Reviews for Babbitt

The average rating for Babbitt based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-30 00:00:00 Edward Edmonds In the previous Henry James book I read, the main character, Christopher Newman, visited the Louvre, and being a bit overwhelmed by the profusion of pictures, he simply sat on a bench in front of one of them for the whole afternoon. Just as he'd been happy to ignore the rest of the paintings in the huge gallery, Newman was happy that day to ignore the major part of Veronese's 'The Marriage at Cana', and simply focus on a little scene in the corner of the painting which satisfied his conception of what a splendid banquet should be. In the left-hand corner of the picture is a young woman with yellow tresses confined in a golden head-dress; she is bending forward and listening, with the smile of a charming woman at a dinner-party, to her neighbor... We can easily forgive Newman his narrow focus because, at first glance, the painting is a confusion of movement and detail. Veronese depicted a huge variety of people here, all in the act of doing, listening or speaking. And though the theme is inspired by the miracle of the changing of water into wine, it is set in Veronese's own time and peopled with characters he must have known or heard of. While Jesus and his mother Mary (portrayed in contrast to everyone else as immobile icons) are in the very centre of the painting, they are not the main focus. Instead, it is the finely dressed musicians in the foreground who attract immediate attention. The group are said to represent the most noted Venetian artists of the time, Veronese himself on the left playing the viola, then Bassano fingering a flute, Tintoretto playing the violin, and Titian on the cello. Reading a Henry James novel is like viewing such a painting section by section; the author forces us to pause and pay attention to the details. We can't skim quickly and pass on. No, we have to stop and sit on the bench day after day and give ourselves up to each section in turn. We have to be patient, to see where the perspective leads us and what can be noticed on the way. We have to guess the significance of this or that element, to follow the play of light and shadow, to notice the figure that is turned towards us, the other that is turned away, and the one that might represent the artist inserted in his own work (in this book, I recognised strong similarities between one of the main characters and James himself). And just as Veronese offers a variety of physiognomies in his painting, Henry James offers a variety of types whose descriptions render them as clear to our eyes as if they'd been painted. Harold: his smooth fair face where the lines were all curves and the expression all needles… Mr. Cashmore: who would have been very red-haired if he had not been very bald, showed a single eye-glass and a long upper lip… Edward Brookenham: seemed to bend for sitting down more hinges than most men...he had a pale cold face, marked and made regular, made even in a manner handsome, by a hardness of line in which, oddly, there was no significance, no accent. Clean-shaven, slightly bald, with unlighted grey eyes and a mouth that gave the impression of not working easily, he suggested a stippled drawing by an inferior master… Lord Petherton: a man of five-and-thirty, whose robust but symmetrical proportions gave to his dark blue double-breasted coat an air of tightness that just failed of compromising his tailor, had for his main facial sign a certain pleasant brutality, the effect partly of a bold handsome parade of carnivorous teeth, partly of an expression of nose suggesting that this feature had paid a little, in the heat of youth, for some aggression at the time admired and even publicly commemorated… Mr. Mitchett: had so little intrinsic appearance that an observer would have felt indebted for help in placing him to the rare prominence of his colorless eyes...Dressed on the other hand not as gentlemen dress in London, he excited [attention] by the exhibition of garments that had nothing in common save the violence and the independence of their pattern...There was comedy therefore in the form of his pot-hat and the color of his spotted shirt, in the systematic disagreement, above all, of his coat, waistcoat and trousers. It was only on long acquaintance that his so many ingenious ways of showing he appreciated his commonness could present him as secretly rare… The Duchess: was a person of no small presence, filling her place, however, without ponderosity, with a massiveness indeed rather artfully kept in bounds. Her head, her chin, her shoulders were well aloft, but she had not abandoned the cultivation of a "figure" or any of the distinctively finer reasons for passing as a handsome woman. She was secretly at war moreover, in this endeavour, with a lurking no less than with a public foe, and thoroughly aware that if she didn't look well she might at times only, and quite dreadfully, look good… So, as we read this novel, we become the spectators at a parade of larger than life figures whom we observe