The Ambassadors | 
so-soThis was my 4th James and the toughest one to get through. It felt like too much work to figure out the complicated, dare I say shallow, relationships and aspirations of the characters.
#1001books
so-soThis is the first one I‘ve read from James‘ late period and I absolutely love his earlier works but this sometimes exhausted me. The dialogue is often clogged with unnecessary juxtaposition.
The characters are brilliant, Jamesian and you get that feeling only from great books in which you‘ve been in the rooms with these people. So yes, great book, would recommend but as far as Henry James goes, The Ambassadors is on the bottom of my list
In 1998, when the internet was a brand new thing for me and I only read maybe 10 books a year, some one emailed me this list of 100 novels and I‘m still working my way through it...even if I hate them. *side-eyes James Joyce*
The list is actually 121 books due to some entries being series of books. I still have 20 to go and pictured are three I SHOULD read soon.
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
#3books
Dark Comedy
4/9/2019 to 7/13/2019
I started reading the book but never got a chance to finish it.
Lambert Strether arrives in Chester, England, an American from Woollett, Massachusetts. Strether initially assumes that Sarah is as charmed by the Parisian life of Chad as it was by Strether. But then, Sarah encounters Strether face to face, reiterating the negative views of the situation of Mrs. Newsome.
pan#modernlibrarytop100 serves up another “meh.” This one is actually somewhere between a pan and so so for me. There‘s an interesting story buried in here underneath the volume of excess words and incomprehensible dialogue.
A 50something widower is sent to retrieve his rich fiancée‘s son from Europe. Things don‘t go as planned.
I simply don‘t have the necessary patience for late period James...
23 pages of The Ambassadors to go! Then back to The Years of Rice and Salt.
Just picked up this #library hold that I‘ve been waiting for for a couple of weeks and... oops. It‘s only volume two. Not sure if this is my fault or the cataloguer‘s. But anyway, fortunately I have the ebook from Project Gutenberg to continue reading until I reach this point.
(I prefer paper books and don‘t really have a proper ebook reader, hence why I wanted it from the library when I already have another option.)
Sad to say I‘m dreading my next #modernlibrarytop100 book.
Prior to reading The Golden Bowl, I thought I loved Henry James with the exception of The Turn of the Screw. After The Golden Bowl, I realized that in fact I love early Henry James. Now I‘m nervous to wade my way through more late James.
But maybe he‘ll surprise me?
Okay, nobody freak out, but this is from a scene where the protagonist is sitting inside Notre Dame. Which means I‘m pretty sure Henry James inspired that song “God Help the Outcasts” in the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Just like I‘m also pretty sure that spending my Saturday morning posting this is a sign I need to get out more.
Henry James was awesome. He wrote The Portrait of a Lady, which is one of my favorite books. He possessed an amazing vocabulary, and fun fact, also dropped out of Harvard Law School. And I didn‘t think I was capable of loving him more until I read this sentence.
Recuperating from the cold from hell with Drake cuddles and 19th century tales of a melancholy middle-aged American dude in Paris. #catsoflitsy
“Oh we‘re not loved. We‘re not even hated. We‘re only just sweetly ignored.”
I get super emo when I‘m sick. I like to think Henry James would approve.
Ever have a day or event where it feels like this describes most conversations you had with people?
"But he didn't, it happened, know the Munsters well enough to give the case much of a lift; so that they were left together as if over the mere laid table of conversation. Her qualification of the mentioned connexion had rather removed than placed a dish, and there seemed nothing else to serve."
#TBRtemptation post! Looking to dig into a #classic sometime soon? Why not give one of HJ's final novels a go, one that has left critics sharply divided 🤓? Strether is sent to Paris to bring Chad back to Massachusetts to Chad's mother. He finds that Chad has not been corrupted, but refined. His gradual acceptance of Chad's unconventional lifestyle alters his own ambitions. The importance of moral value is at the fore. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎
Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?
Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?
pick