Customer Reviews

The Ambassadors (Oxford World's Classics)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The prose is certainly difficult, but the extra attention it requires from the reader yields benefits: the slightest nuance in the narrative registers. And, as in all late James, these subtle hints and nuances are of the essence.

I was rather surprised as to how funny it often was. But, as with many great comedies - "Twelfth Night", "Don Quixote" - there is a profound sadness under the surface. There is a passage near the beginning where Strether looks back on the disappointments of his life, and, in particular, his failure to communicate with or understand his son, who is now dead. This passage affected me so deeply, that I had to read it a few times before progressing with the rest of the novel.

Strether becomes increasingly aware that life has passed him by, and that in the course of it all, he has missed something: but what it is he has missed he can not specify. He urges the young people around him to live, but his instructions on how to do so are necessarily vague. Eventually, he has to to reject the narrow puritanical code which has fettered his life, but remains to the end a quixotic figure, clinging on to his moral integrity even when all around him appear to lose theirs. The closing episodes of this novel are as moving as anything I have read.

High school students, and perhaps college students, should not be assigned to read some authors. Henry James is a case in point.


Henry James is an exquisite writer and perhaps serious college students should be exposed to Henry James' life, the subjects of his books, and his style of writing. But no one, not until they have had life experiences, should read Henry James.


I have read very little of Henry James; I have just completed four of his shorter works (I loved "The Beast in the Jungle"; and appreciated "Four Meetings," "The Pupil," and "The Turn of the Screw").


Today, I can say that I am very, very happy to have completed "The Ambassadors," the first Henry James novel I have read. One can read about the story line, the publishing history and analysis of this novel at wikipedia.


I group James Joyce (Irish), Virginia Woolf (English), and Henry James (American) in the same group, writing at the same time, and about similar subjects.


Some first impressions of "The Ambassadors":


1. It is autobiographical.

2. Henry James had moved (psychologically) from the US to Europe.

3. Henry James wondered if life had passed him by.

4. "The Ambassadors" has much in common with "The Beast in the Jungle"; both explore inner feelings about relationships and missed relationships.

5. Serious readers who have not read Henry James, but are interested, should read three works in this order: a) Leon Edel's biography of Henry James; b) "The Beast in the Jungle"; and, c) "The Ambassadors."

6. The more time one has spent in Paris, the more enjoyable is "The Ambassadors."

7. Henry James writing style is perfect for learning to diagram sentences (which I doubt anyone does any more). His sentences are very, very long. Likewise, his passages are very long. James can take two pages to say that two people look alike.

8. I have found at least one occasion in which James uses a word that doesn't exist in the English language, but looks like it should. In context, one can almost figure out what James was saying but who knows for sure.


I am 58 years old. The protagonist in "The Ambassadors" is 55 years old. He and I are asking the same questions.

Reading "The Ambassadors," I was awed by the subtletly of emotion and social gesture James was able to describe. Clearly here was a crafted that had been years in the honing, and I appreciate the book's liberation from the plot-heavy mechanics of earlier books like "The Portrait of a Lady" and "The American." Everything is only subtly insinuated; whole lives can hinge upon half-meant gestures or long-buried social prejudices. In this way, the book has some of the wistful tone of "The Age of Innocence," but more depth if less elegant prose.

The prose is the thing -- James was dictating by this time (how on Earth does one dictate a novel?), and it shows. His chewy ruminations and meandering, endlessly parenthetical sentences are hard to digest. I think James went too far in his late style, and "The Ambassadors" might have benefited from a sterner editor. Still, this is an important book, absolutely worth the read.

This it the novel where James discovered a new authorial voice, a new way to write and present his characters. It must have been a wonderful moment when he realized he had taken matters to a new level. The insights pour from the page, the wonderful "tone" of the sentences flows like a golden river. A restorative read.

... before any character in "The Ambassadors" let it out of the bag! This is a novel of delayed revelations, each of its twelve "books" a psychological cliff-hanger! It's a slow sultry striptease of 'character development'. Or you could call it a voluptuous seduction ... America seduced by Europe, that is.

Voluptuous? Henry James? Well, amigos, this is a novel about adultery, discovered in the end by an elderly man whose morals are absurdly straight-laced and who hopes to marry a rich New England widow whose statuary propriety is as starchy as the real Queen Victoria's secret. The widow, Mrs. Newsome, never appears in the flesh in this novel, but her ponderous presence is felt in every scene. She has dispatched her suitor, a middle-aged American of no particular distinction, who is mildly resigned to his own mediocrity, to Paris, to fetch home her son Chad, a lad of little grace or wit who has fallen prey to - gasp! - a woman of easy virtue! That's the supposition, anyway, back home in Woollett, Massachusetts. The 'ambassador', Lambert Strether, will be stunned to discover that Chad is not the coarse lout he expects to meet. There is indeed a "woman", but she's a 'lady' of culture and charm incommunicable to Woollett, Massachusetts, USA. And then Strether finds himself susceptible to other seductions, both aesthetic and emotional ...

