Customer Reviews

The Wings of the Dove (Oxford World's Classics)

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Two responses to previous reviews: it was written one hundred years ago, so it would of course be somewhat dated. Second, you should perhaps READ THE ENTIRE BOOK before you attempt to review the text.

The text follows the fascinating development of a manipulation: Milly Theale, an American woman, enters the London scene, endowed with prodigious wealth, youth, and beauty, and several characters vie for her affection. It's a standard James plot in that way. Much like Portrait of a Lady, the wealthy American is exploited by her European acquaintances. Kate Croy convinces her lover Merton Densher to take advantage of Milly's interest in him, and to go so far as to attempt to marry the young American for her money. She is, after all, fatally and tragically ill. James brilliantly depicts the struggle between Densher, Kate Croy, her powerful Aunt Maud, the piquant Susan Shepherd, Sir Luke, and Lord Mark, and his characteristically enigmatic ending does not disappoint. James manages to breathe life into these odd characters in a way that so few writers can: his genius is for complex character, and this book embodies that genius at its height.

The trouble with the book, however, is that it does not qualify as a "light read." The pace is incredibly slow - deliberately slow, of course. It is a novel about decisions, and the development of those decisions constitutes the bulk of the novel. James's prose does lack the terseness of a Hemingway, but the latter writer often fails to capture the nuances that James so elaborately evokes in his careful prose.

James, like Faulkner, is not for the faint of heart. Some of his work is more accessible; readers in search of a more palatable James should look to Washington Square, What Maisie Knew, or his popular masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw. This novel does not fit easily into a category, and its principal interest is that very quality of inscrutability. It's not really a "British" or an "American" novel but contains elements of both. It's not "Modern" or "Victorian" but both. Originally published in 1902, it's also not easy to include him in either the 19th or the 20th century. He appears to be writing in both.

In short, then, it's not a light-hearted novel and the prose can be challenging at times. But I believe that the effort of reading this book is well rewarded.

The title is a Jamesian euphemism for 'Pulling The Wings Off Flies'. In a book that is a vortex of ironies, the most fundamental is that a novel written at the highest pitch of literary sophistication, full of high-minded exchanges and a character repeatedly compared to an angel, is really about the body, one dying, the other brimming with sexual attraction and desire (for money, status and sex). Kate Croy, impoverished with a disgraced father, is in love with Merton Densher, an impoverished journalist. Her wealthy aunt, Maud Lowder, offers to take her in, provide all the advantages of wealth and groom her for the marriage market, on the condition she abandons both her family and her marriage plans with Densher. Genuinely passionate for Densher, but reluctant to return to the degradations of comparative poverty, Kate has an idea. When she meets the dying American heiress Milly Theale, who coincidentally made the acquaintance of Densher in New York on a newspaper trip, Kate propses her fiance make love to her and so become a beneficiary in her imminent will, freeing the two lovers to get married.

Among the most difficult books in the English language, 'The Wings Of The Dove' is one of the three late novels in which James pushed the novel to a stylistic and intellectual limit, but which many readers have found awkward to read. The difficulty doesn't lie in the verbal extrvagance of a Joyce or the dictionary-defiance of a Pynchon - the individual words in these novels are familiar and accessible. It's what James does with them, the lengthy, elaborate sentences distended by clauses and sub-clauses, and compounded by a narration that emphasises qualification, euphemism, ellipis and ambivalence.

It's not, however, as if James had reached the peak of his art and decided, 'Right, I've done what I can with the conventional novel, I'm going to be virtuosically mandarin for the sake of it.' After all, the subject matter is familiar from his more accessible work - the naive American in corrupt Europe; the decline of the aristocracy; the social manoeuvring needed by women to survive a rigidly unjust system etc. The difficulty of 'Dove' is an intrinsic part of the novel's meaning, which is not just an acknowledgement of the unfathomable density of human psychology and motivation, but the difficulty in gauging and interpreting other people full stop. The conflict between witholding novelist and baffled reader is played out throughout the book, with characters creating awesomely complex and allusive plots and counter-plots, staging tableaux and theatrical stand-offs, and other characters struggling to comprehend them. Our attempts to interpret match those of the characters, with related dangers of misreading.

