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Crawfords Consistency
The lightning fell, in fact, a short time afterward. Crawford saw Miss Ingram, admired her, observed her, and loved her. The impression she produced upon him was indeed a sort of summing up of the impression she produced upon society at large. The circumstances of her education and those under which she made her first appearance in the world, were such as to place her beauty in extraordinary relief. She had been brought up more in the manner of an Italian princess of the middle ages----sequestered from conflicting claims of ward-ship than as the daughter of a plain American citizen.
34 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1876
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About the author
Henry James
4,534 books3,931 followersHenry 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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 29, 2022
Creo que a estas alturas mis amigos de Goodreads saben lo mucho que me gustan las novelas y relatos de Henry James. Así, es probable que mis reseñas sobre su obra sean mucho más subjetivas de lo que suelen ser las de otros autores. Dicho lo anterior, lo que me pasó con La coherencia de Crawford (leído en español, por cierto) fue como un amor a primera vista, que aunque nunca lo he experimentado, puedo entender que es como un encantamiento casi instantáneo, y que continúa deslumbrándote desde ese momento en adelante. Sí, exactamente esa fue mi experiencia leyendo este relato.
En La coherencia de Crawford nos encontramos con la historia de un hombre y su decadencia en sociedad, así como el papel que juega el matrimonio para él; el cómo pasa de estar en las alturas a no estarlo en menos de 50 páginas, algo que Henry James sabe retratar muy bien a través de su narrativa y sus personajes. Publicado en 1876, algo me dice muy seriamente que soy más fan del Henry James de la primera etapa como escritor que de la última. Ejemplos como este, Washington Square (que siempre recomiendo y me pone feliz cuando algún amigo —hasta ahora solo han sido tres, pero algo es algo— me dice que está leyéndolo por mi recomendación) e Historia de una obra maestra, son historias muy bien escritas, agradables de leer y que se disfrutan mucho. No como en el caso de Las alas de la paloma, que aunque me encantó, fue a su vez un sufrimiento constante, ya que de cuando en cuando se volvía muy verboso y confuso.
En fin, otra recomendación a la lista para empezar a leer a James, en mi opinión.
“No se reprochaba su error ni se lamentaba de él. Era como si tratara de despojarse de sí mismo para retomar sus viejas ocupaciones y se dispusiera a ser curado por el único que era capaz de hacerlo: el tiempo.“
En La coherencia de Crawford nos encontramos con la historia de un hombre y su decadencia en sociedad, así como el papel que juega el matrimonio para él; el cómo pasa de estar en las alturas a no estarlo en menos de 50 páginas, algo que Henry James sabe retratar muy bien a través de su narrativa y sus personajes. Publicado en 1876, algo me dice muy seriamente que soy más fan del Henry James de la primera etapa como escritor que de la última. Ejemplos como este, Washington Square (que siempre recomiendo y me pone feliz cuando algún amigo —hasta ahora solo han sido tres, pero algo es algo— me dice que está leyéndolo por mi recomendación) e Historia de una obra maestra, son historias muy bien escritas, agradables de leer y que se disfrutan mucho. No como en el caso de Las alas de la paloma, que aunque me encantó, fue a su vez un sufrimiento constante, ya que de cuando en cuando se volvía muy verboso y confuso.
En fin, otra recomendación a la lista para empezar a leer a James, en mi opinión.
“No se reprochaba su error ni se lamentaba de él. Era como si tratara de despojarse de sí mismo para retomar sus viejas ocupaciones y se dispusiera a ser curado por el único que era capaz de hacerlo: el tiempo.“
February 27, 2024
Cuando te toma no uno, sino dos intentos terminar un relato de 60 páginas... A ver, mucho interés no hubo. Suelo disfrutar a HJ pero en este caso me ha parecido caricaturesca la trama, los personajes, las relaciones entre ellos... No destacó para mí.
March 15, 2021
I found this short story in the old issue of Scribner's magazine in which it was first published. (Quite an issue, also has a Turgenyev story!).
As I have come across somewhat disparaging accounts of this story, let me report that it's quite a delightful romp. I'm somewhat late to the party with James, just getting to know him. But the thing I'd never surmised from his reputation is just how witty he is, and that certainly comes out in this absurdly satirical outing about a vague man with a small, undependable, fortune and his determination to get married.
As in the other James pieces I've read so far, the narrator is a vivid presence, in this case actually taking part in the story (he is the friend of the story's subject). The narrator's voice is an opportunity for James to express his considerable wit -- there is much understated sarcasm and playfulness.
