Customer Reviews

Daisy Miller

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Daisy Miller is everything a woman of that era should not be: flighty, flirtatious and strong-willed. I enjoyed this novella because you so infrequently see a lead female character of that era portrayed in quite such an unflattering light. While the plot is simple there are a few twists and turns. This is an interesting, fun read.

One of Henry James's earliest novellas, Daisy Miller (1878) follows the activities of a wealthy, and brashly confident, young American woman as she audaciously challenges European society in Vevey, Switzerland, and in Rome, having fun, doing what pleases her, and leaving staid European society gasping in her wake. Daisy Miller, whose father is in the US and whose mother is her ineffectual "chaperone," is a free spirit in a society bound by unstated but rigid "rules," determined to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with whomever she chooses.

Frederick Winterbourne, an expatriate who has spent most of his life in Geneva, is attracted to Daisy, but his bonds with his stuffy aunt, Mrs. Cosgrove, and her friend, Mrs. Walker, both of whom govern ex-patriot society in Europe, leave him ill-equipped to deal with Daisy's flouting of society's conventions. When she is obviously attracted to Mr. Giovanelli, a singer/musician of no social standing, and when she is seen with him publicly in places that a "nice" girl would not grace at night, her reputation is threatened, and anyone associated with her is tainted. Winterbourne is uncertain how to protect her, while, not incidentally, protecting his own reputation.

Developing his most famous theme, James considers the conflicts between American and European values and the naivete of the Americans and their spontaneity as it contrasts with the old world formality of the Europeans. Daisy, who is often foolishly naïve, is also seen as brash and ego-centric, a young woman whose destiny cannot be avoided (or even predicted) because of the strength of her own, often wrong, willfulness.

James focuses on two characters here--both Daisy and Winterbourne--and though the story is told from Winterbourne's point of view, Daisy is often the more vibrant of the two characters. Though she is shallow and assertive, he is hidebound by convention, leaving both characters with limits in terms of reader identification. When a night-time dalliance leads to serious consequences for Daisy, the reader is neither surprised nor shocked.

Filled with trenchant observations about Americans and their differences from Europeans, the novel incorporates significant symbols--the Coliseum (associated with innocent Christian martyrs), malaria (to which Americans are particularly susceptible), Randolph (Daisy's rude and undisciplined 10-year-old brother, the ugliest of Americans), and Mrs. Cosgrove and Mrs. Walker (converts to the European way of life). Carefully observed and critical of American naivete, Daisy Miller is the "preface" to Portrait of a Lady and many of James's more fully developed novels. n Mary Whipple

I enjoyed most of this novel while I was reading, and I think that the writing is technically proficient. The end was a great disappointment, and left me wondering why I spent the time reading this mercifully short piece. At least I can say that I've read some of Henry James.

My first problem with the book may be the result of not understanding the time period. I am not certain how Americans expected young women to behave, although I understand that their customs were much less restrictive than Europeans. I therefore don't know whether Daisy is rebellious, or reckless, or simply behaving in a manner that she understands to be suitable and many Europeans (or American Euro-wannabees) misinterpret. Is the problem just that Winterbourne and Daisy don't understand each other's cultural assumptions, or that he is really reacting to Daisy's personality? Given the reactions of some of the Europeans, is Winterbourne following their codes of behavior more stringently than they do, perhaps fawning on Europeans by an excessive zeal to prove that he is like them? I am therefore at a loss to understand what point Miller is trying to make. Is the issue really the virtues of one set of social customs over another, or is it just the difficulties that arise from misunderstanding? I give this 3 stars rather than 2 because it might have made sense if I were reading it when it was written.

My other problem may be idiosyncratic: THIS IS A SPOILER. I have little sympathy for anyone foolish enough to "die for love", especially a brief romance. Winterbourne and Daisy obviously aren't suited for each other, and the solution is to move on, not become suicidal. I really don't see their incompatibility as a moral issue on either side. If Winterbourne really can't respect Daisy then he does well not to become seriously involved with her. If he is stuffy and priggish, well, that's how he is and he should choose a compatible wife. When it comes to a serious commitment like marriage, it is necessary to acknowledge how one really is, not delude oneself about how one ought to be.

