The Outcry Henry James 9781117705330 Books
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The Shelf2Life Literature and Fiction Collection is a unique set of short stories, poems and novels from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. From tales of love, life and heartbreaking loss to humorous stories of ghost encounters, these volumes captivate the imaginations of readers young and old. Included in this collection are a variety of dramatic and spirited poems that contemplate the mysteries of life and celebrate the wild beauty of nature. The Shelf2Life Literature and Fiction Collection provides readers with an opportunity to enjoy and study these iconic literary works, many of which were written during a period of remarkable creativity.
The Outcry Henry James 9781117705330 Books
from my goodreads review: I should love to be a fly on the wall to observe a classroom of modern students attempting to decipher some of the convoluted sentences which make up this work. It was great fun for me to read, but what would kids who use abbreviations for texting make of it? I do think it would be of benefit for them to study not only for the translation but the exploration of what transpired with regard to purchases of art held by English families for generations (vs donations to National Gallery).Product details
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The Outcry Henry James 9781117705330 Books Reviews
"William James made the request to brother Henry write a new book with no twilight or mustiness in the plot, with great vigor and decisiveness in the action, no fencing in the dialogue, no psychological commentaries, and absolute straightness in the style. He did just that with The Outcry – well, but some fencing in the dialogue." from Jean Strouse's Introduction to this New York Review Books edition, the very first edition of The Outcry to be published since the novel's initial printing back in 1911 when Henry James mailed off his finished work to his publisher.
The Outcry is both a light, amusing comedy of manners and a subtly scathing social commentary on the shifting values and cultural collisions of old world England and new world America in the first decade of the twentieth century. I’ll be the first admit the dialogue is a bit staged, since, after all, Henry James simply converted his not-so-popular stage play The Outcry by adding character descriptions and stage directions to create his novel. Maybe I’m getting a bit soft in the head in the later years of my sixth decade but I found the work positively charming, most especially since art appreciation is a central theme. The 1911 reading public agreed - the novel enjoyed a popular success back in the day.
The characters are six in number Lord Theign, English aristocrat and art collector; Lady Grace, Theign’s charming, attractive younger daughter; Breckenridge Bender, super-wealthy American industrialist and art buyer; Lord John, acquaintance of Bender and the man wishing to make Lady Grace his wife; Lady Sandgate, friend of Theign and herself an owner of valuable artworks; Huge Crimble, handsome, gentile connoisseur and expert art critic.
The novel itself is divided into three parts part one at Lord Theign’s estate, Dedborough Place, and part two and part three at the home of Lady Sandgate. There are all sorts of ups and downs involving the relationships of these men and women fueled by the ups and downs of the value placed on a few key works of art. Rather than saying anything further about plot so as to spoil, below are my observations on the characters themselves along with photos (and a portrait) capturing, by my eye, the spirit of each
Lord Theign is pitch-perfect for James' exploration of the dynamics of wealth and privilege among the British aristocracy. During the scene of his big blow up with daughter Lady Grace, Lord Theign scoffingly growls that Hugh Crimble is her tenth-rate friend (the tacit understanding Hugh is a mere intellectual art critic and not a Lord like Lord John, an aristocrat Grace refused to accept as her husband, very much against her father's wishes). And later on, when Lady Grace proposes to her father that he keep the country and culture of England in mind when he considers selling the valuable art in his possession, Lord Theign cries in stupefaction, “And pray who in the world’s England unless I am?”
Lady Grace is the novel’s heroine, a woman of strength (I mean, take a look at this portrait. Does this young lady look like someone who will take any nonsense from a man, no matter high ranking? And that’s exactly why I chose this painting!) She tells Hugh Crimble that Breckenridge Bender is nothing more than an ogre and, a bit further on, when pressed by Lord John in his insistence for an answer to his proposal of matrimony, Lady Grace replies “I’ve got to say-sorry as I am-that if you must have an answer it’s this that never, Lord John, never, can there be anything more between us. No , no, never,” she repeated as she went – “never, never, never!” You tell him, Lady Grace! That’s the way to stand up to a man Henry James described as having a “delicacy of brutality.”
