The American

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Summary: Beauty and the Beast
Review:
This is about a successful American businessman in his thirties who leaves the USA, having made his fortune in copper and railroads, to travel around Europe and to find a wife. He encounters an old friend in the Louvre who takes him home and introduces him to his own interesting wife. Mrs. Tristram takes Christopher happily under her wing, absorbs him into her circle of friends, and tells him of an old friend who'd be just the perfect wife for him - a young and beautiful widowed countess of unimpeachable descent. Christopher meets Claire de Cintré and from that moment his one obsession is to marry her.

An attractive hero, he possesses remarkable talents. In fact he has pretty well every virtue except exalted antecedents; he is, for example, tall, good-looking, urbane, well-mannered, forthright, intelligent, thoughtful, considerate, persistent, good-natured, generous and rich. At their first meeting he conquers Claire sufficiently to be allowed to continue to visit her, instead of being shown the door. Actually, his dogged audacity is pretty amazing; he simply asks her to marry him after about the fifth meeting, because he wants everything to be above-board. She says No and he promises not to mention the matter for another six months. He then succeeds in making a bargain with her mother and brother, the most rigid and narrow dyed-in-the-wool aristocrats, that they will not stand in his way or say anything against him until she accepts his hand. Marquise and marquis make no secret of their dislike of him ("a commercial person"), nor of their horror and disgust at the entire proposition. These are two different worlds. Christopher is aware of it but is confident that their differences can be overcome; after all he is very rich and he knows this is important to them. He sees no reason why sensible individuals would not agree in time to a straightforward and sensible offer.

Matters seem to proceed well or better than can be expected, and when the six months are up Claire graciously accepts Christopher's proposal. A dramatic turn of events, however, obstructs their happy plans.

Henry James is a joy for those who like a sedate plot to unfold slowly, carefully and thoroughly. His psychological observations are minute; his characters drawn with deftest strokes, and one or two lighter subplots fill out the general late-Victorian picture. Bigoted aristocrats, unprincipled upstarts, impulsive young noblemen, impassive secret-keepers, loquacious duchesses, these and many other finely-drawn characters fill the pages of this enthralling story.


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Summary: Review:
Review: "Behind its melodrama and its simple romance is the history of man's dream of better worlds, travel to strange lands, and marriage to high and noble ladies." -Leon Edel

Rating:
Summary: Blue Unicorn Editions
Review: Blue Unicorn Editions publishes the most complete, unabridged, uncensored texts of the world's greatest literary works, in English and/or their original languages.

Rating:
Summary: A subtle tale of manners
Review: Christopher Newman, a wealthy, good-natured Western magnate, has retired to Europe in order to better himself. There he is introduced to Claire de Cintré as a representative of his ideal woman. He does prize her, and determines to marry her, though the nobility of her family, the Bellegardes, seems to preclude such a bond. His friendship with her brother and easy democratic feeling make Newman regard himself as "noble" as they, though of course he isn't. It's quite a subtle and clever tale; it's not quite a doomed romance, for there's little indication that Newman and Claire really love each other. She finds him novel and he finds her ideal, but would they make a happy couple? And as the book is told mostly from the viewpoint of Newman, it requires reading between the lines to see just what a bumbler the tall, rich, confident American is when it comes to European social traditions. Finally, there is deep suspense when Newman has the chance to damage the Bellegardes' reputation. James draws the question out masterfully, and provides a very correct, if bittersweet, ending. It's a fine novel of manners, written in skillful, deft prose.

Rating:
Summary: A subtle tale of manners
Review: Christopher Newman, a wealthy, good-natured Western magnate, has retired to Europe in order to better himself. There he is introduced to Claire de Cintré as a representative of his ideal woman. He does prize her, and determines to marry her, though the nobility of her family, the Bellegardes, seems to preclude such a bond. His friendship with her brother and easy democratic feeling make Newman regard himself as "noble" as they, though of course he isn't. It's quite a subtle and clever tale; it's not quite a doomed romance, for there's little indication that Newman and Claire really love each other. She finds him novel and he finds her ideal, but would they make a happy couple? And as the book is told mostly from the viewpoint of Newman, it requires reading between the lines to see just what a bumbler the tall, rich, confident American is when it comes to European social traditions. Finally, there is deep suspense when Newman has the chance to damage the Bellegardes' reputation. James draws the question out masterfully, and provides a very correct, if bittersweet, ending. It's a fine novel of manners, written in skillful, deft prose.