If James' point, as reviewers seem to indicate, is to expose the difference between European and USA manners, the story is not well-constructed, since Daisy's critics are mostly expat Americans; real Europeans are more tolerant of her. The ending seems a bit bizarre. Such misunderstandings have been the basis of comedies of manners or novels of personal angst, but the ending to this novel is too melodramatic and contrived. In Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel Claudia Johnson has some acerbic things to say about the tradition of killing off women disappointed in love. Does James mean to criticize Winterbourne? It would have been more satisfying (and reasonable) if Winterbourne later realized what a fool he had been when he meets up with the happily married, brilliant hostess Daisy Marriedname, famous beauty and wit, perhaps married to a real European who finds her refreshing.

This short novella is a brief story about a young american woman who travels Europe with her mother and young brother. Thru a chance she meets young British gentleman Winterbourne who is smitten by her beauty, but also amazed by her innocence and lack of restraint. Daisy comes from a rich family and from a world where she is permitted to be herself no matter what the price of her individuality may be. But she is also eager to make company in a new world and gain access to society. She craves entertainment, attention and stimulating company. What she is not realizing is the fact she is going about it the wrong way. Story is set in Europe, small town Vivey in Switzerland and Rome, Italy. As Daisy's young life unfold and ends tragically, one cannot but think that in either case there was no happy ending here. Her behaviour and galant carelessness were ticket to doom. Definitely fine story about class difference, cultural difference and tale that money cannot buy everything. One has to find subtle ways to get what she wants out of life.

Read heading a collection of James short stories, 'Daisy' is a delight, with a classically clear narrative, beautifully direct prose (especially if you've come from the late novels!), a charming heroine, and a sublime balancing act between unexpected comedy (the great Randolph C. Miller!) and the most horrifying tragedy.

Puffed up as a 'novella', however, with an introduction (Geoffrey Moore) almost as long, and copious notes (Patricia Crick), and the poor girl is left a little exposed. Maybe my feeling of relative disappointment, having fallen in love over ten years ago, was due to this infuriating critical apparatus, the introduction patronising James, the notes condescending to the reader.

What strikes me now as the work's brilliance is not the concise treatment of the America/Europe, man/woman, appearance/reality, Geneva/Rome dialectic that so obsessed James; or even the astonishing achievement of the narration, somehow distancing and conflating the narrator and his silly hero. What is especially striking is the visual quality, the minutely composed tableaux - now Gothic, now impressionistic, now sharply lucid - as an abortive love affair is played out on the placid shores of Lake Geneva, the rondelay of the Pincio Gardens, or the ruins of ancient Rome, malaria poisoning the air on its way to Venice and Thomas Mann.

Originally published in book form in 1879, "Daisy Miller" brought Henry James his first widespread commercial and critical success. The young Daisy Miller, an American on holiday with her mother in Europe, is one of James' most vivid and tragic characters. Daisy's friendship with an American gentleman, Mr Winterbourne, and her subsequent infatuation with a passionate but impoverished Italian, bring to life the great Jamesian themes of Americans abroad, innocence versus experience, and the grip of fate.

This story emphasizes an upper-class expatriate's efforts to understand and deal with a charming, independent but uninformed heroine who posses a strong challenge to conservative manners. In the end the story's emphasis is not so much on social portraiture as on the tragic effects of class distinction. When Winterbourne learns that Daisy was after all completely "innocent", he understands his serious mistake in going along with the other Americans who blackball her. Like the ancient Roman spectators in the Colosseum, Winterbourne has participated in a human sacrifice. While Winterbourne worries over the morality of the young American woman, it is his own behaviour that constitutes immorality. He is committing an unpardonable sin in his overly intellectualized searching out of the moral fault of another.

As in other tales, James makes direct contact with the mythic materials of Judeo-Christian culture equally to gloss his sense of evil and measure its fate in the modern world. The narrative in "Daisy" can be understood as a commentary on a culture in which gossip has replaced the gospel. In a remarkable scene set in St Peter's, as scandalizing chatter ignores and disturbs the lovely music of Spirit, Winterbourne hears from a friend that Daisy and Giovanelli have been sighted viewing the portrait by Velazquez of Pope Innocent X, a rendering that reveals the ill-named Pope as a worldly cynic. By means of this juxtaposition, James extends the evil from Winterbourne to the gossipy Americans and then to the history of European religions.

