Henry James Goes to Paris Book

If Brooks' terrific Reading for the Plot was essential reading for anyone interested in literary narrative, this book may be so for anyone interested in James - and possibly also for anyone interested in the French writers James had known and often thought and written about: Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, and Balzac.

Descriptions of the book make it seem as though it's the 'story of a year', i.c. the first year James spent in Paris in his early thirties. Although Brooks does discuss that Parisian stay at length, this is less of a biographical book than, for instance, Gorra's Portrait of a Novel, which fans out from a discussion of James' work to his life and the social and literary (slash economic) context within which he operated. Instead, Brooks takes that first year in Paris and James further relation with Paris and Parisian writers and French writing (and theatre) as a starting point for his discussion of his work. He gives special attention to the generally overlooked The Tragic Muse, and other works he discusses are What Maisie Knew, The Sacred Fount, The Beast in the Jungle and the three last novels, with a lengthy reading The Golden Bowl crowning the book.

Often pertinent and always lucid, this is one piece of James criticism I can highly recommend.