with keen interest and frequent amusement. In the course of the novel, Henry James refers to an unknown spectator/observer who in turn watches the characters and catches the expressions that flit across their faces: Our spectator would probably have found too much earnestness in her face to be sure if there was also candour... And this, A supposititious spectator would certainly on this have imagined in the girl's face the delicate dawn of a sense that her mother had suddenly become vulgar... Or this, An observer at all initiated would fairly have hung on his lips... We become that unknown spectator when we read the book just as we become spectators at Veronese's banquet while viewing his painting; we notice each and every expression that the artist has caught. However, we're not the only observers of Veronese's scene. If we look at the left hand corner again, we see that the figures in the painting are watching each other. 'He' watches 'she', and 'she' watches another 'she' who is watching someone else. In The Awkward Age, the characters also watch each other constantly. The old watch the young, the women watch the men, the men watch the girls and the girls watch each other. There are important things at stake here, things like property, wealth and young girls' reputations. And to further the parallel with Veronese's painting, the main theme of this book is marriage, and there is great emphasis placed on the need for an adequate sum of money to launch a couple on their married life with the necessary trimmings. Things like good wine for the wedding feast, for example. But this is where the comparison with 'The Wedding at Cana' ends. There are no miracles in this book. This is a Henry James work and the only miracles depicted are the depictions themselves.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-11-13 00:00:00 Axel Mertens She remained alone for ten minutes, at the end of which her reflections - they would have been seen to be deep - were interrupted by the entrance of her husband. The interruption was indeed not so great as if the couple had not met, as they almost invariably met, in silence: she took, at all events to begin with, no more account of his presence than to hand him a cup of tea accompanied with nothing but cream and sugar. Her having no word for him, however, committed her no more to implying that he had come in only for his refreshment than it would have committed her to say: 'Here it is, Edward dear - just as you like it; so take it and sit down and be quiet.' No spectator worth his salt could have seen them more than a little together without feeling how everything that, under his eyes or not, she either did or omitted rested on a profound acquaintance with his ways. They formed, Edward's ways, a chapter by themselves, of which Mrs Brook was completely mistress and in respect to which the only drawback was that a part of her credit was by the nature of the case predestined to remain obscure. Mrs. Brookenham, referred to in the novel as Mrs. Brook, is an aging beauty. A woman at an awkward age, past her prime, yet still vibrantly lovely. She is witty, manipulative, and a deliciously adroit schemer. She has control of her husband, as you can see from the quote above, he is but a bit of furniture that she moves about to better suit her current needs. She has a social group of men and women who are trapped in the webbing of her social adeptness. She is shallow, but by no means stupid. The story revolves around what to do with Nanda, the daughter of the Brookenham's. Tea time the new battlefield. Mrs. Brook is friends with the Duchess who has a daughter named Aggie. I'm using the term friends rather loosely as it is quite evident from a few conversations between the two that they are old rivals battling once again to achieve the best marriages for their daughters. Vanderbank, a civil servant and the only character in this book that seems to have a job, is rather handsome and solid of character. He is in the early running for a husband for Nanda, but as the plot advances it becomes murky as to whether he is in love with Mrs. Brook or Nanda. The real crux comes when it becomes clear that Mrs. Brook is unsure if she will keep the hapless Vanderbank for herself or encourage him to marry her daughter. Compromising circumstances exist when you have a "friend" that with a few well placed words in the proper setting could destroy your already precarious reputation. To square up accounts the Duchess is also compromised with a relationship with Lord Petherton. "Lord Petherton, a man of five-and-thirty, whose robust but symmetrical proportions gave to his dark blue double-breasted coat an air of tightness that just failed of compromising his tailor, had for his man facial sign a certain pleasant brutality, the effect partly of a bold, handsome paracle of carnivorous teeth, partly of an expression of nose suggesting that this feature had paid a little, in the heat of youth, for some aggression at the time admired and even publicly commemorated. He would have been ugly, he substantively granted, had he not