A more aggravating difficulty might arise from the story itself. The reading of 'Dove' demands a monastic dedication, a concentrated devotion of months to unravelling its many mysteries and ambiguities. A reader likes to feel that there will be a worthy character or two who will help carry him/her over the many stumbling blocks. But all this intricately wrought language is expended on a horrid little tale of greed and lust in which the protagonists expend fearsome intelligence on concealing unpleasantness and spinning justifications. It might be helpful to think of the novel as an inverse 'Mansfield park', with Kate and Merton as resourceful but poor Crawfords manipulating rich outsider Fanny Price (it's significant that moral decency translates into money from Austen's to James' world). There is little nobility or spiritual refinement here (although many readers prefer the wit and energy of the lovers to sickly 'magnificence' of Milly, her very humanity reduced baldly to its material value). For which we can only give thanks, because there should be more to literature than that; the creation of real, believable, exposed characters, and their endlessly shifting psychologies being one of them, and for which the conventions and compromises of the traditional novel must be abandoned. The great reward for patient reading is that our own perception becomes monre minutely alert; we learn to hear, beneath the dense verbal grid, something that 'for the spiritual ear, might have been audible as a faint far wail', something we miss if we get stuck moaning about the superficial problems of James' style.

Such is the exhaustiveness with which James tracks down the elusive convolutions of individual psychology and social interaction, it's easy to overlook his mastery of description. The ratio between the two is probably 10:1, but in brief sketches, James is able to conjure whole worlds weighed down with all sorts of meanings, from the furniture-heavy mansions, dismal garrets and maze-like streets of London to the dangerous precipitations of Switzerland to the decadent beauty of Venice, all working their unnoticed influence on characters who think they arrange everything. These descriptions are essential to the effect of a work which, if you'll let it, is dramatic, tense, atmospheric, sinister, suspenseful, exciting, funny (yes!), and emotionally convulsive. If, as James' friend William Dean Howells suggested, it gives you a headache, well, from the books I love, I expect nothing less.

I was certain, in the first 100 or so pages of this book, that I was going to hate it. I nearly gave up on it a half-dozen times. James' thick, sometimes impenetrable prose took a great deal of getting used to; in fact I never really did get completely used to it. However, much to my surprise, I wound up engrossed in this novel. I must admit that the very same writing style that had me talking to myself at first, drew me in to the story at a level I hadn't previously experienced. The plot is fairly uncomplicated on the surface (it has been explained sufficiently elsewhere in these reviews), but the depth to which James' characters respond to their situation is anything but uncomplicated. So, if you are looking for a literary challenge, one that will reward you if you stick with it, this is a good choice. If, however, you're looking for a light, easy read... this ain't it.

By the time Henry James had written WINGS OF THE DOVE in 1902, most of his best work was behind him. In many of these novels and short stories, James had shown a fascination with the theme of the new world American bumping into the old world European. Just as James himself seemed unable to label himself definitively as one or the other, so do many of his characters muck about with some Americans coming off as country bumpkins while other Americans have old-world fineness and grace hardwired into their genes. In WINGS OF THE DOVE, Milly Theale is an American heiress whose inner qualities James deliberately obscures. She is wealthy, beautiful, good-hearted--and dying. Milly seems too good to be true, and of course she is; she suffers not only from the dread disease of cancer but the equally dread disease of emotional blindness. Milly decides to take a trip to Europe, where she encounters her doppleganger, Kate Croy. Millie sees Kate as having a feral aggressiveness that Millie admires but can never duplicate. Yet, both Kate and Millie soon discover points in common: they like and admire one another, and more disturbingly they both love the same man, Merton Densher. James complicates the plot in a manner worthy of a soap opera. Kate discovers that Millie is dying and hatches a plan breathtaking in its audacity. Merton, who is both poor and secretly engaged to Kate, must worm his way into the affections of Millie, whom he will marry. Then, after her expected demise, he will inherit Millie's fortune, and thus be free to marry Kate.

