Customer Reviews

What Maisie Knew

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Never mind the thickets of subordinate clauses. Henry James could look at ugly situations and use them as a means to explore human nature. Written about a century ago when divorce was rare, the novel deals with a little girl whose value to her appalling parents is as a weapon to use against each other. If that wasn't bad enough, nearly everyone who shows the child some kindness has a reason for doing so other than her welfare. What makes this other than pathetic is Maisie herself. She watches the adult's grim game of musical spouses with utter clarity. She may not understand everything she sees, but she is without illusions. She observes, she watches, she copes. Mrs Wix is appalled by Maisie's acceptance of her stepparent's adultery. What Mrs Wix doesn't understand is that Maisie has no conception of conventional morality. How could she? It certainly makes for an interesting protagonist. Maisie may be a strange little girl, but it is because she has lived a strange little life. Shs is more a miniature woman than a little girl because the twisted adults around her have stolen her childhood. In this, James was prophetic of what we have done to our children since he penned this novel at the dawn of the twentieth century.

What hubris to review a work by such a major novelist as Henry James, even though WHAT MAISIE KNEW may not be one of his major novels! All the same, a review can perhaps be useful in two regards: by commenting on this particular edition, and by suggesting how the novel might appeal to those familiar with other James works but not this one.

The Penguin Classics paperback is crisply printed, comfortable in the hand, and well annotated. There is also an excellent essay by Paul Theroux. It gives too much away, I think, to be read as an introduction, but it does make a helpful afterword. If you do read the essay first, which is how it is printed, it may seem that Theroux has revealed virtually the entire plot, but in fact this is not so. James's narrative exposition is unusually swift in this book, and a lot happens very quickly, but his main interest lies in exploring the psychological depths of the situation that he has established; there is a distinct change of gear at roughly the halfway point of the book.

As Theroux points out, the novel is generally considered a transitional work between James's earlier style and his later one. Theroux also locates this gear-change at the point where James ceased writing in longhand and started dictating his novels to a stenographer -- a crisis described so well by Colm Toibin in his biographical novel, THE MASTER. The first half of the book shows a leanness of style and also a great sense of humor not often associated with the author. But the book's premise is intrinsically comic: Maisie, a five-year-old girl, observes the doings of the adults around her as she is shipped from household to household in consequence of her parents' divorce, as the parents take lovers and remarry, and then as virtually everybody else in the story takes other lovers. The humor comes from the fact that while Maisie understands so little at first, the adult reader quickly picks up what is going on. The spider symmetries of the expanding web of sex make a formal pattern as clear and intricate as a dance, illuminated by James's dry wit and his beautiful ability to see through childish eyes.

Several things change at the half-way point. Maisie becomes old enough to understand a little more. The adults whom she had previously observed from below now become more conscious of her as a potential ally and start using her unscrupulously to further their own ends. Twists of the plot which had at first seemed only amusing now appear as quite nasty turns of the screw, as Maisie's affections and loyalties are forced into the vise. Questions of morality come to the fore, and eventually dominate the action. The narrative tone also changes; although Maisie's knowledge and moral awareness develops considerably, James is forced into using his own voice to describe it, as though Maisie herself has lost the words to follow her own farewell to childhood.

The reference above to THE TURN OF THE SCREW is deliberate, for WHAT MAISIE KNEW (1897) seems almost like a preliminary draft for the more famous story, published in the following year. Yes, there are differences: this is comic rather than tragic, complicit rather than mysterious, and much less hermetic. The child heroine appears to come through with more wisdom and less trauma than the situation might have caused. But the final scene is astonishingly close to the ending of the later story: a struggle for control of a once-innocent child waged between a humble governess and two charismatic figures who exert a powerful hold both on the child and on each other. Only the ending is different, though no less worth waiting for.

While this novel is a less popular work than some of the author's others, it should not be dismissed as a minor one. James' prose is refreshingly complex - a true balm in these illiterate times - and his narrative bears his distinctive creative style.

Maisie is somewhat different in style from James' other works, but this is not a lapse in quality but rather a testament to his versatility as an author - he was not stuck in one particular mould. The choice of subject matter is fairly unique - I don't know of any other novels that deal with these topics in quite the same way. Social mores may have changed since James' time, but the way children are effected by such events remains the same. The story is narrated, but we see the events unfold through the child's eyes. The numerous dialogues between Maisie and her various adults portray brilliantly the veiled manner in which children are spoken to about 'inappropriate' subjects, and the vague scarcity of key details which a child should not be allowed to know is left to the reader to be unraveled. In this unraveling the reader is given a tangible sense of the child's confusion, her struggle to comprehend these unexplained happenings with her lack of definite information. It is James' intention that the reader should share in this confusion - that there should be some struggle to piece together what is occuring out of the direct line of sight. This helps to create a connection between the reader and the little heroine.

