The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Is Olive presented as a sympathetic character? Why or why not?

What do you think of Matthias Pardon, and do you believe his intentions are good or bad? What makes you think that?

What are Olive’s views on men?

Now that we’ve gotten a bit into the book, what do you think of James’s writing style? Have you read other books by him, and if so, how does this one compare so far?

What were Olive and Verena’s reflections after the gathering at Mr. Burrage’s, and how do you feel about them?

Is Olive’s impression of the Tarrants accurate and fair, in your opinion?

I was surprised to see expressions such as “rake in the dollars” and “trashy” in a book from this era!

Lori wrote: " what do you think of James’s writing style? Have you read other books by him, and if so, how does this one compare so far?."

I have read 5 James Novels and 3 novellas prior to this. I have rated Portrait of a Lady and Daisy Miller as 4 stars and the others at 3 stars, so I seem to prefer his earlier to his later work. As this seems to be mid-period James, I was curious about how I would like it.
The story so far consists of a succession of scenes in someone's parlor where there is some dialogue while James describes various characters' thoughts and motivations. This seems to be typical of many of James novels, which involve more psychological study than action.
In this novel, I thought the sections from the first 2 weeks were fairly interesting, more so than in many James' novels, and the plot showed some promise. However, I found the psychological observations during the 6 chapters for this week's reading to be fairly tedious. It was just further exposition on Olive and the Tarrants, without much new or surprising, and a few characters were introduced although I can't tell what, if any, part they will play in the story.
I think this section needed a dash more Basil to add some needed flavor. There is still time, though. I'll just view this section as serving more as a set-up for later scenes.

Interesting that you felt this section was a rehash: for me it was the first time I really felt the sting of James’s vitriol, a tone I don’t recall from others of his novels, though it has been decades since I read them.

It started with his discussion of Selah Tarrant, “his smile as noiseless as a patent hinge,” and whose “ideal of bliss was to be as regularly and indispensably a component part of the newspaper as the title and date, or the list of fires, or the column of Western jokes.” Ouch! Then it was Olive’s turn: in enduring Mrs. Tarrant’s vulgarities, “Her only consolation was that she expected to suffer intensely.” Mr. Tarrant again, save for a reference to the apple fritters, he “alluded to nothing more trivial than the regeneration of humanity.” James seemed to lose some of his detachment in these passages and really despise his characters.

Chapter 17 did a lot to lay out the dynamics of Olive and Verena’s relationship and showed how Olive works on Verena to shape and mold her. I found myself dealing once again with a theme that comes up so often in novels set in a society with a defined class structure—the Pygmalion theme. I was reminded of Jane Austen’s Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith, and especially the misguided aesthete sisters in Howards End. You see it in books like The Help where the black people’s stories are told through the lens of a white person’s perspective. The well-off Olive feels entitled to take up a socially inferior, younger, and naive girl and shape her to become something she’s not and possibly never wanted to be. Olive uses the reward of her approval and the fear of her disapproval to control Verena in quite a ruthless way.

The whole business of Mr. Burrage was almost chilling. He seemed a fairly harmless young man, addicted to beauty and good-natured, even open to treating a woman with respect and acknowledging her right to be an equal in the world. Olive is almost seduced by his piano playing into finding him acceptable, and his gathering was one I’d have enjoyed attending. Clearly Verena was quite seduced, until Olive dragged her back into eremitic devotion to the cause. (On the other hand, the tenor of this novel is such that Mr. Burrage might be bent simply on adding another beautiful treasure to his collection.)

It’s notable that Olive seems bent on talking about the cause in private but never actually doing anything about it, and she reacts quite violently to any hint of Verena’s displaying her talents in front of anyone but herself. It might make sense to protect Verena from the uses to which Mr. Tarrant and Mr. Pardon want to put her, but Olive’s rude display at the Tarrants’ house, designed to prevent her speaking before the young men, was surely excessive. It’s all about Olive’s ego and she can’t see what harm she might be doing to Verena.

Mr. Tarrant was ahead of his time. He would have loved social media and TV appearances. He could have tallied up his Twitter followers!

It is challenging to read a book where the author seems to disapprove of all the characters. Well, maybe Basil is going to reappear, as he seemed to be treated well by James. He was shown as reasonable and not taken in by others and not expecting some thing from others. Everyone else is playing a part and manipulating others.

