Reviews for Mrs. Medwin

The average rating for Mrs. Medwin based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-01-05 00:00:00 Martha Solomon This deals with interesting themes (authorship, motherhood, experience) but not in an interesting way. Henry James seems to have a speciality in creating terrible character names, and Greville Fane is another stunner. Perhaps he wanted to rebel against the mundaneness of his own. This short story is basically a really long savaging of a silly lady novelist, with a touch of tenderness that leaves the reader unsatisfied. I've got no clue what this Goodreads description of this book is on about: this certainly is not one of the best books of all time. It's not even one of the best Henry James short stories ' instead The Lesson of the Master is highly recommended, or The Aspern Papers.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-07-27 00:00:00 Brian Lynch At first I thought I was reading a letter, but this is a fictional obituary of a lady author who was prolific but not high quality. She has a son and daughter who she sacrifices for and spoils, and they take advantage of her and use and scorn her. I love Henry James' writing style and his flowery descriptions. "Her smile was the dimmest thing in the world, diluted lemonade, without sugar, and she had arrived precociously at social wisdom, recognising that if she was neither pretty enough nor rich enough nor clever enough, she could at least in her muscular youth be rude enough."