Henry James: Search and Destroy

A quite good discussion of HJ which I've just looked at again is Chapter 10 of Terry Eagleton, THE ENGLISH NOVEL: AN INTRODUCTION (2005).

Idea: compare Adam Verver, the American capitalist in THE GOLDEN BOWL (1904), with Holroyd and Charles Gould, the American and English / Costaguanan capitalists (via mining) in NOSTROMO (1904).

Rereading The Wings of the Dove is learning how to read a novel that forecloses the usual climaxes. We learn the important plot point mentioned in the paperback sleeve synopsis almost three hundred pages in. Pivotal conversations happen offscreen as it were. James tells and tells and tells without showing; he prefers we learn the goodness and vividness of Milly Theale when her friends praise her as such, which in a sense adduces the novel's mirroring of how our reality unfolds, i.e. we exist as legends our friends and enemies tell about us.

Thought this revival would be about the new film THE BEAST.