Abigail wrote: "Interesting that you felt this section was a rehash: for me it was the first time I really felt the sting of James’s vitriol, a tone I don’t recall from others of his novels ..."

I think it's that I felt I already knew what James thought about the characters, such as the Tarrant, and their deficiencies. This section just gave further, albeit more intense, instances of James' commentary. The section did serve to more clearly display the depth of Olive's obsession over Verena.
I do find it interesting that there is so much discussion of women's rights yet so little discussion about what those rights are, why they are needed, and the methods to achieve them. Yes, a few comments about voting, but the actual tenets of feminist rights and the means to achieve these rights are unimportant to the story or to James.
Verena is supposed to be a star for the cause because she uses her charms when she talks abut the subject to gatherings in rich people's parlors? No talk of mass rallies and marches? I guess it is befitting to James' perspective about where the important parts of life take place.

You pose a shrewd question, Brian: was the inaction toward the cause a feature of the movement in Boston at this time or a reflection of James’s assessment of the movement? To my mind, in his mockery he shows a distinct lack of awareness of the forces holding women back, so I’m leaning toward the latter but can’t say for sure.

When I was young I found James very slow going, almost like Well’s comparison of an elephant trying tp pick up a pea. Now I’m quite fascinated with James’s 3rd person indirect, where the narrator appears to be summarising but the vocabulary reveals the character, as with Matthias Pardon here: ‘The fact was, she was a great card, and some one ought to play it. There never had been a more attractive female speaker before the American public; she would walk right past Mrs. Farrinder, and Mrs. Farrinder knew it. There was room for both, no doubt, they had such a different style; anyhow, what he wanted to show was that there was room for Miss Verena. She didn't want any more tuning-up, she wanted to break right out. Moreover, he felt that any gentleman who should lead her to success would win her esteem; he might even attract her more powerfully—who could tell? If Miss Chancellor wanted to attach her permanently, she ought to push her right forward. He gathered from what Miss Verena had told him that she wanted to make her study up the subject a while longer—follow some kind of course. Well, now, he could assure her that there was no preparation so good as just seeing a couple of thousand people down there before you who have paid their money to have you tell them something.’


‘A great card’, ‘Walk right past’, tuning-up’, ‘push her right forward’; James reveals Pardon as a total Philistine and vulgarian without appearing to offer an opinion. I vaguely recall thatJames failed to find a niche as a newspaper correspondent,and said, ‘I couldn’t write badly enough for them.’ With Pardon he demonstrates what he thought of journalists.

I find this so far really difficult to digest. James seems to have no sympathy towards his protagonists. A lot of vitriol and irony. I am not sure where this is going, but I don’t like it very much so far. I also have a hard time with the interpolations into sentences (supposedly to explain the underlying feelings). It seems to be all from an observers point of view that does not like any of the participants very much. I will see where it is going. I always wanted to read James, but maybe I will change my mind about it.

Bill wrote: "Now I’m quite fascinated with James’s 3rd person indirect, where the narrator appears to be summarising but the vocabulary reveals the character..."

Detlef wrote: "...I also have a hard time with the interpolations into sentences (supposedly to explain the underlying feelings). It seems to be all from an observers point of view that does not like any of the participants very much. "

As I don't have a great knowledge in the area, I appreciate these insights into the narrative voice used here. I then read this Wikipedia article on 3rd person indirect narration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_in....

Lori wrote: "Now that we’ve gotten a bit into the book, what do you think of James’s writing style? Have you read other books by him, and if so, how does this one compare so far?"

I have also read several of his other novels, about thirty years ago. At that time, I loved the nuance-driven-to-fever-pitch quality of the later works, although at least one of them (The Sacred Fount?) I remember finding completely impenetrable. I don't think I was able to finish that one. But this is accessible, if less nuanced. The elements of caricature are not something I remember from his other novels. Maybe I've forgotten.

Here we have Verena--an innocent--a type definitely recurring in other books. Olive is looked at closely, and Basil is also treated with respect. Mr. Burrage is the only other character who feels real to me, in the sense of not being presented in caricature. And he offers a window into--at least a more beautiful and gentle, if not more just, world than the gritty one which Verena, and Olive as well to a certain extent, currently inhabit.

