The Golden Bowl

With the proviso, understanding that reading aloud is a difficult undertaking, the narrator’s apparently self imposed accent of mid-Atlantic origin. It grows thicker as her self enjoyment grows. The accent disappears when she forgets herself. Immediately upon abandoning that accent, her reading relaxes and becomes bearable. Her abandonment seems to occur when she becomes immersed in the book. Thus, we are subjected to navigating the book through her affectation, between the moments during which she herself finds the book interesting. Additionally, the accent is more appropriate to a Victorian novel. This novel, the Golden Bowl, is not Victorian. Moreover, it is a distinctly American novel. Thus, Narrator‘ s insistence seems even more an affectation rather than a stylistic choice. In general, one hopes rather to be

This last completed novel of Henry James, the third of his three culminating masterworks, is not for the reader who doesn't understand that there is a difference between high, difficult, art and pop art--and that the difference has nothing whatever to do with class or politics or social status, but rather with depth, complexity, subtlety, and virtuosity of articulated nuance.The storyline is fairly simple (easy to look up), but what makes the book most rewarding, read after read, is the way that Henry James brings dramatically to life, with unexpected richness of texture, every feeling of passion, ambivalence, anxiety, and inner conflict of the Prince, his lover Charlotte, her husband (Mr. Verver),the Prince's wife (Mr. Verver's daughter, Maggie), and the Assinghams.Like "Hamlet" or a late Beethoven quartet, one learns to savor "The Golden Bowl" through repeated performances--except here, the reader must do the performing, a daunting challenge that takes patience and a concentration of intelligence that few enough people are interested in cultivating or even capable of. What is the reward for essaying to make James's visionary work one's own visionary work? In a word, it is the life-enriching experience of what Shelley once called "transforming enlargements of the imagination."

This would be on my list of ten greatest novels ever written -- or at least in my personal universe.James is the master of moral ambiguity, which he brings to his most painful and cruel apex in this novel.There's too much to say about it to fit into a little amazon review, but one of the things I most love aboutit is that the reader is left no comfortable place to "stand." James leaves us no character with whom we canfully identify and not question what that says about us. IF the theme of this story had to be summed upin a capsule (an idea which James, of course, would ridicule), it might be that no moral failure happensin a vacuum, and that individual people determine more of each others' characters than they perhaps intend to. And,as Lionel Trilling always taught his students, "follow the money."It's possible that the novel as a form got as perfect as it's ever going to get with James, and that this is his best,so if you care about novels, you want to read this one more than once, and to live with it, and to let itaffect you.

THE GOLDEN BOWL is like Hitchcock's VERTIGO. In both works, "bad guys" are found out and punished. In both works, the spectator can sympathize more with the bad guys (Kim Novak in VERTIGO, the lovers in GOLDEN BOWL) than with the good guys who defeat them. In both works, this has led to a certain lack of success -- critics of their time were down on both James and Hitchcock for these two works. It has also led to some people thinking they are the greatest things their creators ever did.There's a lot of talk here about the difficulties of James's style. I'm on my third reading, and the style isn't difficult any longer. I always had fun with James's later novels, trying to figure out what each sentence and paragraph meant, and after a while they all became clear. Part of the trick is to have a dirty mind, and it also helps to have been at a lot of dinner parties where you had to talk scandal -- or even start an affair -- in very polite and tactful ways.And everybody always knows, no matter how difficult your style is!

THE GOLDEN BOWL is one among many of James's novels or stories that depict flaws in the human character. The plot is secondary - merely a vehicle to reveal those flaws. And as in some of his other stories, the persons depicted are European and American. The setting is abroad, in Europe, and the American(s) is (are) visiting the Europeans.In THE GOLDEN BOWL,(chapter 6) the description of the bowl itself is a good example of James's facility with words, seemingly pedantic, but, on close examination, vividly descriptive, not just in physical terms, but more in the psychological. The golden bowl portends an uncertain relationship in the pending marriage of Prince Amerigo and Maggie. It appears to be perfect but Amerigo has seen the crack in it.If you are a reader seeking action, exciting plots or a fast read, forget about Henry James. James is a master of verbal, human portraits. His style is Victorian. Yes, he seems verbose, but his words mean something and leave you thinking. You must work through the nuances, metaphors and intellectual verbiage. And once you do, you will surely feel rewarded.

Even though by this time in his life, James' style has become exceptionally baroque and difficult, he still manages to spin a spellbinding tale of intrigue and betrayal (for those who can wade through his perhaps user-unfriendly style). Was this clash of the continents ever real except in James' mind, with the jaded continentally influenced sophisticates (two ex-lovers) trying to outwit the goodness and innocence of the still untutored but solid Americans (a rich father and daughter). What do you do when you love and you're kind but you've been duped? Read James to find out

Wonderful, subtle, unsettling, brilliant Henry James. If you should happen to come to the book after seeing the Merchant Ivory film (which is extremely good considering the limitations of adaptations) you will be blown over by the intricacies of the plot, the rich metaphors, the twists of meaning and implication, the marvellous descriptions of people and places, and the development and surprising turns of character. The cover illustration on this edition was also very refreshing after the 'Dreams' painting I am accustomed to, and Nicola Bradbury's introduction and notes are both necessary and excellent.

So posh and profound... words are sculpted with elegance and substance... banality becomes not trivial... London settings are wonderfully treated... splendorous James...

Great

couldnt make head nor tale of it Ile buy the dvd and see what the experts make of it that i couldnt

This is a self-published rip off and NOT Henry James' The Golden Bowl. It's basically laid out on a typewriter.