The problem with this plan becomes clear when we find out that it is one thing for two otherwise honorable people to contemplate deceitful actions and quite another for them to actually have the mental toughness to carry it out. James keeps the reader involved in this unlikely plan by shifting focus from victim to plotter. Millie is so good so kind that her only flaw is her inability to see what is right in front of her nose and yet this is quite enough to cause her undoing. If Kate were no more than a heartless backstabber, then the novel would have a huge hole in the plot where there ought to be some convincing motivation. James sidesteps this dilemma by making both Merton and Kate fully rounded characters, both of whom are fully aware of what they are doing and why, but unable to come up with another scenario that would permit them to marry. Kate is now the dramatic center. It is she who sizes up her own unhappy situation. It is she who correctly assesses Millie's feelings for Merton. And it is she who weighs cost versus benefit and decides that the latter outweighs the former. Of course, their plans go predictably awry when Millie discovers their plan and breaks up with Merton. Millie dies, and astoundingly, her will yet provides money for Merton. And it is here that James allows the moneyed world of the obtuse American to meld with that of the flawed but decent European. Kate and Merton then must ponder whether their consciences will permit them to accept the largesse of a woman who has forgiven them from beyond the grave.

WINGS OF THE DOVE is a superb novel that explores what it means to be kind and decent. For those who might be inclined to these noble qualities, Henry James suggests that decency and self-interest need not be mutually exclusive so long as one can be honest enough with all concerned. Such difficult questions are not limited only to a Kate and Merton who must stare at an envelope and decide whether it holds their future or their past.

You really have to work for what you get out of this book. The thick prose is difficult, and the long, rambling sentences and page-and-a-half paragraphs require the whole of the reader's attention. This is certainly not a book that I would be able to read on a trip, in a public place, or when I'm tired. That having been said, this is a great piece of literature that demonstrates an interesting contrast in European and American society. The story revolves around a conspiracy by two individuals, Kate Croy and Merton Densher (both Londoners), against a young, rich American girl named Milly. The ultimate goal of these two is to get the dying Milly's vast fortune for themselves when she dies. Densher, who is not a wealthy man, would by gaining Milly's fortune to gain enough social standing to gain the consent of Kate's rich aunt Maud for Kate's hand in marriage.

The motives of the pair are not completely selfish. Milly is dying, it is true, but as long as she enjoys life she does well, and the doctor pronounces that the more joy she can have, the better. Kate is a good friend of Milly's, and knows (or at least thinks) that her last days will be happy with even the artificial love of Densher.

The contrast between American and European society comes in the question of social standing. As Maud puts it, and as everyone understands it, Densher is not 'good enough' for Kate. Milly, though many times more wealthy, has no such scruples, and the common Densher is plenty good for her, even though she's also being pursued by a nobleman named Lord Mark. Milly sees Densher's personality as the core of her fondness for him, and cares nothing for his social standing. Maud, though she really likes Densher, will not consent to Kate's marriage to him for the simple fact that he is, essentially, nobody.

The ultimate distinction between Europe and America is the fact that the Europeans, especially Aunt Maud, will do nothing for anybody unless it will somehow benefit themselves. Maud is a grand hostess, and a generous woman, but only when it works to her advantage. The climax of the novel is when Milly proves herself the stronger in character, by committing an act so charitable, though she knows of the plot against her, that only Densher can truly understand it, and Kate is left at a loss. Densher and Kate have a chance to redeem themselves, and the truly climactic finish of the novel is an interesting look at how the Londoners (Kate and Densher), so different in social standing, deal with this chance.

Overall this is a very good book. I would not call it an enjoyable read, because of the complex and often confusing prose, but it nevertheless is worth reading, both for the message it conveys and for the fascinating and multifaceted characters.

