July 1st… I’ve returned to my blog on literature. Today’s page is about an Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, who wrote a novel about Henry James.
Oh, no, you might think. That “old-school” writer, born in 1843 and dead by 1916, who largely spent his life in England? Yes, and if you could see the folder I have of recent articles on Henry and his famous brother, the pragmatist-philosopher William, you would realize both men are relevant today.
In The Master, a reader enters a time frame of January 1895 to October 1899. You learn nothing about Henry’s last seventeen years but read a lot about his life before 1895. Yet the backstory is clearly and artfully woven in… because Tóibín is a master of fiction like Henry. (Colm’s latest novel is Long Island, a sequel to the earlier Brooklyn.)
If you enjoy travel, you get to visit many places in The Master: Newport, R.I., Boston, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Ireland, and Rye, England. That’s where Henry lived from 1887 until his death. What was the love of Henry’s life? Writing. And Tóibín’s rendering of those “closeted” times is artful about sexual longings for one’s own sex. The novel begins with Henry attending a performance of an Oscar Wilde play. What happened to Oscar? He went to prison for his flagrant love of another man. What Henry possessed instead of someone to love, other than family and friends, was a keen intelligence for understanding both men and women.
In The Master, a reader meets memorable females. Those in his family (mother, aunt, sister, cousin) and a famous woman & writer, Constance Fenimore Woolson. And his cousin Minny is the prototype for Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady.
A literary confession! I’ve no words for how much I abhorred this novel in college. Why? I tried to read Portrait in a weekend and write a paper on it, due on Monday. And no exceptions with this professor for late papers. Yet after re-reading The Master, I am returning to Isabel for a patient and wiser read than in my 1960 “salad days, when I was green in judgment.”
Next week: John Banville’s 2017 novel, Mrs. Osmond, about Henry’s character Isabel Archer Osmond. The brilliant Banville takes off where Henry ended. I call this Irish chutzpah!
This sounds interesting. I love Ireland almost as much as I love the West!