The narrator is not an "unnamed hero", but has an eloquent name. Not only do Winterbourne's fate - utter stasis - and name link him to the wintry Satan of Dante; they become allegorically appropriate to his status, and emblematic of his punishment: the endless repetition, fixed in loneliness, of his self-love, which is encompassed -"bourne" - as it is "born" by winter. The only motion available to Winterbourne is the futile beating of wings that immures him and the more fixedly in an ice that represents his fear and hatred of others. The role of Evil in this tale is less that of pointing out at narcissism (though it is also clearly about that), and more about the terms for living in a modern world where all comforting authority has been lost. The freedom in this tale is a terror rather than a liberation for the characters who confront it, and leads them to an attempt to impose meaning on a recalcitrant world that leads in turn to the violation of others. Because Winterbourne will not live with the challenge of self-awareness required in a world where we are alone, he loses respect for Daisy and he learns nothing. His confusion between his parenting and courting roles, and his panic of the social "other", make him lose trust in her individual strengths. This story defines an evil fit for the century of Henry James and for our own. James' later story "The Beast in the Jungle" is a reworking of the same theme.

As I read Henry James' novella "Daisy Miller," I found myself reminded of Anthony Minghella's film "The Talented Mr. Ripley," starring Matt Damon. Both the novella and the film tell the stories of Americans living luxurious lives in Europe. Both stories also deal with the issue of social unacceptability, and are haunted by the aura of sexual transgression.

James' novella was first published in 1878, making it an early work in the author's illustrious literary career. "Daisy" opens in Switzerland, where Winterbourne, a young American man, meets the title character. An American girl who is described as "an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity," Daisy becomes a troublesome figure for the snobby community of Americans abroad.

Some of James' social satire strikes me as rather dated, and I found the conclusion of the tale somewhat unsatisfying. Still, "Daisy" is a well-written tale that, on the whole, remains a good read today. And Daisy herself is a curiously compelling character whose story invites both a serious feminist analysis, as well as an analysis based in economic and class issues. Recommended as a companion text: "Strange Pilgrims," Gabriel Garcia Marquez' collection of stories about Latin Americans in Europe for various reasons.

I recommend Daisy Miller for anyone who's grown tired of American arrogance and exceptionalism, particularly for Americans who have lost sight of what's reasonably lovable in our own culture. This brash and irreverent naif, vacationing in Europe, and her affair with the stodgy and non-committal Winterbourne embodies the best of American innocence and idealism. Daisy remains James' best-loved character, perhaps because we need her so much, to remind us that our uninhibited lack of sophistication is at the heart of our American identity.

I read this book as part of an English course on late-19th and 20th century American literature. It's the first time I've read a novel by Henry James, having so far only seen the movie adaptations of 'Portrait of a Lady' and 'Washington Square'. Having been wary of reading James (because of his reputation for dense, convoluted prose) I was surprised at this novel's relatively brisk plot and overall readability. The story itself, ostensibly a simple one about one man's inability to understand a seemingly complicated woman, also has interesting things to say about gender, class and the relationship between the United States (personified by the heroine) and the rest of the Western world. I was actually somewhat amazed that the image of America created through the characterization of Daisy Miller still rings true 125 years after this book's publication.

My comments are not particularly about the novella itself. Penguin has managed to over editorialize this classic. The first 30 or so pages explains the book in such elaborate detail that it absoluetly ruins the actual read. However, I like the fact that James' era and uncommon references had notaions & explinations (this helps to get the full meaning), but why didn't Penguin use footnotes? It's annoying to have to flip back to an index for information that could have easily been printed at the bottom of the page. I suppose I could have ignored the notes, but even that would be distracting. Of course, this is all irrelivant to the story, but I am considering the entire experience of this book. James' lovely prose was all but ruined by Penguin's Cliff-Note-esque treatment.