Portrait of a Lady

Portrait of a Lady is one of the most dreariest, boringest books I have ever read. I was barely able to get through it; I spent months reading it. It was atrocious.

Anyway, I have very little to say about it. Gregg thought it might be interesting to view Osmond as a seducer in the tradition of naturalism, but I didn't find Osmond's character that interesting. Frankly, I didn't find anyone very interesting, least of all Isabel Archer, who deflects rich and perfect suitors Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton so she can have her freedom, marries Osmond for no clear reason, and then stays with Osmond even when he is (perfectly, precisely) horrid and hateful to her.

The most important thing I thought about this book is that Lord Warburton is considered a "radical" but that ideas are never broached. Unlike McTeague style naturalism, which leaves ideas out of it, or London style naturalism, which uses ideas point blank, this book suggests that ideas exists but then makes it clear that James simply has no interest in them at all. On p. 67, Isabel and Warburton discuss ideas, and Warburton disabuses her of all of her current ideas, but the ideas themselves are never mentioned. Everyone says that Warburton is a hypocrite for being a radical and a large land-owner, but never does anyone say that being a radical involves communal living or anything like that. Like EVERYTHING ELSE in James, ideas are obscured behind a blank wall of language.

I do think that, although Isabel is a character caught up in circumstances beyond her control, James' methods are the opposite of naturalism's. In the preface, he writes, that his idea flows not from any plot but from an idea of a character (p.4). This is the opposite of naturalism, in which the plot always comes first - it is usually drawn from the newspaper. I don't know if James works better as a realist or a modernist, but he's not a naturalist: his only concern seems to be individual psychology, and the controversial ideas that are naturalism's stock in trade are nonexistent.