- Mass Market Paperback: 592 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (27 Jun 1985)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140432353
- ISBN-13: 978-0140432350
- Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 3.3 x 19.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 478,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Golden Bowl (English Library)
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Product Description
Review
"It is well written, the introduction useful, and the paperback price makes it acceptable for students."--Edna L Steeves, Univ. of Rhode Island
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
This story of the alliance between Italian aristocracy and American millionaires is "a work unique among all [James's] novels: it is [his] only novel in which things come out right for his characters ...he had finally resolved the questions, curious and passionate, that had kept him at his desk on his inquiries into the process of living. He could now make his peace with America—and he could now collect and unify the work of a lifetime." —Leon Edel in The Life of Henry James
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First Sentence
The Prince had always liked his London, when it had come to him; he was one of the Modern Romans who find by the Thames a more convincing image of the truth of the ancient state than any they have left by the Tiber. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The Prince had always liked his London, when it had come to him; he was one of the Modern Romans who find by the Thames a more convincing image of the truth of the ancient state than any they have left by the Tiber. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Definitely the most demanding read I've had in a long time, Henry James' THE GOLDEN BOWL is not to be missed. In James' final novel, he has created a true masterpiece. Not only must the reader concentrate, but he/she must also actually participate and think in order to take anything away from the book. It's basic plot is quite straightforward: Adam Verver and his daughter, Maggie, are affluent art collectors living in Europe. Maggie marries Amerigo, an Italian prince in reduced circumstances, and Adam marries Maggie's longtime friend Charlotte. What father and daughter don't know is that Charlotte and Amerigo were formerly lovers, and that they have rekindled their affair.
Written in a beautifully ambiguous style, BOWL is full of ingenious symbolism, and must be experienced to be fully appreciated. James has decided to tell a story with a very unique voice, and it is likely that most readers will be scared off by the decidedly difficult prose. However, it is an absolute must for any serious reader who wants to challenge him/herself with what is arguably Henry James' best novel. It may take months to trudge through (as it did for me), but it is worth it!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
When I started reading "The Golden Bowl" I wasn't sure if I would finish it, but I promised myself I would read at least a hundred pages, to give it a chance, and by the time I had got that far I was hooked. Yes, the enormous, convoluted sentences make Proust seem terse, and I'm pretty sure not all of those sentences actually parse, but I came to realise that this doesn't really matter, and stopped trying to disentangle them. It's almost as if James had dictated the entire book in a long-winded conversational style and never bothered to check if what he had said made grammatical sense.
So I took to reading the book when drowsy, often glass in hand, and contented myself with "getting the drift". And the drift is beautiful, seductive even. I found myself wanting to know what Charlotte and the Prince had been getting up to behind the scenes, and what Maggie would do to stop them doing whatever it was. A scene near the end, when Maggie lets Charlotte get away with claiming a victory, stunned me with its brilliance.
I'm glad I made the effort (and it certainly was an effort to begin with). The book is a flawed masterpiece (like the bowl itself - was that deliberate?). Give it a sympathetic go and you'll be rewarded.
So I took to reading the book when drowsy, often glass in hand, and contented myself with "getting the drift". And the drift is beautiful, seductive even. I found myself wanting to know what Charlotte and the Prince had been getting up to behind the scenes, and what Maggie would do to stop them doing whatever it was. A scene near the end, when Maggie lets Charlotte get away with claiming a victory, stunned me with its brilliance.
I'm glad I made the effort (and it certainly was an effort to begin with). The book is a flawed masterpiece (like the bowl itself - was that deliberate?). Give it a sympathetic go and you'll be rewarded.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a Henry James lover, having read everything he's written, & waded through The Golden Bowl twice, I feel I've earnt the right to say it's not his best book.
The epicurean connoisseur at life's feast indulges himself in his last book with a fault to which he confessed himself prone: "to over-treat".
The writing is marred by endless empty sub-clauses, pointless repetition, rhetorical flourishes, & affected, stagey dialogue. The metaphors are forced and over-blown, the description of character hyperbolic, the drama suffocated under the weight of its 'written-ness'. His late style marks a form of literary inflation: here he uses 50 words where in earlier work he used 5 to more powerful effect.
The 'Master' has, in short, run to fat.
The epicurean connoisseur at life's feast indulges himself in his last book with a fault to which he confessed himself prone: "to over-treat".
The writing is marred by endless empty sub-clauses, pointless repetition, rhetorical flourishes, & affected, stagey dialogue. The metaphors are forced and over-blown, the description of character hyperbolic, the drama suffocated under the weight of its 'written-ness'. His late style marks a form of literary inflation: here he uses 50 words where in earlier work he used 5 to more powerful effect.
The 'Master' has, in short, run to fat.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Death by sub clause
If anyone had told me before I read this book that such a thing as death by sub clause existed I would have laughed in their face. Read more
Published on 28 April 2008 by Ms. H. L. Riggott
More than usually ponderously luke-warm
Who would have guessed that, despite his intrinsic, nay, atavistic desire (at least, that is how he characterized it to himself), to use when writing, as a matter of policy, the... Read more
Published on 19 Dec 2005 by Tmo Wilkinson
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