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Sto caricando le informazioni... Lady Barberinadi Henry James
Edward Gorey Covers (125) Sto caricando le informazioni...
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This was all he expected of her, for it did not belong to the cast of her beauty to betray a vulgar infatuation. That beauty was more delightful to him than ever; and there was a softness about her which seemed to say to him that from this moment she was quite his own. He felt more than ever the value of such a possession; it came over him more than ever that it had taken a great social outlay to produce such a mixture. Simple and girlish as she was, and not particularly quick in the give and take of conversation, she seemed to him to have a part of the history of England in her blood. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813.4Literature English (North America) American fiction Later 19th Century 1861-1900VotoMedia:
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The two tales both date from the Portrait of a Lady era; they're classic James pieces about the love of an American and a European. They're also very interesting to read back to back, as I did, most obviously because the American in LB is a man chasing the eponymous Lady; whereas in SL the American is a woman chasing a Lord. Lady Barberina is not at all an interesting character; Mrs. Headway, however, is fabulous.
SL features some pale-imitation Trollopian names, as "Mrs Headway" suggests (other names: Littlemore, Demesne, Dolphin), but is otherwise excellent James, full of moral and psychological tension and problems. The structure is fairly tight, and the James ficelles are wonderfully done, emerging as proper human beings in their own right at the end. LB, on the other hand, is more formally ambitious. The ficelles aren't particularly helpful, but there are good reasons for that--the tale starts with an unusually visual scene (for James), a description of Hyde Park that, I half suspect, might owe something to actual paintings of those promenading. While SL more or less ends with (spoiler alert, but really, it's Henry James) a marriage, the marriage in LB occurs half way through. James seems to have wanted to think through not only the difficulties in setting up trans-Atlantic matches, as in SL, but the problems that might beset such relationships after the great comedic climax.
Unfortunately, LB doesn't do a very good job of that, and the tale is far weaker than SL because of it. The last, post-wedding sections feel rushed. Did James just get bored? Did he prefer to work on Portrait? Or was he, in fact, not able to depict (the reasons for) an unhappy marriage convincingly? All questions I would like to know the answer to. ( )