Pretty fascinating essay, John. I really like this: "Henry James turned the novel inside out by lining the drawing rooms and the city streets with human consciousness. Outer space became inner." That's a pretty great way to sum up all of post-modern consciousness.
Flattered to have been able to contribute to the creation of this post! Something I’ll add to that original thought and your response is that while I do broadly prefer Melville, many of my favorite authors on either side have works or periods that cross between the two, witness Morrison’s middle work with its epic scope but Jamesian attention to group psychology and inner mental states, or Roth’s performance in the America trilogy of transmuting the tragic lives of his protagonists and their social worlds into epic statements about the American century at its close.
Thanks for the prompt! I found I had more to say after the initial answer. Yes, while some authors really are at either extreme—Edith Wharton on one end, Cormac McCarthy on the other—there are also some who attempt synthesis. Roth and Morrison, with their academic backgrounds, each had a strong sense of their place in American literature and therefore probably did it very consciously and deliberately.
I know what you mean, I originally meant that prompt as a launchpad for a thought about autofiction, what I think you’re right to call our “Jamesian age” of fiction and how the dualism inherent to American culture probably makes swings from one extreme to the other inevitable, but that description of the pairing got away from me!
Indeed, I meant more the shared spirit of europhillia and novels mostly about the milieu one moves in, not the precise details. One could probably do a pretty interesting book about James’s family (famous philosopher brother father AND brother? A nebulously mentally ill sister who may have had incestous feelings for said brother? A rich vein there) but one imagines that a book based on James’s life itself would be pretty dull.
Agreed, I didn't mean to sound like I was correcting you, I meant to sound like I was correcting *them*! There's a five-volume biography of James that's supposed to be a landmark in the art of literary biography, but I don't love literary biography enough for that. I did read Michael Gorra's Portrait of a Novel, a kind of bio of HJ via a "bio" of his best book, which was very good, equally focused on literature and life. Out of curiosity, I just googled to see if there was a family bio. Not only is there one but it's by F. O. Matthiessen, speaking of the founders of American literary studies:
Pretty fascinating essay, John. I really like this: "Henry James turned the novel inside out by lining the drawing rooms and the city streets with human consciousness. Outer space became inner." That's a pretty great way to sum up all of post-modern consciousness.
Thank you, Sam!
Flattered to have been able to contribute to the creation of this post! Something I’ll add to that original thought and your response is that while I do broadly prefer Melville, many of my favorite authors on either side have works or periods that cross between the two, witness Morrison’s middle work with its epic scope but Jamesian attention to group psychology and inner mental states, or Roth’s performance in the America trilogy of transmuting the tragic lives of his protagonists and their social worlds into epic statements about the American century at its close.
Thanks for the prompt! I found I had more to say after the initial answer. Yes, while some authors really are at either extreme—Edith Wharton on one end, Cormac McCarthy on the other—there are also some who attempt synthesis. Roth and Morrison, with their academic backgrounds, each had a strong sense of their place in American literature and therefore probably did it very consciously and deliberately.
I know what you mean, I originally meant that prompt as a launchpad for a thought about autofiction, what I think you’re right to call our “Jamesian age” of fiction and how the dualism inherent to American culture probably makes swings from one extreme to the other inevitable, but that description of the pairing got away from me!
Interestingly, James didn't write autobiographical fiction. The endless inner self he explored was not his own.
Indeed, I meant more the shared spirit of europhillia and novels mostly about the milieu one moves in, not the precise details. One could probably do a pretty interesting book about James’s family (famous philosopher brother father AND brother? A nebulously mentally ill sister who may have had incestous feelings for said brother? A rich vein there) but one imagines that a book based on James’s life itself would be pretty dull.
Agreed, I didn't mean to sound like I was correcting you, I meant to sound like I was correcting *them*! There's a five-volume biography of James that's supposed to be a landmark in the art of literary biography, but I don't love literary biography enough for that. I did read Michael Gorra's Portrait of a Novel, a kind of bio of HJ via a "bio" of his best book, which was very good, equally focused on literature and life. Out of curiosity, I just googled to see if there was a family bio. Not only is there one but it's by F. O. Matthiessen, speaking of the founders of American literary studies:
https://www.amazon.com/James-Family-Biography-Including-Selections/dp/0394742435