Caught in the Crossfire

What Maisie Knew 

by Henry James

“She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth."  ― Henry James, What Maisie Knew

Even though some of James' fiction can be difficult to understand, Maisie is comparatively simple to follow, though you may need to read a sentence again to fully understand it. Reading some of James' sentences is like hang-gliding from the first word to the period—you take in so much information along the way that you're likely to get a bit giddy.

Maisie, a young child caught in the crossfire of her parents' acrimonious divorce, is the protagonist of the book. Used as a pawn in their manipulative games, Maisie is shuttled between her self-absorbed mother, Ida, and her charming but irresponsible father, Beale. As her parents remarry, Maisie becomes entangled in the lives of her new stepparents—Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale (formerly Miss Overmore)—and their own web of romantic and moral entanglements. Through Maisie’s innocent yet increasingly perceptive eyes, James examines the moral decay of the adults around her and her gradual understanding of their flaws.

Maisie begins as a naive child but is exposed to the selfish and immoral behavior of the adults in her life. James masterfully explores how innocence can coexist with an intuitive understanding of human flaws. The novel challenges traditional notions of right and wrong as the adults justify their actions while neglecting Maisie’s well-being. James uses Maisie’s limited but evolving perspective to create a layered narrative, forcing readers to piece together the truth behind the adults’ behavior.

The story of the sensitive daughter of divorced and irresponsible parents, What Maisie Knew, has great contemporary relevance as an unflinching account of a wildly dysfunctional family. The book is also a masterly technical achievement by James, as it follows the title character from earliest childhood to precocious maturity. It's not surprising from the book's title that knowledge and education form a major theme in it. Her keen observation of the irresponsible behavior of almost all the adults she lives with eventually persuades her to rely on her most devoted friend, Mrs. Wix, even though the frumpy governess is by far the least superficially attractive adult in her life. The novel is also a thoroughgoing condemnation of parents and guardians abandoning their responsibilities towards their children. James saw English society as becoming more corrupt and decadent, and What Maisie Knew is one of his harshest indictments of those who can't be bothered to live responsible lives. It might seem that such a book would become almost unbearably grim. But James leavens the sorry doings with a generous dose of admittedly dark humor.

The act of writing to James was a highly delicate operation, as if he were building a house of cards, and the least slip would ruin the design. Though Maisie is not a perfect book, it is filled with James' elaborate literary feats, those suspenseful sleights of hand that always induce pleasurable gasps at each successful intellectual vibration.

She Hated Men as a Class

The Bostonians 

by Henry James

“She thought him very handsome as he said this, but reflected that unfortunately men didn't care for the truth, especially the new kinds, in proportion as they were good-looking. She had, however, a moral resource that should always fall back upon; it had already been a comfort to her, on occasions of acute feeling, that she hated men, as a class anyway.”   ― Henry James, The Bostonians

To give a fair synopsis of The Bostonians, the three main characters—Verena Tarrant, Olive Chancellor, and Basil Ransom—are the focus of in-depth analysis and discussion, with a special emphasis on their perspectives. All three are young adults without children, and the two ladies, along with most of the other characters, are from Boston. With long pauses in New York and on Cape Cod, most of the action takes place in Boston.

The reader may notice that the characteristics of "proper Bostonians" have not changed much, despite the fact that this is set in the late 1870s. I will admit that I saw a lot of this as ironic satire, but still satire. According to historian Paul Jehle, even after the Puritans rejected Christian orthodoxy, they continued to act in ways consistent with their Puritan upbringing. They were searching for fresh mental exercises. They conducted experiments with various philosophies and religions. And they were still looking for causes to advocate for and believe in. 

This early work by James is a good candidate for someone who is not familiar with his novels.

Two by Henry James

The American 
by Henry James


This was my introduction to the novels of Henry James.   I first read this book in my American Literature course in college and remember the experience to this day.  Starting with his second novel, Roderick Hudson, Henry James featured mostly American characters in a European setting. James made the Europe–America contrast even more explicit in his next novel. In fact, the contrast could be considered the leading theme of The American. This book is a combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of 19th century American business. He encounters both the beauty and the ugliness of Europe, and learns not to take either for granted.  Coming as it did as my first taste of reading Henry James it laid the groundwork for my enjoyment of many of his more mature novels.