Modeled on J.P.Morgan (pictured above), Breckenridge Bender is all business and nothing but business. Bender came to Dedborough Place to look at the pictures and look at pictures is what he will do. He declined offers of English tea; he declined a stroll in the park “Are there any pictures in the park?” He marches his way through the hall of thirty masterpieces as if fruit for the picking for his dollar investments, as if all of art was nothing more than a subcategory of that supremely important value making money. Reading ever so slightly between the lines, we are given to understand Mr. Bender doesn’t have an aesthetic bone in his beefy body. One scene I found particularly humorous – in one exchange, Hugh Crimble asks Bender “Then why are you – as if you were a banished Romeo – so keen for news from Verona?” To this odd mixture of business and literature Mr. Bender made no reply, contenting himself with but a large vague blandness that wore in him somehow the mark of tested utility.” Touché, Henry James!
"Lord John, who was a young man of a rambling but not of an idle eye, fixed her an instant with a surprise that was yet not steeped in compassion." Ouch! Sounds like our man lacks a large heart. And, again, this time when viewing a work of art in his mind's eye "Lord John seemed to look a moment not so much as the image evoked, in which he wasn't interested, as at certain possibilities lurking behind it." Henry James portrays the shifting values of the times, in many cases, from appreciation of the aesthetic to the strictly utilitarian.
"Lady Sandgate, with a slight flush, turned it over, "I delight in his triumph, and whatever I do is at least above board."" The novel is chock-full of tension and drama. What is needed is at least one personage who is both optimistic and a peacekeeper - Lady Sandgate is our lady.
“Lady Grace had turned to meet Mr. Hugh Crimble, whose pleasure in at once finding her lighted his keen countenance and broke into easy words. “So awfully kind of you-in the midst of the great doings I noticed-to have found a beautiful minute for me.”” Based, in part, on James’ novelist friend, Hugh Walpole, and also, in part, on aesthetician Roger Fry, Hugh Crimble is the novel’s hero. Young, dapper, sensitive, refined; throughout his dealing with the truth of art Hugh is also forever attending to Lady Grace’s feelings. But how much influence will Hugh ultimately swing in the new world where art is becoming so directly linked with money? And will Hugh win the approval of Lord Theign as his relationship with Lady Grace deepens? You will have to read this overlooked Henry James classic to find out.
It's a pity this book has not been dramatised as it was originally written as a play. The style of writing is awkward and takes a little getting into but once 'in' is a sharp and witty review of the way in which landed families at the start of the 20th Century were urgently selling off their 'treasures' to pay for their lifestyle and estates.
Enter the American millionaire Breckenridge who is vociferous in his quest for works af art on the one hand and a young English connoisseur who views the whole process with distaste and is fighting to keep such works for the nation. Throw in a love triangle and the story starts to take on comic as well as serious dimensions.
The novel is a bit of a cross between E M Forster and Oscar Wilde with witty dialogue and sharp social observation.
This light-hearted novel is developed a long the lines of a pleasantly contrived piece of drawing-room comedy. The plot centers on the interactions between the stalwart protectors of Britain's art treasures faced with the pillaging ambitions of dollar-powered predators from abroad. Clever satirical barbs are directed wherever deserved among the various characters, drawn principally from polite society.
Henry James' masterful prose style is a main ingredient, with ample servings of those paragraph-length sentences in which every pronoun and verb is correct and in its proper place. Some of those conversations, however, are exceedingly long-winded and just a tad boring and repetitive.
from my goodreads review I should love to be a fly on the wall to observe a classroom of modern students attempting to decipher some of the convoluted sentences which make up this work. It was great fun for me to read, but what would kids who use abbreviations for texting make of it? I do think it would be of benefit for them to study not only for the translation but the exploration of what transpired with regard to purchases of art held by English families for generations (vs donations to National Gallery).
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