been happy; he would have been dangerous had he not been warranted. Many things doubtless performed for him this last service, but none so much as the delightful sound of his voice, the voice, as it were, of another man, a nature reclaimed, supercivilized, adjusted to the perpetual 'chaff' that kept him smiling in a way that would have been a mistake and indeed an impossibility, if he had really been witty." Things start to sort themselves out and then James decides to throw one more fly into the ointment. Mr. Longdon returns to society after a thirty year hiatus. In that time, obviously not spending his money on high society, he has piled up a considerable fortune. He takes a liking to Vanderbank, instantly does not trust Mrs. Brooks, and becomes enamored with Nanda. Mr. Longdon and Nanda, as part of an allusion to the title of this novel, are at awkward ages for consummating a relationship. Even though in that time period vast differences in ages were rarely a problem if there was plenty of money to match with the beauty of the young lady. Longdon is not interested in Nanda for a wife, but sees her more as a ward that needs to be shielded from her own mother. Nanda is the spitting image of her grandmother. Longdon when he was in society had a bit of a crush on the grandmother and seeing Nanda sends the blood coursing faster through his veins. "Your resemblance to your grandmother is quite prodigious." "That's what I wish you'd tell me about--your recollection of her and your wonderful feeling about her. Mother has told me things, but that I should have something straight from you is exactly what she also wants. My grandmother must have been awfully nice", the girl rambled on, "and I somehow don't see myself as the same sort of person." "Oh, I don't say you're in the least the same sort; all I allude to," Mr. Longdon returned, "is the miracle of the physical heredity. Nothing could be less like her than your manner and your talk." Nanda looked at him with all honesty, "They're not so good, you must think." He hung fire an instant, but was as honest as she. "You're separated from her by a gulf--and not only of time. Personally, you see, you breathe a different air." Mr. Longdon makes it clear that he will settle a vast fortune on Nanda if Mr. Vanderbank will consent to marry her. This sets off a flurry of activity among the social set that leaves Vanderbank cold to the idea. Harold? Nanda has a brother named Harold, a ne'er do well that actually provides a bit of comedy in the novel. He has a knack for putting the touch on his mother's friends for five pounds here and five pounds there. Any money left about is vacuumed into his pocket. He is a product of his mother and knows how to manipulate the grand manipulator. Mr. Cashmore, you'd have to be wealthy with a name like that, does give Harold some money, but then threatens to tell his mother. Harold explains the circumstances. "She knows all about wants--no one has more than mamma." Mr. Cashmore stared, but there was amusement in it too. "So she'll say it's all right?" "Oh no; she'll let me have it hot. But she'll recognize that at such a pass more must be done for a fellow, and that may lead to something--indirectly, don't you see? for she won't tell my father, she'll only, in her own way, work on him--that will put me on a better footing, and for which therefore at bottom I shall have to thank you. This entire novel is almost entirely set in one drawing room or another. I had difficulty guessing the motivations of the characters because almost all the information is given to us through the course of conversations. At times it is hard to follow, but the deeper I delved into the novel I was able to make the adjustments to keep up with the acerbic sabre slashes and the double meanings that hung heavy on every conversation. Henry James feeling out of sorts after the public reception to his plays. Henry James was recovering from the shock of failing as a playwright when he wrote The Awkward Age. He had taken up plays after the disappointing sales of his novel The Tragic Muse. He swore he'd never write another novel. After being booed and hissed at the conclusion of the showing of one of his plays, he then announced he was done with plays. As we know turning his back on writing novels or plays did not last very long. If you are looking to read a Henry James I would not start with this one. I would recommend The Portrait of a Lady or The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers for your first dance with Henry James. On the flap of the Everyman's edition, that I read, they refer to this book as "one of his greatest and gentlest masterpieces". James has a well deserved reputation of leaving his characters and readers distraught and unhappy at the conclusion of his novels. In the case of The Awkward Age things did not work out the way one would hope. The characters may not be happy, but James, feeling gentle I presume after his own humbling experience at the hands of the public, does leave them with room to achieve some fashion of happiness. Make me smile, I dare you.