I do remember appreciation of beautiful objects as a significant element in several of the other novels, including--I think??--Portrait of a Lady, which came immediately before this one. I could be completely wrong, as it has been such a long time! But because I remember James paying so much attention to beautiful objects in other books, what Mr. Burrage presents here to Olive and Verena jumps out at me as important. He is not just a collector, not just a connoisseur, but actively engaged in producing the good and the beautiful through his piano playing. James doesn't seem to respect much that his characters do throughout this novel, but he does seem to respect this.

In so much as I am with James, Olive's determination to pull Verena away from Mr. Burrage and continue to impose her own lifestyle on the younger woman is horrifying. She may be ruining Verena's opportunity to escape hand-to-mouth, charlatanry-based subsistence and, at the same time, to be treated well by a kind and well-meaning husband. But the fact that James presents Verena's decision--in so much as it is a decision, not really being her own--to walk away from this opportunity in such a miserable light is itself problematic. He certainly doesn't seem to view the domestic independence of women, or the potential for a happy and enduring "Boston marriage," with favor.

Olive : " Tarrant was a moralist without a strong moral sense"

Todd wrote: "Olive : " Tarrant was a moralist without a strong moral sense""

I had noticed that one too, Todd. It's one I'll likely appropriate and use myself someday.

I enjoy James's subtlety toward his characters - it seems to me that he presents us with highly flawed, very human characters and allows us to make up our own minds about them. He doesn't overtly inject his opinion often. It's interesting how all of us have different ideas of the characters. For example, I think Olive's sudden bouts of shyness humanize her a bit and make her more sympathetic - otherwise, she'd come off as too cold.

There are some aspects of James's writing that annoy me. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a line was meant to be dialog, someone's thought (if so, whose?), or narration, and that can get really annoying. (And that's why I'm not a huge fan of Woolf.) But I found this book easier to read than, say, Wings of the Dove, and I was able to enjoy the subtlety of his writing.

I find some of this uncomfortable because I recognize it in others and in myself today! The idea of giving something up dramatically and suffering to show what a high-minded person you are. Today I read an article about how we should all dry our clothes outside instead of using electric dryers, as most people in the US now do. I grew up hanging out clothes and I don't want to go back to it, but I felt guilty about that. (I bet the author of the article doesn't live in as cold a climate as I do, plus I think many of today's fabrics don't come out well when air dried, or you have to - Heaven forbid - iron them!) Anyway, just one small example of how we "socially conscious" people make a lot of drama out of everyday decisions - similar to Olive thinking she ought to take the public conveyance but not liking to, then feeling bad about that.

So I do find Olive believable, though annoying. I find it hard to believe in Verena, how she can be so innocent after growing up with her parents, and how easily she is swayed by others.

Lori wrote: "Is Olive presented as a sympathetic character? Why or why not?


These three extracts sum up Olive’s motives and personality.

‘Miss Chancellor would have been much happier if the movements she was interested in could have been carried on only by the people she liked, and if revolutions, somehow, didn’t always have to begin with one’s self—with internal convulsions, sacrifices, executions. A common end, unfortunately, however fine as regards a special result, does not make community impersonal.’............
Olive is an introverted snob.

‘Olive rose to her feet, hesitating; she wanted to go away, and yet she couldn’t bear to leave Verena to be exploited, as she felt that she would be after her departure, that indeed she had already been, by those offensive young men.’.........Olive is a self-deluded hypocrite.

‘ The girl was now completely under her influence; she had latent curiosities and distractions—left to herself, she was not always thinking of the unhappiness of women; but the touch of Olive’s tone worked a spell, and she found something to which at least a portion of her nature turned with eagerness in her companion’s wider knowledge, her elevation of view. Miss Chancellor was historic and philosophic; or, at any rate, she appeared so to Verena, who felt that through such an association one might at last intellectually command all life.’ ...........Olive enjoys the power she has in controlling Verena, not unlike Dr. Frankenstein.

Add to this the fact that Olive has considered buying Verena for ten thousand dollars, it makes it difficult to consider her a sympathetic character.

Verena, however, has shown herself to be able to rebel against Olive’s control by using her honesty, geniality and persistence in order to continue her increasingly intimate acquaintance with Mr. Burrage.
I can’t quite picture the man that Olive says she could like and respect, but Verena, although promising not to marry, has made it clear whom she likes and has not been deterred from becoming personally involved with men..

Will Verena go to New York.....with or without Olive?

Henry James’ writing style.

