12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The last wine from these grapes, July 3, 2008
This review is from: The Open Door (Hardcover)
This is the story of Constance Fenimore Woolson, a popular fiction writer of the 19th century and grand-niece of James Fenimore Cooper, set free to pursue her vocation only after fulfilling a protracted family obligation. She ventures to Europe at age 40 with a letter of introduction to the estimable Henry James.
This is what Truman Capote would have called a non-fiction novel, for most of the actual events depicted happened just as chronicled here (e.g. dates, deaths, addresses and travel itinerary). Indeed, one would be hard pressed to invent characters as rich as Woolson, Henry and Alice James, John Hay and Henry Adams. What has been imagined are the conversations, feelings and motives. Maguire transfuses the elements with equal measures of sense and sensiblity, pride and prejudice.
Constance Woolson was a woman of great character and independence. The success she enjoyed during her lifetime enabled her to live an often idyllic expatriate lifestyle. She traveled the world, from Switzerland to Egypt, settling for years at a time in Oxford, Rome and Florence. She enjoyed the society of learned men, and was by no means a virginal spinster. The suigeneris quality of her liaison with Clarence King, is illustrated with impressive sensitivity.
It is in Florence where she finally met Henry James, developing a tumultuous friendship that lasted her lifetime: "What some discover in youth, I found in middle age. In the sky of that friendship, I flew high. I was the Constance I most wanted to be. Which meant that when one of us hit the ground......Yet, I would give anything to experience that exhileration again. A marriage not of body, but of mind..." The relationship of these "friends" is the heart of this exquisitely rendered novel. The recognition and acceptance of the imperfections of character in those we love (and even in ourselves) is a central theme.
Henry James was erudite and possessed of many charmes and great wit; he was, conversely, the most closeted of homosexuals; a self-absorbed pompous ass who valued the appearence of propriety above all else. Whatever sublime truth beat in his heart, however steadfast a friend, the only matters of consequence were his reputation and the public opinion.
I am reminded of Gore Vidal's bon mot: "It is not enough to succeed, others must fail." As depicted here, James was capable of gross professional jealousy, openly contemptuous not only of the critical praise accorded the likes of Thomas Hardy, but the financial success enjoyed by his own "lady scribbler" friemd. Still, there bond endured without incident until Woolson committed the faux pas of acknowledging the Master's true sexual nature. Though she reassuringly asserted that her knowledge of his proclivities would free him to confide feelings repressed for a lifetime, James viewed her revelation as a gross breach of etiquette, resulting in a rift in their friendship. As years passed the two resumed a correspondence. however, the unspoken truth remained a gulf between them. The perpetuation of the myth of his heterosexuality, which included using high society matrons as beards, extended all the way to his acerbic sister Alice, who contended to the bitter end that Woolson wanted nothing more than to marry her beloved brother "Harry."
Maguire adroitly articulates the inner machinations of this all too modern woman. It is a bravura performance made all the more poignant by the knowledge that it was her last.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why Women Write: Woolson and Maguire, February 10, 2009
This review is from: The Open Door (Hardcover)
The Open Door by Elizabeth Maguire is a fictionalized account of the life of Constance Fenimore Woolson (grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper). She was a nineteenth century "women's" writer, and very popular in her time. After the mother she'd cared for and supported for years (with her writing) died, Woolson set off to Europe for adventure and new sights. She also hoped to finally meet her hero, Henry James. They met, they became friends, they were close for years. When Woolson died, James made sure all letters between them were burned. And so we have the makings of a novel. Was Woolson as portrayed by James' fans, a second-rate writer and spinster who wanted James to marry her and hounded him to do so? Or was she as presented here, an independent thinking, free-wheeling and free-loving, wholly honest and admirable, and very American woman?