Rating:
Summary: A subtle tale of manners
Review: Christopher Newman, a wealthy, good-natured Western magnate, has retired to Europe in order to better himself. There he is introduced to Claire de Cintré as a representative of his ideal woman. He does prize her, and determines to marry her, though the nobility of her family, the Bellegardes, seems to preclude such a bond. His friendship with her brother and easy democratic feeling make Newman regard himself as "noble" as they, though of course he isn't. It's quite a subtle and clever tale; it's not quite a doomed romance, for there's little indication that Newman and Claire really love each other. She finds him novel and he finds her ideal, but would they make a happy couple? And as the book is told mostly from the viewpoint of Newman, it requires reading between the lines to see just what a bumbler the tall, rich, confident American is when it comes to European social traditions. Finally, there is deep suspense when Newman has the chance to damage the Bellegardes' reputation. James draws the question out masterfully, and provides a very correct, if bittersweet, ending. It's a fine novel of manners, written in skillful, deft prose.

Rating:
Summary: oh,da elephant
Review: dis be one dem extraordinary novels where dey french people get dey comeuppance--dat' fo' shore nah! me, i hates de french people. James hisself referred to dem as "perpetually holding one at arm's length." i could add lot to dat! James took he revenge on dey frenches in dis book when he make dem: conniving, hypricitaly, utterly vainglorious, pathetically aristocratic, amoral, wicked, vicious, backstabbing, unmitigatedly condescending, etc. etc. Ole James he really-really done nail dem, boy. Christopher Newman=one of da most sypathetic portraits in English/American Literature. dis a pageturner too--you got dat right! you done read dis book, now! even tho someone say James writing like watching, oh, da elephant picking up a pea!

Rating:
Summary: Still True Because it is Great Literature
Review: Having recently been exposed to European aristocracy, I found reading this book, as an American, irresistible. I disagree with reviewers who say there is no longer tension between French and American ideology as manifest on a daily interactive level. It's still there. Many Americans view the French as rude and cynical (not unlike the reviewer from Jamaica, New York), whilst the French, perhaps rightly, view Americans as hopelessly naive and 'gauche'. As James's book attests, this isn't a recent phenomenon, and the exploration of the roots of it is fascinating. I do agree that much of the conflict stems from class distinction, but James' own interpretative notes indicate an interest in exploring the clash of ideologies, and he chose the aristocracy because it was that facet of European civilization most "entrenched" in the old ways of thinking vis a vis' the new, American viewpoint. The narrative style is smooth. I thought the prose more attractive than that in 'Portrait of a Lady', for instance, which was almost Teutonic in its abhorrence of placing verbs at the beginning stages of the sentences.

Rating:
Summary: Still True Because it is Great Literature
Review: Having recently been exposed to European aristocracy, I found reading this book, as an American, irresistible. I disagree with reviewers who say there is no longer tension between French and American ideology as manifest on a daily interactive level. It's still there. Many Americans view the French as rude and cynical (not unlike the reviewer from Jamaica, New York), whilst the French, perhaps rightly, view Americans as hopelessly naive and 'gauche'. As James's book attests, this isn't a recent phenomenon, and the exploration of the roots of it is fascinating. I do agree that much of the conflict stems from class distinction, but James' own interpretative notes indicate an interest in exploring the clash of ideologies, and he chose the aristocracy because it was that facet of European civilization most "entrenched" in the old ways of thinking vis a vis' the new, American viewpoint. The narrative style is smooth. I thought the prose more attractive than that in 'Portrait of a Lady', for instance, which was almost Teutonic in its abhorrence of placing verbs at the beginning stages of the sentences.

Rating:
Summary: Eloquent...but boring with the extraneous info
Review: I had to read The American, a book I have despised since I had to read it. Henry James had great plot ideas and interesting characters but the story is bogged down and becomes boring when he goes on for about five to ten pages on descriptions alone. Nevertheless, James wrote The American with a good intent and this book creatively shows the morals of good vs. evil, deception, love, and forgiving others.