Customer Reviews

A Passionate Pilgrim & Other Tales

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This story of 1871 is the first of his early stories that James included in collected works. I don't really like it better than some of the earlier uncollected ones. It is a bit too touristy for my taste. It is also uncomfortably melodramatic.

We have an American narrator traveling in England and telling us about it. He meets a compatriot and we witness that man's bad luck story. The narrator is a little too condescending towards his less refined new friend and too much given to enthusiasm of the tour guide variety.

The subject of observation is a formerly wealthy New Yorker, who has managed to bankrupt himself and who lost his wife and his health. His only remaining hope was the prospect of possibly gaining a share in a property in England, which is held by the English branch of his family. However the American branch has neglected to follow up on any possible claims since a hundred years, and the prospects now are slim. The narrator accompanies the man on a visit to the place, which turns out to be a lovely mansion in pleasant English country, now owned and occupied by a distant cousin - a childless widower - , and his sister.

Then the tale picks up speed, but not to its advantage. We have a touch of romance, which remains an illusion. We have a confrontation between the American and his English cousin, which is maybe the strongest part of the whole story. This leads to decay: hallucinations, ghosts, a dramatic climax, the end. Not so great.

The luckless American is an entirely un-American type with a loser mentality and given to passivity and depression. I find it puzzling that James still considers him a normal American. Why not stay away from all attempts at classifying national characters? They don't lead anywhere, most of the time. Of course I am entering a main theme in James's writing: the American in Europe, and Europeans in America. I have a low opinion of this approach, but I love, much to my own surprise, James's language, which flows with ease as long as he doesn't copy/paste from a guide book on English palaces, mansions, or countryside. While this particular story (a long one of 60 pages) does not please me, I rather enjoy the encounter with young Mr. James in the first LoA volume of collected tales.