Customer Reviews

The Europeans: Library Edition

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... The Europeans seems indeed to be merely "a sketch", a practice piece, worth reading only for James's masterly prose and for occasional sparkles of wit. Or perhaps it should be taken as James's effort to 'cash in' on the perennial market for romance novels for women readers, a market that was a lucrative in the 19th C as it remains today. That latter interpretation, I confess, is hindered by the absence of passion exhibited in any the four entangled 'love stories' of the narration. Marriages do occur eventually; I hope that's not too much of a spoiler, since I won't disclose how many or whom.

One could also interpret The Europeans as a study of miscommunication. The title characters, a sister and brother whose mother was American but who have 'grown up' as thorough Europeans, come to visit their American cousins whom they've never met or known, who live quiet, sober lives in a Massachusetts village. The reader is 'encouraged' to suppose that the sister is both fleeing a milieu in Europe that has gone sour and seeking a 'fortunate' matrimonial opportunity. The American cousins and their social set are people of substantial means and insubstantial culture. Perplexed in every way by the arrival of such exotic relatives, nonetheless they generously welcome the travelers into their quaint puritanical family circle. What ensues is a minuet of misperceptions and miscues.

James seems to have learned a good deal about the structural mechanics of novel-writing in the short time between "The American" and "The Europeans". Whereas in the former, he sometimes labors over describing a character in excessive external detail, in the latter he allows his characters to portray themselves through actions and dialogue. It's a subtler style of narrative, on a par with the polished best of Jane Austen or George Eliot. But of course the 19th C British 'novel of manners' was the model of all of Henry James's novels, a form he never abandoned. It's also quite plausible that James consciously intended "The Europeans" as a sequel to "The American," a thematic coda. It's not as exciting or insightful as its immediate predecessor, and it's barely a prophecy of the brilliance James would soon achieve in "The Bostonians". But it's too artfully written not to be entertaining as a display of craft.

Written in 1878, this short novel is set some time earlier in the century, in Boston and surroundings. A pair of siblings from Europe, brother Felix and sister Eugenia, have come to America to visit their relatives, hoping to find them rich. The two can be called adventurers, gold-diggers. He is a sort of bohemian, while she is married to a German prince, who is about to get rid of her. (At the time, Germany had an abundance of princes.)

They find their relatives a large, reasonably well to do, well established family in the outskirts. The Wentworths are puzzled by the unexpected visitors, and behave with decency. There are some unmarried young cousins in the family. Felix is a charmer and reacts positively. Eugenia is a more difficult character and for her the cultural shock is a problem, as it is for the father of the Wentworth family. He is the brother of the visitors' mother. Relations were not close in the past. Eugenia's mother had run away at 20 into an unapproved marriage with a European.

Like with James' previous novel about an American in Europe, the main subject here is the loss of meaning in cross-cultural communication. That is always good for various amusements of the mild to the hilarious kind. This book is more of the mild kind, which is not meant as a criticism.

All in all, we have an interesting but not a great little novel about social affairs of the better classes in the 19th century. It lives mainly by the master's sparkling language. The people in the story are not all interesting. I would single out the two main women for being `interesting': Eugenia, the baroness, is a thoroughly discredited person who works hard at keeping up appearances, even to her brother, and probably even to herself. She lies shamelessly to everybody. While she rarely tells complete lies, she is also seldom completely truthful.

The other interesting woman is Gertrude Wentworth. She puzzles us mostly through James' handling of her. She appears early like a person that makes you wonder if she is capricious or simple. She is certainly not shown as a particularly attractive woman, not by looks nor by her acts. Then during the plot, descriptions by the wise man in the off stop and Gertrude seems to become a totally different person: smart, attractive, headstrong ... the point is that these impressions are all given by other protagonists and we don't need to believe them. Has James planted mistrust in his people's statements and opinions?

The last chapter is a roundup of characters and it ties up open ends, providing satisfaction to some and frustration to others. It is not convincing as a narrative device, to me. It reminds me of James' later failed attempts to become a stage writer. Chapter 12 here is like a less than interesting romantic play. I can do without those.

The Europeans is a classic tale of two worlds colliding. On one side we have the bohemian Europeans; on the other we have the puritan New Englanders. It is the conflict of language as well as culture which is evident throughout the book. I believe the sympthay lies with the New Englanders as after all their guests were vistors to New England. Although it was later acknwoldged that James did not intend the character of Getrude to be good; i nevertheless rejoiced in her rebelious nature but felt concerned she was being manipulated by her european suitor. A very good and more importantly short read.

