>John Adams wrote:
>>
>>
>> I wouldn't go that far, but I didn't care for his style, either. (I don't care for Henry James, either.)
>>
>Oh my.
Well, what do you expect from a guy who ends two sentences in a row with ", either."?
>What Maisie Knew. The Awkward Age. The SAcred Fount. Portrait of a Lady.
>Beast in the Jungle. The Golden Bowl. The Reverberator.
>
>All favorites of mine. Especially the first two.
Well, that gives me an entry point if and when I decide to try again (which I expect I will, given enough time).
I distinctly remember the experience of reading James, or perhaps the experience around reading him, though not the prose itself. It was in the mid-eighties, probably in late 1985, in the Kansas City bus station. I spent much of those years Traveling on Business for the Revolution, and it was my habit to hit junk stores and used book shops for cheap copies of books I either loved and wanted to re-read or was curious to read.
What I'd picked up of James was a small black-covered paperback of "Daisy Miller" and "The Turn of the Screw". I still have it, somewhere, because I got about halfway through "The Turn of the Screw" and simply lost interest. I had four or five other books with me, and I moved on. (Interestingly, I have no idea what the other books were, though my memory of this one, as a physical artifact at least, is vivid.)
I spent much of my travel time in non-optimal shape, often skipping nights of good sleep dozing in terminals or on buses. Perhaps that was why I didn't connect. That was when I got deep into Melville, though, so who knows?
Thanks,
John A
http://www.arkansawyer.com/wordpress/