A review by karaklos
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
2.0
Phew I’m so glad to be done with The Portrait of a Lady. While there are some beautiful and clever pieces of writing, it is a painfully slow and tedious book with a pretty light plot.
The premise is interesting…a sort of social experiment where a young, broke woman named Isabel is given a fortune and can live freely without marrying if she so chooses. I was excited to learn what she would choose to do with her life. Unfortunately the spirited young woman we meet in the beginning does not in any way resemble the woman at the end of the book.
The narrator is a third person omniscient narrator who likes to make the reader wait before he reveals what will happen. The narrator’s voice is condescending and judging. Big events like engagements, marriages, and deaths happen and the reader is told after the fact as if these events were not important.
I became very annoyed with every man falling in love with Isabel. There is a whole chapter dedicated to Isabel’s ego…how smart and great she thinks she is (the narrator tells us otherwise). I wish Henry James had shown us her folly instead of just telling us. All of Isabel’s confidence vanishes into thin air as the book progresses.
I don’t feel that James understood women enough to create believable characters. By the end, all of the women capitulated into what society expected of them contradicting their original characters completely.
I enjoyed the psychological elements to the story but would have enjoyed it more edited down. The pacing of the last 15% of the book was much quicker and the story more engaging; however, I wanted to throw the book across the room after I read the last line.
The premise is interesting…a sort of social experiment where a young, broke woman named Isabel is given a fortune and can live freely without marrying if she so chooses. I was excited to learn what she would choose to do with her life. Unfortunately the spirited young woman we meet in the beginning does not in any way resemble the woman at the end of the book.
The narrator is a third person omniscient narrator who likes to make the reader wait before he reveals what will happen. The narrator’s voice is condescending and judging. Big events like engagements, marriages, and deaths happen and the reader is told after the fact as if these events were not important.
I became very annoyed with every man falling in love with Isabel. There is a whole chapter dedicated to Isabel’s ego…how smart and great she thinks she is (the narrator tells us otherwise). I wish Henry James had shown us her folly instead of just telling us. All of Isabel’s confidence vanishes into thin air as the book progresses.
I don’t feel that James understood women enough to create believable characters. By the end, all of the women capitulated into what society expected of them contradicting their original characters completely.
I enjoyed the psychological elements to the story but would have enjoyed it more edited down. The pacing of the last 15% of the book was much quicker and the story more engaging; however, I wanted to throw the book across the room after I read the last line.