Really what the plot reminded me of most is the Auden/Kallman libretto for 'The Rake's Progress', in which the devil convinces Tom Rakewell to marry Baba the Turk, a vein, gauche, freak of nature who will leave Tom free of the ordinary complexities of marriage, presumably there will be nothing as messy and constraining as love. He will have merely filled in the blank which is where one is supposed to fill in 'wife'. Similarly, the anti-hero of this short story, Crawford, finds peculiarly unlikely women to be his wife. At first he courts a woman who, according to the narrator, is essentially vapid, merely pretty. When he cannot succeed in marrying her, he finds a loud, flamboyant lower class woman who is the laughing stock of Crawford's posh social set. As with Baba the Turk, it seems as if this woman (in this case unnamed) is little more than a cartoon. Her main quality is that she is, from a social point of view, unthinkable. She is as vapid as the first woman, but also coarse and violent. Why would he marry her?
It is ambiguous. The easy reading of the story would seem to be that Crawford is 'soft' -- that he has just enough money to have a vague, unplanned life without ambition, and the result is his peculiar love life, which others might consider disastrous but which he accepts with equanimity.
Crawford is depicted as a sensitive but soft-headed sort, with inscutable passions. In a way, the story is not more than that - it is a somewhat absurd romp based on this particular sort of comic character, the not-rich-enough ne'er do well. In his aimlessness, he's not completely different from Morris Townshend of Jame's novella "Washington Square". But where Morris is the golddigger, and possibly evil, Crawford is aimless and benign, possibly virtuous to a fault.
While Crawford doesn't seem to have any close connections with men, or show any particular signs of being gay, there's something vaguely gay about this plot in which conventional matrimony is a game, a hoax. His first bride-to-be is an empty but beautiful facade. His eventual wife is a tacky loudmouth with whom he has nothing but an economic relationship with. When he loses his small fortune, she has no need of him. But of course, he never thought she needed him. Attraction and love were never part of the equation.
Perhaps not James' most profound work. Perhaps the female characters are more like cardboard cutouts than usual. But given the piece's satirical mode, I quite enjoyed this story nonetheless. The verbiage is delightful. When I put the book down and picked up a piece of contemporary fiction, I found myself going through withdrawal! I enjoyed the regular distribution of verbal treats in the James.
As I have come across somewhat disparaging accounts of this story, let me report that it's quite a delightful romp. I'm somewhat late to the party with James, just getting to know him. But the thing I'd never surmised from his reputation is just how witty he is, and that certainly comes out in this absurdly satirical outing about a vague man with a small, undependable, fortune and his determination to get married.
As in the other James pieces I've read so far, the narrator is a vivid presence, in this case actually taking part in the story (he is the friend of the story's subject). The narrator's voice is an opportunity for James to express his considerable wit -- there is much understated sarcasm and playfulness.
Really what the plot reminded me of most is the Auden/Kallman libretto for 'The Rake's Progress', in which the devil convinces Tom Rakewell to marry Baba the Turk, a vein, gauche, freak of nature who will leave Tom free of the ordinary complexities of marriage, presumably there will be nothing as messy and constraining as love. He will have merely filled in the blank which is where one is supposed to fill in 'wife'. Similarly, the anti-hero of this short story, Crawford, finds peculiarly unlikely women to be his wife. At first he courts a woman who, according to the narrator, is essentially vapid, merely pretty. When he cannot succeed in marrying her, he finds a loud, flamboyant lower class woman who is the laughing stock of Crawford's posh social set. As with Baba the Turk, it seems as if this woman (in this case unnamed) is little more than a cartoon. Her main quality is that she is, from a social point of view, unthinkable. She is as vapid as the first woman, but also coarse and violent. Why would he marry her?
It is ambiguous. The easy reading of the story would seem to be that Crawford is 'soft' -- that he has just enough money to have a vague, unplanned life without ambition, and the result is his peculiar love life, which others might consider disastrous but which he accepts with equanimity.
Crawford is depicted as a sensitive but soft-headed sort, with inscutable passions. In a way, the story is not more than that - it is a somewhat absurd romp based on this particular sort of comic character, the not-rich-enough ne'er do well. In his aimlessness, he's not completely different from Morris Townshend of Jame's novella "Washington Square". But where Morris is the golddigger, and possibly evil, Crawford is aimless and benign, possibly virtuous to a fault.
While Crawford doesn't seem to have any close connections with men, or show any particular signs of being gay, there's something vaguely gay about this plot in which conventional matrimony is a game, a hoax. His first bride-to-be is an empty but beautiful facade. His eventual wife is a tacky loudmouth with whom he has nothing but an economic relationship with. When he loses his small fortune, she has no need of him. But of course, he never thought she needed him. Attraction and love were never part of the equation.
Perhaps not James' most profound work. Perhaps the female characters are more like cardboard cutouts than usual. But given the piece's satirical mode, I quite enjoyed this story nonetheless. The verbiage is delightful. When I put the book down and picked up a piece of contemporary fiction, I found myself going through withdrawal! I enjoyed the regular distribution of verbal treats in the James.
December 15, 2023
When people ask why anyone would want a divorce, I will point them here. Could alternatively be titled “Well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.”
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews