Literary What Maisie Knew by Henry James

[Bookpossum]

Yes, I'm with you on three stars, Caleb, particularly because of the tortuous prose.

Interesting point about the knowing and not knowing. Maisie of course kept on saying "I know" because she felt she ought to, but of course as a child I think that while she might know some of the facts, she understood very little, especially of the adults' motivations.

It did leave me wondering what happened to her in the longer term, poor child.

[poohbear_nc]

*snip*

An interesting bit of trivia is the choice that the story ends in Boulogne where James as a young teenager suffered a severe illness and associated with his own transition into adulthood.

In his 5 volume biography of HJ, Leon Edel theorizes that James explored, and perhaps exorcised, the painful passages in his growth and emotional maturation through the young female characters in his novels. Edel delicately tiptoes around James' purported homosexuality in his analysis, but firmly identifies James's youthful personality and experiences, especially traumatic occurrences, in the life events and thoughts of young women and female children in Daisy Miller, Portrait of a Lady, Washington Square, The Bostonians, The Reverberator, The Tragic Muse, The Other House, and What Maisie Knew.

If you want a really chilling read about the fate of a young girl, give The Other House a try - in which the fight over a girl child results in .... murder!

[Bookpossum]

Thanks for the recommendation, poohbear.