I've carried on a love-hate affair with The Wings of the Dove for more than 20 years. In that period of time, I started the novel (the same beautiful little Signet paperback edition) at LEAST 15 times and could never get past page 30 or so. But it kept nagging at me to read it. Last summer, I plowed through its dense prose thicket, and I felt as though I were peering through a glass darkly. Several times I felt like tossing it aside. I've studied Enlish and literature all my life and yet I had one heckuva time with those daunting banks of prose. But I'm glad I read it. It's masterful. Worth all the effort. Those scintillating scenes in Venice. Nothing like them! I just read The Golden Bowl, another difficult but rewarding book. There are astonishing scenes in it, like when the husband of the busy-body watches her in a pensive mood as if she were in the middle of a lake, coming closer. It's just an extraordinary scene! I love early James too, like that perfect jewel of a book, Washington Square. Sometimes, great as the late books are, I really do think they lose something of the wonderful clarity James achieved earlier. There are still a few scenes in Wings and Bowl, for instance, in which I have NO IDEA what James was trying to express. Talk about super subtle! But do make the effort, folks, they're incredible books.

It's said that James aspired to craft each line of his later works into a work of art. Arguably he succeeded at this tremendous task, but in the process he made it a tremendous task just to read the result. This can still be rewarding, but it requires some discipline. Readers who can't or won't do this should steer clear, but those up to the challenge will find a wonder opens up for them.

From every paragraph, metaphors and analogies sprout and bloom, creating a dense tangle of verbal vegetation, richly flowered with bright ideas on all sides. Only close attention can keep one safely on the path, but the desire to smell the flowers constantly threatens to distract the reader, who often wanders off the path and becomes hopelessly lost. The reader who tries to forge forward nevertheless may wander for pages through the worst sort of brambles before accidentally finding the path again. Only the one who backs up and patiently tries again has any hope of enjoying the experience.

It amazed me that one could produce something this impenetrable with perfectly normal English prose - James never resorts to stream-of-consciousness or other techniques that make a book like Ulysses so difficult. On the other hand, the patient reader can navigate Wings of the Dove without outside help; the trick is not to proceed to the next paragraph until you have properly understood the current one. Otherwise, you'll find yourself in the frustrating position of looking at a paragraph of apparently normal English words arranged into reasonable sentences, but which you cannot make any sense out of. When that happens, you must go back to the last point where you had the thread and start over. If you try to muddle through, you may go through pages of incomprehensible prose before James lets you back in again. (I'll admit I threw the book at the wall and cursed at it at least once - then I sighed and went back to the beginning of the chapter and started over, reading closer and more carefully.)

It's like reading poetry - or math - and you should expect it to go a lot slower than your usual reading. Normally, I'd read a book this length in about three or four days, but Wings of the Dove took me over three weeks. Also, take it a little bit at a time. Read a dozen pages or so and then turn to something lighter for a bit. Definitely stop and take a break if you find yourself looking up at the page numbers and sighing at your lack of progress. Finally, do take the time to linger over an especially beautiful or thought-provoking passage; just don't try to do that while reading the next paragraph.

All of James' later work is like this, but the effort is ultimately worthwhile. There is a reason why these are considered his best work, and among the most important works in the English language. And the good news is that it does become easier with practice.

Henry James complained that people don't pay close enough attention when reading his books. He may not have realized what he was asking. Not only does one have to read this book closely; one has to read between the lines, as well. "The Wings of the Dove" is made up of characters so subtle and so intelligent that even a careful reader will be challenged to keep up. The story follows a young man, Densher, and woman, Kate Croy, who want to be together, but in a brighter financial situation. Kate devises a plan to improve their prospects and asks Densher only to be patient. Her intelligence and moral flexibility allow her to adjust her original plan when the possibility of an even better outcome presents itself in the person of Milly Theale, "the Dove." What the process will do to Milly is of little importance to Densher and Kate at the outset. However, as the pair gets to know Milly better, Densher's conviction begins to crumble. Despite his best efforts to turn a blind eye to his own part in a terrible deception, he feels his character eroding and needs constant reassurance from Kate that it all will be worth it in the end. By the end, though, he has come face to face with what he's done and the price he, Milly and his relationship with Kate have paid. This book is a tough read, but well worth it. I suggest reading a chapter at a time and then turning it over in your mind until you grasp what's going on; only then should you proceed to the next chapter.