Lambert Strether is the whole novel. It's his Character that's ineluctably, richly, plausibly Developed, even as his encounter with Paris is challenging every fiber of his selfhood. He's an odd blend of perspicacity and naivete, socially incorruptible yet emotionally vulnerable. One comes to like the the dear old guy, to want the best for him, to root for him to escape the dire decency of Mrs. Newsome and the ghastly gravity of Woollett, to find an orbit in Paris even if he burns meteor-like in its atmosphere of cultural maturity. It's rare to feel such empathy for a central character in a Henry james novel; most of them are amusingly repulsive. Strether is admirable. Lovable! But perhaps the reader needs to be middle-aged and aware of his own hapless mediocrity to fully empathize with James's so human antihero.

I know, oh yes I know, that it's quixotic to try to persuade any skeptical reader of the pleasures awaiting her/him in a novel by Henry James. This novel is long, labyrinthine in syntax, allusive and elusive. James tells his tale with damnable patience and infernal delicacy. Honestly, I've delayed the writing of this review, lacking confidence in my ability to express my appreciation of it. In the end, all I can say is "Give it a chance!"

How I envy the person who may savor reading the Ambassadors for the first time! My advice: enjoy every minute of it, and like a glass of fine wine, be sure to savor every drop. You'll never taste this vintage again.

Yes, having read the breadth of his work, I'd say this is the most exquisite of James' novel-- exquisite as a rose in the garden of the Tuilleries, delightful when one breathes in its delightful fragrance, but even more alluring in memory.

But too, it's probably James' most comical work. One by one several pragmatic American "ambassadors" arrive in Europe, representing the kingdoms of commercial and practical success. Each is sent by the mother of the Newsome family,sent to appeal to the good sense of young Chad Newsome, or to drag him home by any means. The first is Lambert Strether, a likeable middle age man who has settled into a life of good sense in one of the commercial towns of the East Coast. But Strether is a man with a past, a man who lived and loved in Europe. Like a middle aged man reviving an old love affair, we see him rekindle his love for life in Europe. And slowly we see that it is the young man who is converting the mature gentleman to European life. The comedy reaches its height as, one by one a series of Ambassadors are sent to bring back the fallen Newsome and Strether, and each in turn succumbs to the wiles and rich perfume of sensual European life.

The evocative feel of the mature man's winsome longing to reconnect with his lost sensual life, and the young man's desire to engage in life most fully -- to pluck the rose when its blooming rather than only enjoy the memory of its fragrance when its dried and safely pressed in a book-- the layers of memory and regret, memory and longing, experience and longing, experience and delight...ah. It makes me remember the book and long to experience it again for the first time.

I have to agree with that review. Of course there are many different opinions and people are entitled to them. I just wonder how many people forced themselves to chew on this book because they thought it would make them smart or understand things more deeply or just to be able to say they finished THE AMBASSADORS by HENRY JAMES. Perhaps after forcing themselves to read it, they may have decided they would feel quite dumb if they realized they kind of wasted their time so they gave it 5 stars to tell themselves," yeah it really was time well spent!" 5 stars to tell all the rest of the people who didn't read this book that you are deep. "After all I forced myself to finish to The Ambassadors."

Whenever I cannot get to sleep I simply reach for this book and, voila, within a few sentences I am drifting off. James wrote dialog that no one in the world has ever uttered. When the topic is obvious and simple, his characters question one another intensely trying to determine what it is they are talking about. When the topic is strange and hidden, amazingly they all understand each other perfectly and silently. If you are into extremely cerebral, S L O W M O V I N G, non-plot, non-action novels, this is for you. Unfortunately I prefer characters who speak as normal folks do, who motivate in their lives, who don't think themselves to death and who are real. I am truly sorry that HJ considered this his finest work. I much prefer his earlier, more accessible and likeable works such as Daisy Miller.

New Englanders visiting Paris just don't want to go home, back to the drudgery, the job, mom, responsibility. Wealthy Mrs Newsome wants her son back. Chad has been playing in Paris for I don't know how long. He's probably involved with a French woman, God forbid! So she sends her fiancee Strether to go get him. Not completely trusting Strether, she sends her spy Waymarsh along with him.

Guess what. Strether likes it in Paris. He doesn't want to advise Chad to leave his French girlfriend. Waymarsh rats him out, and Strether is no longer a wealthy lady's fiancee.

So Mrs Newsome sends in the big guns - big Sarah Pocock and her pretty daughter Mamie, the bait. Wouldn't it be nice if Chad married Mamie and CAME HOME!

Will Sarah Pocock grab Chad by the ear and drag him home to marry her daughter? Will Sarah go wilding through Europe with Waymarsh? Will Strether marry Marie Gostrey, the woman who attached herself to him in Paris? Will Chad remain in Paris with his desperate but charming older woman, or will he return to New England to sell clocks? Will pretty Mamie Pocock fall for Chad or for Chad's friend Bilham? Is Bilham serious about Mamie or anyone else? Have you ever noticed the resemblance between classic literature and soap opera?

The biggest problem with this book, for me, is that all of the characters seem to have a vague, in-between-the-lines way of expressing themselves.

I read this novel twice trying to appreciate its artistry. About half way through I started reading it aloud and I have to admit that I admire James mastery of the English language. However the plot was dull and plodding and I neither liked nor admired any of the charcters.

The theme seemed to be that Americans were stuffy and dull while Europeans were cultured and cosmopilitan. From what I have read of James, he preffered Europe to his native America. I am assuming i will find the same theme in other James works.