New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-12-03

A
IN the world perhaps the one in the treatment
:. ,,.biob Nr Jar,es might be expected TO be
Woo. -ri,.r,-,hantlv himself. OF such suhJec'
.l,,,os- any author ma make almost anything
s.va ,l7sr which the author of "Ine Ho'ueh
Bowl" makes of it. book absolutely orle'.'a
both I'm substance and in form. Let the !eAue'
search his memory with the utmost assiuui'1'
and still he must fail we believe. 10 rec"'' "'iS
novel starting rs this ore starts. from so III
zarre n motive. ana arriving at such curious Ue
veIopments. Is this tribute or criticism
1t depends sonewha: upon the point OF we"
Of The reader The public is divided. IS We all
know where Mr. James Is concerned. into TWO
camps on the ore hand he is a1ored. ana on
the other he fs-well. not aGored. To one group
his singularity is part of his charm. While 10
the other it is not by any means the least OF
his disqualiications for the enjoyment Oh us
suffrages. For ourselves with bias i'll favor
OF either hypothesis. each new book pupilsheu
by Mr. James provokes the same question WIN
# prove 2 good one? After all it does not mat
ter whether we like this authors peculiar
method or not The great point is whether OF
not he uses it TO good purpose. Before we look
10 the method of The Golden Bowl we must
look 10 its centre the thing that MI Jane"
has to say.
I, &c we repeat original. but this is not 70
say that it is altogether engaging, or important
There has been a pronounced StISeih VI illO4 N41
fly running through Mr.. James's later work.
and il is clearly visible IN The Golden Bowl
Opening with all intimation made with uncom-
mon pronlptitu,de for this author, that a mar
riage has been arranged between an Italian
srince and the daughter of American mill
ionaire with a passion for collecting works of
art It makes acquainted with a situation
duplicating altogether only four or five persons
il is not a pretty situation Prince Amerigo
though safely engaged TO his heiress. Maggie
verver is still in love with another woman,
Charlotte Slant, and after his own marriage
affairs are still further complicated by Char
lotte's marrying his father-in-law, Mr.. Verver
An ordinary novelist might have found the stuff
of rnelodrama in this concentration Of persons,
bringing III earthquake and eclipse to facilitate
the ARA gement of some sort of commonplace
happiness for at least two Of the players in this
strange four cornered game. But Mr.. James
has his own way of doing things. He allows
the prince and Charlotte, or Mrs. Verver, as
she soon becomes, to carry a rather ghostly
intrigue He allows them TO be found out, il
we may use gross phrase in speaking of
an event which he attenuates TO its most subtle
elements Then. instead of melodrama, we have
what would call comedy, if even that did
not seem too direct a way Of describing the
prodigious maze Of thought-and tak-through
which the different characters in the book move
toward the solution Of their problem. Though
It is never quite fair 70 make quotation from
novel by Mr. James since the context means,
with him, so much we must nevertheless Dor
row q few sentences from the chapter in which
Maggie tells one Of her friends how she has
confronted her husband with her knowledge of
his infidelity 1t is the friend. Fanny Assing-
ham who first speaks In this fragment Of
dialogue:
Then nothing. that evening of the embassy din
per. passed between your, sm
''on the contrary, everything passed.
.Eyerything. I told him what knew and I
Gold him how I knew it"
Mrs. Assingham waited; And that was alp"
oh. love" She bTidied, that's for you to have
"fhen I have judged" said Maggie. II did
Judge. I made sure he undeTstood-then 1 let him
Mrs. Assngham wondered But he didn't ex-
Explain? Thank Cod no!' Maggie threw back
her head with horror at the thought, then the
next moment added. And I didn't, either
There is nothing IN the book more character
sstIc No one in II ever explains anything.
and yet. in a sense. every one IN it is everlast-
ingly explaining; every one in It is talking
around and about until tI.e readers head fairly
swims in the confusion Of ideas, or rather of
fnfinitesimal fractions and shades Of ideas. The
prince and his circle dwell in perpetual at
anosphere Of what can only call kind OF
moral and intellectual ''huggermugger," vel
ter of morbidity from which it is impossible
even for moment to escape. What MI James
has to say in The Golden Bowl" consists in
short of a portentously minute Interpretation
OF a group of unnatural and uncomfortable fig
\ ures. who strike not human beings but as
puppets invented TO serve the authors purpose
The prince has nothing Italian about him thai
we have been able to perceive. The millionaire
does not even remotely suggest that he is al
American. These two. and. for that matter
ell the rest, talk in much the same vein which
IS to say the vein of Mr.. James himself worry
ing over a psychological puzzle. When ivy,
people meet in this book the attitude of eacl
toward the other is that of naturalist turn
Eng over new beetle, or an impertinent fuss
err pausing again and again in the converse
ton TO pick a thread from his interlocutor'
coat We draw near to the method.
II is not. as a method, to be put heedlessl
out Of court On the contrary, as have IN
dicated above, the question at issue must sim
ply be whether the method is used TO good pur
pose or not. The incongruity. for example, c
making Italian prince split hairs after tn
fashion of Mr.. James as Prince AmerigO split
them in this book. is matter apart There
IS the authors success. failure. in character
ization that is TO be considered. The metho
aforesaid is trial when ask If the prime
is splitting hairs with skill, if with the aid q
his elliptical and innumerable remarks we ar
getting any forrarder. Candidly we do not fee
except at the rarest intervals. in THE Code
Bowl" that We are getting any forrarder at al
and then TO be still more candid it is only whe
something is not much said done, and "
know that the story. AZ a story, is moving.
the method as a method, were at its best
this book we should doubtless have had some