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Washington Square

Washington Square was my true introduction to the art of Henry James.  I say this because I first encountered James in dramatic form by attending a production of "The Heiress" by Ruth and Augustus Goetz.  They had adapted James's short novel in 1947.  By the late 1960s the play had become a popular vehicle for High School students and that is where I encountered it, and indirectly Henry James.  James originally published his novel in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine.  It is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The plot of the novel is based upon a true story told to James by his close friend, British actress Fanny Kemble.
The book is sometimes compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on family relationships. James was hardly a great admirer of Jane Austen, so he might not have regarded the comparison as flattering. In fact, James was not a great fan of Washington Square itself. He tried to read it over for inclusion in the New York Edition of his fiction (1907–1909) but found that he could not, and the novel was not included. Other readers, though, have sufficiently enjoyed the book to make it one of the more popular works of the Jamesian canon. It's popularity may have been enhanced by the stage adaptation "The Heiress" by Ruth and Augustus Goetz.

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An Inspirational Memoir

Reading Lolita in Tehran:

A Memoir in Books

by Azar Nafisi

“I told them this novel was an American classic, in many ways the quintessential American novel. There were other contenders: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter. Some cite its subject matter, the American Dream, to justify this distinction. We in ancient countries have our past--we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future.”  ― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

I read this memoir almost nine years ago with our Lincoln Park book group and it was one of our favorites the year it was published. While we normally wait until books are available in paperback we made an exception for Nafisi's memoir.
Nafisi does an excellent job of interweaving her memoir with the Western fiction she is discussing with her students, first at the university and then in secret, at home, with her select students. The book is divided into four sections, Lolita, Gatsby, Henry James, and Jane Austen. She touches on many other authors and novels as well and in such a way that made me want to read the works I hadn't already and reread some of the ones I had. Her analysis of Jane Austen's writing and other works is fascinating. The "party-line" Iranian objection to The Great Gatsby as a typical Western book of decadence that promotes adultery prompted me to think what I usually do when dubious objections are raised to writers' works. Did they read/see the same thing I read/saw (indeed, did they read/see it at all?), and if they did, did they get it?
As interesting as the literary aspect of the book is, the real story is what life was like in Iran during her time there. There was some humor, even though the story was mainly serious and included some things that amazed me: that there were snowstorms in Tehran, that Perry Mason, of all characters, seemed to be known by everyone, that the official movie censor was nearly blind!
The narrative relates a very personal story of Nafisi's life and students and the literature that they read during years of tumultuous change in Tehran. The story is moving for a reader who has always had the freedom to read and discuss any book that he chose. In a country where intolerant rulers limit freedom the liberating effect of literature on the students of Ms. Nafisi was inspirational.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.  Random House, 2003.

Symbolic Journey

The Middle of the Journey

by Lionel Trilling

"Laskell himself was committed to no party, but he nevertheless faced reality in the busy life of committees.  He was what was then known by radicals as a 'sincere liberal'"(p 37)


The Middle of the Journey is a novel of ideology and ideas. Written in 1947 and set in the years just preceding, it details the lives of several characters, including a protagonist, John Laskell, who is conflicted about his life, his friends (radical and otherwise) and the ideology that influences them. His friend Gifford Maxim has left the Communist Party and the book contains dialogues among the characters and him, about this, and about other seemingly more mundane matters, which take up most of the story (in his introduction to the 1975 edition, included here, Trilling comments about the character of Gifford Maxim:
"He might therefore be thought of as having moved for a time in the ambiance of history even though he could scarcely be called a historical figure; for that he clearly was not of sufficient consequence. This person was Whittaker Chambers. . . only a few months after my novel was published. . . the Hiss case broke upon the nation and the world and Chambers became beyond any doubt an historical figure."(pp xv-xvi))
That Chambers was the model for Maxim was intended by Trilling, but he claims that he did not know Alger Hiss and did not use him as a model for another character named Arthur Croom who, in retrospect has an uncanny resemblance to Hiss. This, presumably, was merely fortuitous. Trilling's drama of the educated is a twentieth-century variation on a theme in American literature reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Blithedale  Romance and Henry James' The Princess Cassamassima.   All novels of political insight and caution.  Had The Middle of the Journey not been a roman a clef, weirdly prescient of the Hiss case, it would probably have not received the attention it did receive upon publication.  Reading Samuel Tanenhaus' fine and surprisingly objective biography of Whittaker Chambers a year after having read Trilling I was taken aback when I recognized episodes from Chamber's life about which I had previously read in Trillings' novel.
 Exceptionally well-written, with literary references, symbolism (undoubtedly much of which I did not grasp) and slowly-built suspense, this singular novel by the noted essayist, educator and critic Lionel Trilling, is a challenging and interesting book to read. While Trilling, according to the introduction to the NYRB Classics edition, was impressed by the work of Faulkner and Hemingway among American writers, I found his style reminded me more of the early Henry James.


(a GoodReads update)


The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling. NYRB Classics, 2002 (1947)