14 chapter which comprise the book. However, when it does finally take flight, it soars till the end. Unfortunately, there just aren't any real people in this book, only brief sketches of unrealistic characters and situations which were evidently intended to be comical.
The psychological character analysis, for which James is best known, compels the reader to take an active interest in people and problems which might otherwise be ignored. He does not achieve that here. I'd say it’s worth the read if you're a big Henry James fan, like myself, otherwise don't bother with it.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Henry James, and even though this novella is probably the worst Henry James I've ever read, it was still a enough of a pleasure to help me break out of a reading block. The American family--two sisters and a father--ensconced in a hotel in Paris has plenty of money but not much class. The plain sister is determined that the beautiful one will marry well; the beautiful sister fears she's not up to the task. Meanwhile an American ex-pat who writes for a gossip rag sniffs around, and no one in the American family has a clue that gossip rags are a horror to French aristocrats--or even to Frenchified American expats. It's their naivete that makes the story, even if it's not quite credible. Fun to read, as James always is, and an interesting precursor of celebrity publicity issues today.

[Bertrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly outstanding but certainly a must-read in my daring attempt to gain a basic English literary culture. All in all it is a very predictable, slow moving, psychology-driven, Anna Karenina-style high society novel, whose piquant come mainly from what seems to be James' trademark, the description (often acerbic) of the colliding world of old world high society French values with modern American bourgeoisie.
This make for a cheerful read essentially thanks to the author's dedication to mix very "nice", even naive characters (for most of them) with a comedy of comedy of manners, but the same quality also make it likely I will remember nothing of it in a couple of months.

[Liza]

Amazing!!! A James comedy with a happy ending! I wish someone would make a movie of this. Remember when all those people were writing blogs about their love lives, and then their lovers would be like, what we do is private! and break up with them and then the New York Times would say this exemplifies the life/love of modern young people? This book is basically exactly like that but zanier and in the old times.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is a short retread of territory James had already covered (partially) in _The American_ and _The Europeans_ a decade before this work's publication. The tone is more in a comic register (which, more often than not, is something that James could not really handle well), and concerns the attitudes of the French aristocracy towards the gossipy "social" journalism of the day. Neither interesting, nor diverting, though it is entertaining enough to get an average rating from me.

[Leshawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title was brilliant! First book of 2001.

[Michelle Dye · Rating 2 out of 5]

An enjoyable read if slow and predictable.

[Nikolai Nikiforov · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's good once it gets going, but it's very slow to do so. Could make a great novella, but it's too thin for a novel (even a short one).

[Magda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chuckle-worthy. A lighthearted satire of 19th century high society.. Or those who aspire to it. Abroad, in Paris, bien sûr.

[Neesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novela recomendada para todos aquellos interesados en el mundo del periodismo y el papel que ejerce la prensa en la sociedad.

[Alan Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not James best work.

[Trev · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Henry James’ shorter and less well known novels. As a short, essentially comic novel, it would be a good introduction to his particular writing style. There is plenty of comedy but James is also using his satire to attack elements of the establishment he dislikes. I always always enjoy James when he writes about Americans abroad and ‘The Reverberator’ is set almost exclusively in Paris.

The Dossons are a rich American family who seem to have nothing better to do than while away their time lounging around Europe. Having been for a short stay previously, they are now set on a much longer, possibly indefinite, sojourn basing themselves in an exclusive Parisian hotel. The family comprise of the father, who looks and acts older than he is, and his two daughters who are almost complete opposites in both character and demeanour.

Francie Dosson, the youngest daughter, is the pivotal character around whom almost all the action revolves. She attracts both George Flack, the lead writer of the Paris ‘Reverberator,’ a tabloid style newspaper, and Gaston Probert, a man whose proud family consider themselves noble aristocrats despite being of American origin.
Francie’s naivety becomes the powder-keg that explodes in everyone’s faces leaving the reader unsure of the outcome until the very final pages.