At first it bothered me that I could not tell what was fiction and what was fact but as the novel went on , I didn't care. For me, now, Woolson will always be as Maguire made her for me, an amazing woman I wished I had known, and whose had a fabulous life. Without a man, or kids, or admiration of the literary world, but with what she valued most: her freedom, her independence, and her own true self. According to Maguire, Woolson always kept a copy of the works of the Stoic Epictetus at her side and one favorite quotation was "Is freedom anything else other than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else." Woolson did live as she wished, often solitary, always busy, and wholly herself.
Maguire captivated me early on in the novel (but after a somewhat silly scene involving swimming naked off Mackinac Island) by giving me a personal and intimate audience with Woolson. Woolson's thoughts come across as a conversation, a story told with lyrical yet simple phrasing: "Have you ever been heartbroken to finish a book? Has a writer kept whispering in your ear long after the last page is turned? Did you ever long to meet that person who sees the world with your eyes, so that you can continue the conversation?" Yes, Yes, Yes! I yelled. And I understood her explanation of why she set off to Europe to meet Henry James.
Maguire imagines scenes between James and Woolson that seem very true and spontaneous. For example, Woolson is excusing her simple apartment in Rome to the visiting James (who has more opulent tastes) by saying, "All I need are the things I love and a table to write on." He responds, "Well, you have surrounded yourself with so many things, Fenimore, that one can only surmise you possess an extremely promiscuous heart." Yes, she loved many things, and people, and places.
I think that Maguire (who tragically died at the age of 48 from cancer) had a really good time writing this novel. She seems to have fun with Woolson's words and thoughts and she did a good job giving us the woman and the writer. She has Woolson express so many wishes and desires and satisfactions that I understood down through my spine, like, when she asks, "Is there anything more luxurious than selling descriptions of pink villas and terraces and the gorgeous Bay of Naples to a magazine?" I cannot imagine anything better than to travel and be paid for it, and I bet Maguire felt the same way. Woolson lived that way, writing for Harpers and Atlantic magazine, writing her stories and novels and travel pieces, and making her way through the world.
Maguire also had fun portraying James as a priggish jerk, his sister Alice as self-absorbed, and Woolson's lover King as "the most purely American creation, more devoted to personal freedom than any creature....", all the while having her heroine accept the people in her life, foibles and all. Woolson was forgiving; Maguire perhaps not so much.
The title of this novel, "The Open Door", refers to a nasty review James wrote of her work (but couched in terms of friendship and admiration) in which he spoke of "the way the door stands open between the personal life of American women and the immeasurable world of print" and how the "conservative" nature of Woolson's writing ensures she wants nothing more than to stay inside a women's life, restricted and ruled by those with power over her. Nothing could have been further from the truth, according to Maguire, according to biographers of Woolson, and according to the heroines of her own short stories and novels. Her most famous story, "Miss Grief", is about a female artist of talent and drive who comes up against a male power player whom she has admired, and from whom praise or advice would be welcome; instead he shuts her down and refuses to admit that her genius is as real and full as his own. Written before her friendship with James developed, it was however uncannily correct in its forecast of how she herself would be treated by him.
Woolson wrote liberally but tactfully about social issues many male writers were afraid to address; in addition, her acceptance of the equality of blacks and whites, and her understanding of the tensions in Europe, the problems with class distinctions and ethnocentricity, were indications of her broad and brilliant mind. Constance Fenimore Woolson is definitely on my list of people from the past I would like to invite to dinner. Elizabeth Maguire is too, for that matter.
For more reviews, go to www.readallday.org.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fine novel about real people, October 3, 2008
This review is from: The Open Door (Hardcover)
A slim, engaging novel about real people -- primarily Constance Fenimore Woolson, who has gone down in history as a minor writer who pursued Henry James. According to this book, she was a lot more and I'd like to believe this version, if only because she seems like a remarkable, determined and admirable woman. It was especially interesting to read this fairly soon after reading "The Five of Hearts" by Patricia O'Toole, which includes several of the same people, especially Clarence King.
It may or may not be relevant, but the novel does deal with the main character's awareness of and acceptance of mortality -- and the author reportedly completed it just before she died of ovarian cancer at a way-too-young age.
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