Reviews for The Dark Sonnets of the Lady

The average rating for The Dark Sonnets of the Lady based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-14 00:00:00 James Richardson I came across that Henry James rather accidentally. It's his earlier work written after Daisy Miller and The Europeans but before The portrait of a lady and Washington Square. It reads and not reads like Henry James. But first things first. Confidence is arranged for four persons, there are more protagonists here of course but in our interest is foursome. Let's take a look at them. Bernard Longueville is more than his friend Gordon Wright. He's more handsome, more intelligent, he flatters himself to be more perceptive and smart than others that even leaves to himself some witty remark as he suspects they wouldn't be appreciated but also because he very much enjoys own company, and he's either more blind as we would see. For what left for Gordon is to be less. He doesn't distinguish himself in anything, neither appearance nor perceptiveness nor witticism. He's a pragmatic man and wants to know if he chose well. But he's also good-humoured and easy going man. Gordon, trusting Bernard's judgement and clear-headedness, asks friend a favour, unusual rather. He asks him about an opinion on a girl Gordon would love to marry. Bernard after a while agrees and on the scene appear two beautiful young women. Angela Vivian, object of Gordon's interest and as it shows a person Bernard had met fleetingly in Siena some years back, and coquetish Blanche. And as Master himself states in the novel there were two kinds of pretty girls'the acutely conscious and the finely unconscious. Bernard fulfilling the task causes involuntarily more troubles than one could expect and put confidence and their friendship in jeopardy. In the effect Bernard feels confused and Gordon chagrined. Blanche cries and Mrs Vivian, well she takes matters in her hands. The novel shows much lighter face of Henry James. It's humourous, it's playful, farcical at times, it's rather comedy of manners than drama. Though it's definitely more straightforward than his other works, smooth at times and protagonists feel less ambiguos or complex but their portraits are as usual finely painted and deeply intriguing. Because despite that lighter note Henry James being, well, Henry James couldn't create any sappy story. 3.5/5

Review # 2 was written on 2013-03-07 00:00:00 Arnold Sanchez CONFIDENCE in INSCRUTABILITY This less well-known novel by Henry James is certainly worth reading. Published between The Europeans and Washington Square, the reader may think that Daisy Miller has come back to life so that she can finish it. This is also a good novel to read for those who are scared of Henry James and his inscrutability. For the language is polished, is crafted, but it is not ambiguous. Or at least it is not overtly ambiguous even if James can play with the reader using ambiguities. Plus there is his fine irony and humor. In this book one senses that he must have enjoyed writing it. I used to see James as an aesthetician but I am beginning to see his roots in the 19C concerns with morality. The concern he tackled in Roderick Hudson - to what extent ought one to interfere with somebody else's life reappears in these pages again. But only to then be discarded. Or may be not entirely. The French philosopher Victor Cousin (1792-1897) is mentioned twice in the novel - one of the characters, who engages in 'casuistry', is presented reading his books. This intrigued me because Cousin is the only theoretician alluded to in the entire book and it made me think that Henry James could have been engaged with Cousin's ideas while writing his novel. Not having read Cousin's works, I just investigated in the web. From what I could gather, Cousin insisted on the strength and power of psychological observation; he also contended with the potential of the 'Self' and free volition. And may be these ideas are at the core of the somewhat enigmatic title of the book, Confidence. To put this assuredness into action, James resorted to another of his female creations, the reborn Daisy Miller, an "Angela" who this time becomes the vehicle for shaping, in a 'Cousin-manner', an ending that, unusually in James, is enclosed, clean and somewhat comic. And this is done with a full, but somewhat inscrutable, Confidence.