What I'm reading now

The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James.

I'm about a third of the way through this American classic, and I'm enjoying it so far. Celebrated by scholars as the greatest of James's early works (before he became increasingly obtuse), it's the story of Isabel Archer, a heroine who could easily be bracketed with those other great independent women of 19th-century literature, Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina. Whether her life ends us as tragically as those two unfortunate adultresses I don't yet know.

I will post a full review when I've finished the book. Which could be a while... You have to read James very slowly because each and every sentence is so intricately constructed - skim-reading would yield absolutely no meaning. He was a master at getting under the skin of his characters and there are few other authors whose creations you feel could easily step off of the page, so realistically and psychologically accurate are they depicted. James is definitely not an author to be read by those who demand a page-turning plot - he would bore the pants off those with impatient minds. His elegant and insightful prose offers up deeper, more satisfying pleasures.

If you haven't read Henry James before, I highly recommend his most famous short work, the chillingly brilliant ghost story The Turn Of The Screw. It's the most elliptical, suggestive thing I've ever read - spooky in the way films are that keep their monsters in the shadows. If you don't like the sound of that, give Washington Square a try - a much shorter novel than Portrait. I read it a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it. It's a fairly simple - for James - story in an almost Jane Austen-like style, very witty with entertaining characters and interesting moral conundrums.