The reader tries valiantly to appreciate this work of psychological fiction from a century ago. Henry James is rightly celebrated as an author, both as a weaver of words and as a caster of characters, and so the reader valiantly tries. But even though James is a master of his craft, the way here is hard going.

In this work dating from 1902, Henry James writes favoring obscurity over clarity, circuitousness instead of directness and vagueness rather than subtlety. When the reader struggles valiantly onward, it is much as if one were to attempt to hack one's way through the trackless Amazonian rain forest using only tweezers and butter knife, all the while, wondering whether is it worth so much to learn so little. It is a question each reader must answer for herself or himself.

The reader longs to appreciate and honor the characters, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, to honor their love as well as their concern about marriage on less of an income then they might wish; however, the reader who looks upon the heart is tempted to wonder what kind of a love this might be, that hesitates to move forward on a pathway of insufficient pounds and pence, or that plans and proposes underhanded pragmatic methods to acquire such means. The reader longs to appreciate and honor the character of Milly Theale, the dove, the extraordinarily wealthy heiress who had previously met and fallen in love with Dresher, yet has kept her feelings to herself. This tragically romantic figure, based on James' cousin Minny, can bring the reader to the point of tears, but only if the reader cuts through some inordinately thick pea soup verbiage.

The underling plot is engaging enough, but, critics aside, even the most valiant reader is daunted by James' relentless surge of fifty-word sentences, such as:

"The fact of the adventure was flagrant between them; they had looked at each other, on gaining the street, as people look who have just rounded together a dangerous corner, and there was therefore already enough unanimity sketched out to have lighted, for her companion, anything equivocal in her action."

Why this jumble of words, why these awkward turns of phrase? A diagrammer's despair, to be sure. To have to read a steady succession of such sentences is something akin to having molasses poured all over one's body and then being set down over a nearby fire ant's nest.

James found his most famous (memorable and thankfully short!) phrase from "Dove", "To turn one's face to the wall", in Scripture, in Hezekiah's action in Isaiah 38:2. The meaning of the phrase, a turning away from everything and everybody, with nothing to look forward to but death, was highlighted in a sermon by the Rev. Thomas Bradbury, published in 1877 (see page 565 of "Grove Chapel Pulpit" of that sermon preached on Nov. 4, 1877), and was generally quite familiar to the scripturally literate reader of James' day. Later generations sometimes think it James' invention, but the source from whom he borrowed is, as it were, the Almighty. If one must borrow, why not the best?

One longs to see what other great authors would have done, given the same plot, settings and characters. No doubt, Trollope would have told the story just as leisurely, but with fewer lapses and greater finesse--and more love for the protagonists. Dickens would have enriched the descriptions of place and made more ironic/comic use of most of the supporting characters. Austen would have given us a tale replete with bon mots, tender and surprising scenes, and characters that even when they are at their worst, are deeply loved by their creator. Fitzgerald would have given us more visual and aural delights, and pared the prose to pithiness. Well, we are left with the ponderous mind of Mr. James, who at times had no idea how very amorphous his work could be.

Kudos to all valiant readers who persist to the end.

I generally read fairly quickly, but wasn't able to do so with this book. Until I forced myself to slow down I kept losing the thread and having to go back. As a result, I could only make it through around 10 pages a day. Once you make the adjustment, however, it is a very rewarding reading experience. Having read many of James's earlier, more accessible works, I could't at first understand the point behind the convoluted style. It seemed as if everthing was not only exceedingly slow but also very hazy, in sharp contrast to the vividness of The Portrait of A Lady. There is however, a method to James's madness. Instead of showing us a scene through an omniscient author's eyes, he is trying to render his characters' experiences of reality. For example, instead of a carefully painted portait of a English dinner party, we are shown how a young American woman would process it in her mind. The winding, comma-clotted sentences don't draw us a picture, but instead attempt to mirror the character's stream of consciousness. The result is fascinating, but also exhausting. It's worth the effort, but it's a good thing that most other great novels, including James's earlier ones, don't require this much work.