Welcome

A daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading

To read about movies and TV shows I'm watching, visit my other blog: Elliot's Watching

Monday, February 13, 2012

Has there ever been a less apt title than "The Princess Casamassima"?

Till now I have been posting on the strange similarities between Henry James's "The Princess Casamassima" and the work of Dickens - strange and surprising because was the ever a novelist whom we think of as less engaged with the struggles of the working class, poverty, illness, and class prejudice than H.James? But his descriptions of the Newgate (?) prison and of the dreary lives of the working class in London, deprived of opportunity, consigned to poverty, the rage that a bright and creative young man feels when he realizes there is wealth and prosperity all around and he will be cut off from that forever because of happenstance of birth - these are themes that I've found virtually nowhere else in James. As I finish part one of the novel, however, I'm looking forward: Dickens may have deeply influenced James in writing this novel (the lively invalid sister chattering away in her bed is a truly Dickensian type), but this novel looks forward to the dark, political work of Conrad - notably The Secret Agent, with its sense of conspiratorial groups meeting in secret around London, a society about to explode because of the pent-up rage and the crushing, oppressive social system. What I really wonder about this novel, however, is how on earth did James come up with such a terrible title (completely unexplained in the first 150 pages or so) - even if this Princess becomes a major character, has there ever been a title that less aptly captured the mood and themes of a novel?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.