Some criticize the novel for its consistantly dark tone - but this is hardly a basis on which to assign value to the work (or any work for that matter). Furthermore, what other tone could the novel have? This is after all an exploration of a group of supposed adults behaving very badly indeed towards a helpless child. The moral qualms are not all rooted in the Victorian age, many remain just as topical today as then - which is in itself quite an achievement.

Everything in this novel evokes childhood's mysteries. It all seems to take place at knee or waist-level, with the brave Maisie (who "throbs" instead of speaks) attemtping to develop a moral code in the middle of a custody battle between parents who are less mature than she.

A tough read, but give it time to weave its spell.

I have not read any other James, except for Daisy Miller over 20 years ago, but picked this up on a friend's recommendation.

Yes, you do have to read this book slower than most novels, but it is well worth it. It is a sharp, dark, and devastating satire on how adult use children. Each character that Maisie encounters uses her as a prop to meet their own emotional needs--any affection they give her is purely secondary.

Perhaps many people do not like this book because it is so relentlessly dark. As the book goes on and Maisie is more and more aware of by the coldness around her the same behavior that makes the reader snicker in the first chapters becomes painful.

If you are looking for a escapist period novel--skip this one. If you want something more probing--this is well worth picking up.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW is probably the weirdest novel by Henry James. He had already written of seamy themes before this, but now he writes a variation of one of his favorite themes--that of the corruption of the innocent. Maisie is a young female child, perhaps six years old whose parents are getting divorced. In the best of situations divorce hits hard, and this was far from the best. Maisie's parents, Beale and Ida Farange are morally depraved and care not a whit for the welfare of their daughter. Maisie is a good-natured child who wants only to be loved by the parents she loves. Maisie is the prototypical Jamesian innocent about to be plunged into a maelstrom of decay.

The terms of the divorce allow Maisie to live with each parent at six month intervals, and this she does. It is what she sees and happens to her that begin to cloud Maisie's moral universe. To begin with when she stays with her father, his friends paw her in ways that smack of sexual abuse. Maisie's mother, Ida, hires a governess, Miss Overmore, to care for Maisie. Soon enough Miss Overmore begins an affair with Maisie's father, Beale, ultimately marrying him. Ida follows suit by marrying her lover, Sir Claude. So now Maisie must adjust to a set of step parents. Claude's interest in his step-daughter verges on the incestuous--indeed later on when Maisie is thirteen, she outright propositions him. Ida hires a new governess, Mrs. Wix, to take the place of the erstwhile Miss Overmore. Mrs. Wix is a decent elderly woman who truly loves Maisie and tries to inculcate in her a moral center of goodness. This sense of goodness is put to the test immediately, when Maisie's remarried parents begin a new dance of musical lovers.

As Maisie ages toward young girlhood, she shows signs that she has well learned the lessons of moral depravity that abound. She has no problem adjusting to a series of new adults zipping in and out of her life as parents, step parents, and lovers of parents. Maisie even makes it easy for these newcomers to pull the wool over the eyes of their cuckolded partners by making suggestions to facilitate what is by now a familiar routine or illicit romances. By the end of the novel, a thirteen year old Maisie desires Sir Claude as her own lover. Mrs. Wix, when she hears of this, angrily demands of Maisie what has happened to the sense of moral decorum that she thought was by now firmly instilled in Maisie. The answer, of course, is that the sense of propriety was doomed from the start since Maisie early on learned the difference between words of decorum and deeds of decorum. The Maisie at the end of WHAT MAZIE KNEW suggests that children--or adults for that matter--need a ongoing foundation of goodness to show that the ugliness they may see unfolding around them need not envelop them.

I read this about 10 years ago, had to write a paper for it in college. I remember the first ~200 pages being excruciating, then the last 40 or so transforming the novel for me (for the positive). It's in the end where the themes really came together for me; it might not be a coincidence this is when Maisie really begins to emerge as an active character. Throughout the novel she passively absorbs the actions of her bourgeois parents, step-parents, their lovers, etc. Then, finally, she tries to apply what she understands, through the filter of her consciousness (and imagination), and becomes a participant in the intrigues and romances floating about her. She doesn't understand it's not her time; the object of her affections is cynical and weak, but not debauched, and in fact she is the aggressor. He tries to guide the burgeoning light of her consciousness as best he can. In the end I thought the novel was a lovely story about a child's encounter with the wall of possibility, the reconcilation of imagination with human limits.

