[lbo-talk] A Diversion

[Carrol Cox]

socialismorbarbarism may be right about the one phrase being a dead
weight, but "during her married life" in 'my' version is also pretty
lumpish. Incidentally, I believe James did not include The Bostonians in
the New York Edition, so he never revised it, and we have no later
Preface with his own comments on it. Some years ago on the James list a
woman posted that when she read the novel in college she boiled through
out with all the current feminist outrage of the '70s, and then that
last sentence came as a tremendouc surprose that made her head whirl.

Carrol

socialismorbarbarism wrote:
> 
> C Cox:
> "These were not the last tears she was to shed during their married life.
> 
> ....
> 
> (Someone with eyes might look up the lat sentnce of the Bostonians and
> get it right.)"
> 
> Here:
> 
> "Ah, now I am glad!" said Verena, when they reached the
> street. But though she was glad, he presently discovered that, beneath
> her hood, she was in tears. It is to be feared that with the union, so
> far from brilliant, into which she was about to enter, these were not
> the last she was destined to shed.
> 
> Cox's version is far better--IMHO, of course. That "so far from
> brilliant" is a lead weight hanging from the sentence's neck. For one
> thing.
> 
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> > Beginnings & Endings.
> >
> > Surely the finest opening in any poem, novel, or drama in English is
> > that of Rocheeester's A Ramble in St. James's Park:
> >
> > Much wine had passed with grave discourse
> > Of who fucks who and who does worse.
> >
> > Probbly followed by the opening of P&P and the first paragraph of Bleak
> > House. (A whle page without a complete sentence: all subjects followed
> > aby innumerable adjectival or adverbial clauses or phrases, no verbs.
> > The first sentence:
> >
> > London.
> >
> > The finest ending, that of The Bostonians (quoted roughly from memory):
> >
> > These were not the last tears she was to shed during their married life.
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Other candidates for beginnings and endings.
> >
> > Carrol
> >
> > (Someone with eyes might look up the lat sentnce of the Bostonians and
> > get it right.)
> >
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> >
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