A review by duffypratt
Confidence by Henry James, Fiction, Literary by Henry James
2.0
I read these on my Kindle, from a "Complete Works" that I got for nothing or almost nothing. Later in life, James went back and revised his earlier work to conform better with his later aesthetic. There are several writers who have done revisions like this -- famously Mary Shelley with Frankenstein -- and I think its almost always a mistake. Once an author publishes a work, he should have no more authority over it than anyone else.
With James, and with this book, it makes me wonder. There is more detail and description in this book than in most of James. But I get the feeling that there would have been even more if I had not read the "corrected" edition. As his career progressed, it seems clear that James fell more in love with vagueness, and with having his characters never come out and say what they mean. Here, they sometimes do, but there are other times when I get the feeling that they did, but the author then thought better of it. Thus, in some ways, this book feels a little schizophrenic to me, which makes sense because it was written by one guy, and then edited much later by another.
The story, as in much of James, is very simple. Hero meets girl in chance meeting. Later, hero visits friend who is thinking about engaging himself to girl. Friend asks for advice. Hero gives, perhaps, bad advice. A love triangle is suggested, and a "comedy" of sorts ensues. That said, its the old fashioned kind of comedy, where everyone ends up married, and not the new sense of comedy, which is supposed to be funny. This is never funny, although there are points at which it is mildly amusing.
The twist that James seems to throw in here is that the real "love" difficulty is between the Hero and his friend, who seem to be more in love than any of the conventional couples. The only real conflict and resolution in the book is in the rift between these two. It is by far the most overtly queer of any of the James books I've read. (I still have about five to read at some point, so that's quite a bit.) It's kind of cool to see how James pulls this off without breaking any of the taboos at the time. But that's not enough to make me enjoy the book. I would have had a better chance at liking this if it had more of his concrete early style (as in Watch and Ward or Roderick Hudson), or if it had more fully been completely vague like the later books (Wings of the Dove or Golden Bowl). As it is, it felt like a stylistic mess.
With James, and with this book, it makes me wonder. There is more detail and description in this book than in most of James. But I get the feeling that there would have been even more if I had not read the "corrected" edition. As his career progressed, it seems clear that James fell more in love with vagueness, and with having his characters never come out and say what they mean. Here, they sometimes do, but there are other times when I get the feeling that they did, but the author then thought better of it. Thus, in some ways, this book feels a little schizophrenic to me, which makes sense because it was written by one guy, and then edited much later by another.
The story, as in much of James, is very simple. Hero meets girl in chance meeting. Later, hero visits friend who is thinking about engaging himself to girl. Friend asks for advice. Hero gives, perhaps, bad advice. A love triangle is suggested, and a "comedy" of sorts ensues. That said, its the old fashioned kind of comedy, where everyone ends up married, and not the new sense of comedy, which is supposed to be funny. This is never funny, although there are points at which it is mildly amusing.
The twist that James seems to throw in here is that the real "love" difficulty is between the Hero and his friend, who seem to be more in love than any of the conventional couples. The only real conflict and resolution in the book is in the rift between these two. It is by far the most overtly queer of any of the James books I've read. (I still have about five to read at some point, so that's quite a bit.) It's kind of cool to see how James pulls this off without breaking any of the taboos at the time. But that's not enough to make me enjoy the book. I would have had a better chance at liking this if it had more of his concrete early style (as in Watch and Ward or Roderick Hudson), or if it had more fully been completely vague like the later books (Wings of the Dove or Golden Bowl). As it is, it felt like a stylistic mess.