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.