I have only read one other novel by Henry James, ‘The Portrait of A Lady,’ which I thoroughly enjoyed. So far I am not enjoying this one as much but there is plenty of time left for me change my mind.
At his most descriptive James is writing in layers of varying depths, most noticeably in this section when he describes Mr. Tarrant. His literal description at home in Cambridge would make Tarrant seem aloof, innocuous and ineffective yet all the time the reader can detect a devious mind manipulating his guests and camouflaging his real intentions. His actions seem trivial but he is somehow pulling all the strings.
Olive is quick to realise that her mercenary plan to buy off the Tarrants would be quickly seized upon and exploited by Mr. Tarrant even though James never actually describes him as the scheming fraudster that he is.
Incidentally, using the ‘Measuring Worth’ scale based on RPI indices, Olive’s $10,000 would be worth about $240,000 today.

I think Olive is more like Svengali, the hypnotizer, or Pygmalion, the sculptor, than like Dr. Frankenstein, who abandoned his creation in horror. Olive wants to guide and shape Verena, well more than that, she would love to dictate her every move and thought! Verena is like a marionette or puppet. But was this same thing happening all the time and considered normal when the controlling person was a man? I am think of A Doll's House and other works where a wife is forced into her husband' expectations.

Robin P wrote: "I think Olive is more like Svengali, the hypnotizer, or Pygmalion, the sculptor, than like Dr. Frankenstein, who abandoned his creation in horror. Olive wants to guide and shape Verena, well more t..."

Yes you are right, I don’t think Olive will abandon Verena in horror.
I was thinking of the delusional doctor believing he could create something that was only possible by unethical and immoral means.......and I may be wrong, but I think her control over Verena may not last.

Robin P wrote: "But was this same thing happening all the time and considered normal when the controlling person was a man?"

Yes, it definitely was. Verena living with Olive was kind of a "Boston marriage" arrangement, with Olive playing the role of the more powerful partner (in this case, Olive has the upper hand because of age and wealth rather than gender).
And, even still, in many male-female marriages, the man might control his wife and daughters, fully reasoning within himself that he knows what's best for them and that it's for their own good.

(In Verena's case, she definitely was in need of an older mentor, but I don't condone Olive crossing the line into manipulation territory.)

It’s a well- known principle in relationships that the partner with the lesser commitment controls the nature and duration of the relationship. At this point that appears to be Verena.

Lori wrote: I was surprised to see expressions such as “rake in the dollars” and “trashy” in a book from this era!


Fortunately I can access the OED online and it's useful for James's usage. 'Rake in' in the sense of accumulate a lot of money goes back to the 16th century but it seems especially common from the late 19th century. As it is associated with gambling, it fits Tarrant's character well. It is Olive who thinks of Mr & Mrs Tarrant as 'trashy'. OED cites first example meaning 'Of people: worthless, disreputable' as colloquial from 1862. I expect Olive was recalling terms in vogue in her class at the time.

I expect that Tarrant would not have thought he was selling (or renting out) his daughter to Olive, but rather that he was transferring his right to act as her agent in her career as a public speaker. It is hard for us to imagine how huge a role speaking engagements played (I nearly typed 'paid' - a meaningful lapse) in 19th-century popular entertainment. Even such famous literary figures as Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and Mark Train drew big audiences. Of course Olive's plan is quite the opposite, to keep Verena off the platform.

Lori, you asked about Olive’s view of men. I must admit that she reminded me a little of Miss Havisham in Dickens’s Great Expectations in her hate of men. Might she be using Verena in a similar way as Miss Havisham used Estella?

Olive is also reflecting what she thinks she is saving Verena from. It is almost as if Verena is the bait of many predators around her. Olive thinks of herself as Verena’s rescuer, but she is in a way as much of a predator as the others. Talking about the emancipation of women, but then trying to subdue Verena’s own will is quite cruel.
As you all mentioned the narrator does not seem to like any of the story’s characters and makes the reader think the same way. I think I like Verena most as I feel pity for this innocent young girl that is being torn from one side to another.

I have only just caught up to this section and will now try to continue to the next directly. 😊

Hedi wrote: "Lori, you asked about Olive’s view of men. I must admit that she reminded me a little of Miss Havisham in Dickens’s Great Expectations in her hate of men. Might she be using Verena in a similar way..."

Yes, Verena is in a difficult situation. Olive could be a valuable friend and mentor to her, but she's ruining that with her manipulation.