This minor work by James is another brick in the tall wall of his obsessive study of the cultural and behavioral differences between Europeans and Americans at the turn of the Century (XIX to XX, of course). The prose is, as always, elegant and intricate, with a rich and sophisticated language that every admirer of James enjoys so much, but it is no doubt much lighter than his masterworks. Eugenia and Felix Young, children of Americans but raised in Europe, arrive in Boston to look for their uncle Wentworth and his children. He has few memories of her departed sister, the Youngs' mother, and doesn't even remember she left two kids when she died. So the Youngs are well received but naturally elicit all kinds of suspicion. What are the refined Eugenia, married to a Baron of Münster, and the artistically inclined Felix up to? What's the objective of their visit? The members of the Wentworth household react differently, according to their own expectations, attractions, rejections, and delusions. Brother and sister become an exotic attraction, a couple of rather decadent noble people playing king and queen of a rural, puritan, and prude environment. In particular, Felix elicits the total admiration and infatuation of the young and independently-minded Gertrude. It's a funny and pleasant read, which prefigures future, more complex plots and characters by James.

Europeans presents a quick summation of why Henry James is among the most illustrious and celebrated American authors. His writing in this book surveys the interaction of European society with early, austere, and moralisitc American culture. For historians and sociologists alike, as well as avid fans of lit., James illuminates interactions of the respective characters with poised rhetorical grace, and his sketches are highly readable, understandable, and enjoyable. James can be an intimidating author to approach for people like me (a college sophomore), who are beginning to appreciate the pleasure of reading such fine authors; reading a short, yet engaging, work such as Europeans is an excellent jumping off point to a later appreciation and enjoyment of the author's more prodigious epics, such as The Portrait of the Lady. I can say that after reading Europeans, I have more confidence and comfort taking off the shelf a longer work by James, simply in knowing that I can comprehend his shorter designs. I also recommend for those like me to try out his short fiction. Concluding, reading this work has made me very excited to read further works by James, as I plan to read the entirety of his literary output. It is the brilliance and charm of Europenas that has instilled in me this excitment.

The edition I had (Bibliobazaar) is so full of spelling mistakes (Eg. P:41, instead of "Munster", "M; auunster", and this repeated throughout the book) that I regretted not specifying a certain edition. I feel I got a very cheap edition for my money.

"The Europeans", dating from 1878, is one of Henry James's early novels, and also one of his shortest. It involves a common theme in James's writing, the differences between the customs and manners of Europe and those of America. The book is essentially a comedy of love and marriage, and shows the influence of Jane Austen, a writer whom James greatly admired. The "Europeans" of the title, the brother and sister Felix Young and Eugenia Munster, are Americans by ancestry, but have lived in Europe since their early childhood, moving from one country to another. The novel describes what happens when they travel to America to meet their cousins, the Wentworth family who live just outside Boston.

When the two siblings arrive, Mr. Wentworth, the widowed patriarch of the family, warns his household that they are to be exposed to "peculiar influences" which will necessitate "a great deal of wisdom and self-control". Together with the young Unitarian minister Mr. Brand, it is Mr. Wentworth, a well-to-do Harvard-educated lawyer, who is the book's main representative of the Puritan tradition of New England. His outlook on life is very different from that of his nephew and niece. Felix, a young artist, describes his uncle as "a tremendously high-toned old fellow; he looks as though he were undergoing martyrdom, not by fire but by freezing". Whereas Felix is gay (in the original sense of that word), carefree and light-hearted, the old man is austere, devout and deeply serious.

The differences between Eugenia and her relatives are perhaps even greater. She is the morganatic wife of a minor German princeling who now wishes to divorce her for political reasons, a situation which Mr. Wentworth regards with some distaste, although he is too polite to say so. Her main reason for coming to America is to seek out a wealthy American husband to take the place of Prince Adolf, and forms an attachment to Robert Acton, a cousin of the Wentworth family on the other side, who has made a fortune through trading with China. Used to life in the courts of Europe, however, she begins to wonder whether she can ever be satisfied with the provincial life of New England.

The arrival of Felix and Eugenia gives rise to a complicated pattern of romantic entanglements. Felix falls in love with his cousin Gertrude, Mr. Wentworth's younger daughter, who is also being courted by Mr. Brand. Besides her attachment to Robert, Eugenia also exercises a fascination over Mr. Wentworth's wayward son Clifford. Clifford, however, is also interested in Robert's attractive younger sister Lizzie. (The nineteenth century clearly did not share modern concerns about the desirability of marriages between cousins). Gertrude's rival for the affections of Mr. Brand is her own sister Charlotte.