I think this is the most modern of Henry James' stories. Young Maisie's parents divorce and then seem to spend their lives using her to get a teach other, until they develop other interests. Sadly, the story resonates today - immature, self-centered parents and the children that they create. Henry James' insight into the life of such a child is brilliant.

Henry James' 1907 WHAT MAISIE KNEW provides deep psychological insight into a young girl's predicament, as a result of her parents' bitter divorce in Edwardian England. Inspired by a friend's comments on the "shuttlecock" lifestyle of a divorced child in the vicious game of spousal revenge, this novel studies the harmful existence of an innocent victim of a joint custody dispute. Even at the tender age of seven, Maisie realizes the wisdom of playing dumb. Although she reports little back to the opposing sides, Maisie keenly observes and thoughtfully listens to all that occurs in both her uncomfortable biospheres. Eventually she adopts the simple policy of not telling--thus refusing to provide more fuel for animosity on either side.

As in THE GOLDEN BOWL--a lengthy novel dealing with the marital and emotional battles among a very limited cast of characters--this shorter work could easily be adapted for the stage, as the chapters fall naturally into Scenes. James' protracted dialogues between Maisie and the impassioned adults who dispute her parenting rights would be delicious to dramatize, although readers would lose the private psychological depth as Maisie copes with increasingly new information. She reconciles her maturing lucid udnerstanding to the empowered adults in her universe with private schemes to protect one or the other parent and later, step-parent.

These intense colloquies are designed both to elicit information re events which have occurred offstage, and to stir Maisie to the brink of definitive action--which will directly effect the five adults whom we assume are most interested in her welfare: Beale Farange, Ida Farange, Sir Claude, Miss Overton, and Mrs. Wix. Little Maisie unwittingly serves as a catalyst for adult passion, while she secretly exults in bringing her favorite people together. One of the great literary ironies of this novel springs from the unexpected separations which her warm-hearted meddling precipitates. To her childlike logic, being Free is the most desirable status for formerly married persons--free to love and marry whom they choose--free to make a cherished home for her and to ease their own heartache.

Maisie is further isolated from children, even girls her own age; thus she is left to puzzle out the world using only her keen observation of adult interactions. But how can the lonely girl truly develop a sense of morality--at least by Edwardian standards? Is she herself Free to choose her new and permanent step-parents? Does she have the right to demand that the adults who love her make extreme sacrifices--just to retain her presence and loyalty? Does Maisie at 12 know what is best for herself? Which path will she ultimately choose? Her final decision will impact the lives of three far-from-blameless but well-meaning adults. Maise at 12 is too worldy-wise to indulge in Child's Play. This absorbing work is truly Vintage James.

Although he never had children, James was interested in and had the skill to penetrate the infantile mind, sometimes in a very peculiar way, as in "The Turn of the Screw". "What Maisie Knew" depicts several years in the life of a girl, during and after the bitter and altogether farcical divorce of her parents. The initial agreement (each parent having her for six months), turns out to be a failure. The father is a merciless, egomaniac, philanderer and despicable man, who marries the girl's nanny, a woman of unrevealed intentions. The mother, after numerous adventures, marries a certain Sir Claude, a young man who develops a close relatinship of protection and sympathy with Maisie. But soon the mother is having other affairs. Far from her parents, Maisie grows basically with the new nanny, the old, ignorant, but kind Mrs. Wix, as well as with Sir Claude. After several plot twists, Sir Calude takes the girl to France (something that today would be a scandal and authorities would consider and international crime: abduction of a minor). But somehow, far from being distressed, the parents seem to be glad about getting rid of the child.

This novel is, undoubtedyl, strange, and necessarily has to be narrated with a dark-humor undertone, as otherwise it would have to be a lacrimous soap opera. Maisie herself couldn't be other than a strange child, living a very odd life back when divorce and open adultery were rare and socially punished. Indeed, the novel sounds more like the story of, say, the child of a couple of Hollywood celebrities, who seem to be in trouble to remember the name of the person lying by their side most mornings. Maisie grows mature precociously, not so much out of comparison with other kids, but because, although clearly resenting the cold manipulation and bad treatment from her parents, she seems to think that life is like that. Not attending schol, she has practically no "normal" family around with which to contrast her situation. With certain naturality, she gets used to her changing circumstances, while contemplating from afar the odd behavior of adults.

With he exception of Mrs. Wix and, at least in terms of his attitude towards Maisie, Sir Claude, the rest of the characters are monsters of egotism. Under current laws, they would deserve jail. And strangely, Maisie seems to traverse her life with no apparent signs of serious emotional damage.

James's literature here is less convoluted and enigmatic than in other (major) pieces, but both dialogue and descriptions are characteristic of his singular style.