In one episode, Francie is persuaded by George to sit for a portrait by one of the ‘new’ Impressionist painters. Although unimpressed with the artist’s work, the family agree. It is a decision that has far reaching consequences.

Overall this story left a good impression on me.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

The worst fiction I’ve read from James. While it begins with the wry humor that is so appealing in his earlier work, the plot soon turns stale as James latches onto the same tired themes: the expat American who feels alienated from his homeland, the quirky artist, the boorish American male, the naive-but-saucy American girl, and the typical Jamesian love triangle plot. The approach of criticizing the press and its reporting of Americans abroad -- including the fictional newspaper of the title -- is almost non-existent until it emerges late in the novel like the bad punchline of an obvious joke, functioning merely as the shiny topical peg upon which James hangs his same worn garments. I love James, but this novel is pretty dreadful. I’m not surprised it remains buried in his oeuvre. If you’re looking to discover a hidden gem from James, I recommend Confidence instead.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Third rate Henry James. I've read this is a satire, but it's not that funny. It centers around a bunch of shallow expatriate Americans in Paris who have nothing to do, and go about doing it pretty badly. The pretty girl, with whom everyone is in love, makes a mess of things through her naïveté. In the course of things, James is supposed to be skewering the gossip rag that is the namesake of the book. Its chief villain, and only mildly interesting character, is a reporter for that paper.

It was interesting to see James' take on scandal sheets having just re-read The Warden by Trollope. Overall, Trollope does a much better job criticizing the press. He does it with a lighter touch, and in the course of a novel which gives the reader something to care about. James, here, strikes me as being out of his depth - not funny, not inciteful, and not presenting much in the way of characters to latch onto. It wasn't awful, and I don't regret reading it, but it's not very good either.

[Jake Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light comic satire on the back of James's most severe and political work to that point, The Reverberator is nonetheless superior to his previous novel for showcasing his underappreciated gift for drawing-room comedy about the paranoia of social mores and propriety. James certainly takes muckracking social press to task for its fatuousness and invasion of privacy, but he equally lampoons how seriously the rich take themselves, the punchline of the novel's scandal being that no one outside the aggrieved family could possibly have any idea what is even being alluded to in supposedly explosive articles about their dirty laundry.

[Clara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo he intentado y eso es lo que cuenta. No tiene ni 300 páginas, pero como no he pagado ni un céntimo por él (gracias a mi biblioteca de confianza) no me siento ni obligada a terminarlo ni culpable por no hacerlo. Algún día probaré con otra novela suya, pero es que se me cerraban los ojos del aburrimiento.

[J. ROBERTO · Rating 2 out of 5]

La novela arranca demasiado tarde. No terminas de empatizar con los personajes y las descripciones de lugares y ambientes son casi nulas. Si te interesa conocer las dificultades que sufren las familias ricas inmigrantes para adentrarse a los círculos prestigiados de otros países (en este caso Francia) te será satisfactorio. De otra forma no te pierdes de mucho.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure whether it was the book or the sheer accumulated James of going straight through his novels but I broke down in the middle of this one and took a while to pick it back up. Interesting as a return to the gauche-American-newsman well, and I loved Mr. Dosson as a kind of homespun and opaque Christopher Newman. (I took him to sound and act about like Calvin Coolidge.)

[Laura McNeal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wondering if any of the ideas about what would seem vulgar to a French family versus an American one would ring true in 19th century France, and whether there is any truth to it still. But as an unusually light-hearted variation on the Jamesian theme of a Fatal Mistake borne of cultural naïveté, and as a glimpse of the terrors newspapers had in store for British royalty, this novella is a gem.

[J. D. Román · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es una lectura entretenida, donde se mezclan las pasiones humanas con el sentido del deber y la búsqueda de la verdad en el periodismo. Sin embargo, siento que el tema del periódico no aporta mucho a la obra, sino que queda como un elemento más.