According to the critic F.R. Leavis, a great admirer of James, "The Europeans, the visiting cousins, are there mainly to provide a foil for the American family", the book being a essentially a study of American, specifically New England, attitudes. Felix and Eugenia, coming from the upper-class and Bohemian beau-monde of Continental Europe, cannot be said to be representative of European society as a whole- if, indeed, one can speak of such a thing as "European society as a whole". Nevertheless, they represent values which are very different from those of the Wentworth family; they are more open and more inclined to act on their feelings. The Americans, by contrast, are more reserved, more openly religious and (paradoxically, given that they represent the New World as against the Old) more traditional in outlook.

These distinctions are by no means absolute. Clifford, for example, who has been suspended from Harvard for drunkenness, clearly does not share his father's puritanical bent. Gertrude's decision to marry Felix rather than Mr. Brand, who would have been her father's preference, represents a triumph for the "European" values of feeling and independence over the "American" ones of duty and family loyalty. (When we first see Gertrude she is avoiding attendance at church, suggesting that there may be a rebellious streak in her). Of the three Wentworth children the one closest to their father in outlook is Gertrude's older sister Charlotte, who does indeed later marry Mr. Brand. Nevertheless, as Leavis also points out, James is not condemning or endorsing either New England or Europe; he sees as much to admire as to criticise in the New England ethos.

The writing, with its intricate sentences, Latinate vocabulary and detailed descriptions of people and places, is characteristic of James's work, although that this early stage of his career his style had not become as dense and florid as it was to do in some of his later works. James himself did not have a particularly high opinion of this book, regarding it as "thin" and "empty", although others have taken a more positive view, notably Leavis who called it a "masterpiece of major quality". My own view would be closer to Leavis's than to James's. If it is "minor James", as some have characterised it, it is as good as the major works of many other novelists. Like Austen, James was able to use a comparatively slight story of romance as a vehicle for some penetrating insights into the psychology of his characters and into the society in which they lived.

The Europeans by Henry James. Published by MobileReference (mobi)

Henry James is one of the best American writers. Reading this novel has made me very excited to read further works by James, as I plan to read the entirety of his literary output. It is the brilliance and charm of 'Europenas' that has instilled in me this excitment.

Henry James is one of the seminal novelists of the Victorian era, an American by birth who made his adult life in London, the capital of the late 19th century world. James' novels were shaped by this immigrant experience, the predominant them of his writing being the interaction between Americans and Europeans. "The Europeans" is one such story, though, contrary to what the title might suggest, it is set in America.

My introduction to James' work was a pair of his novellas, "The Aspern Papers" and "The Turn of the Screw". The former featured an American literary historian travelling the Vnice to seek a sort of treasure in the possession of a local British expatriate. "The Europeans" sees a pair of Europeans (from some German principate, seemingly, though Felix makes a point of cosmopolitanly disclaiming nationality) travel to antebellum Massachusetts (around thirty years before James was writing in the 1870s). Eugenia (alternately referred to by her first name, or as "Madame Munster", or as "the Baroness") has come to make her marital fortune, faced with the dissolution of her morganatic marriage to a German prince, while her brother Felix is just tagging along as part of his Bohemian existence as a portrait-painter. They plan to visit their American cousins (their mother's brother and his children) of whom they have only heard report of. The Wentworths are a family of devout Puritans, in contrast to the more cultured and worldly Europeans; the arrivals are particularly intriguing to Gertrude, the younger of the family's two daughters, who finds the Baroness a striking example of a different kind of womanhod, and Felix a man wholly unlike her father's candidate for her hand, Mr. Brand.

"The Europeans" does not have a great deal in the way of plot. There are no antagonists in any real sense, just character interaction where some people have contrary objectives. Felix and Gertrude are the most developed and appealing of the characters in the story, and everyone else is generally well-drawn. James is an expert examiner of human nature, thoug he is here bound by editorial contraints to supply predetermined happy endings for several characters, though he sneaks in his more customary downbeatness in the resolution of Eugenia's story.

All in all, this is an entertaining if not special short novel, one that James himself did not especially regard (excluding it from the multi-volume "Collected Works" he published in the early 20th century). It is enjoyable and worth the time of those seeking a broad understanding of the author's canon, but for people looking to see James at his best it would be more advisable to try "The Portrait of a Lady".

When I found out that "The Europeans", by Henry James, could offer more than just a wonderful film, I couldn't wait to order the unabridged "The Europeans" Audio-CD, read by Lloyd James, as well as the complete soundtrack CD "The Europeans", with composer Richard Robbins' arrangements.

The film is a James Ivory's masterpiece with a New England autumn background, the Audio-CD matches the film wonderfully, where you can picture the film characters through Lloyd's interpretation, and the Soundtrack CD starts off with breathtaking Clara Schumann's "Andante" Opus-17.