Washington Square

Rating:
Summary: A Master Craftsman at an Early Peak of his Art
Review: Henry James's novel looks almost alarmingly simple: A young woman must choose between the love of a father and the love of a young man. Surely, the notion is too slender to sustain a whole book. How can he pull it off? Yet James manages a number of surprises. The simplicity is a ruse. Chief among the surprises is the character of Catherine Sloper, James's protagonist. James immediately tells us she is stupid. How dare he? Who wants to read about such a creature? Perhaps because readers naturally empathize with the defenseless, our sympathies sweep to her; no one should deserve the opprobrium of this narrator. And we are not wrong. Catherine is simple, but she is gifted with dignity, honesty, and the ability to endure. Her position is morally superior, even if her father is correct; her paramour is a bounty hunter, and nothing more. Yet that is among the other surprises in store, since James uses his omniscient narrator selectively, keeping Townsend's heart obscured for nearly 3/4ths of the book. The story still fascinates us, because it is essentially about money. Gaining wealth and status we have not earned is an American obsession. Perhaps it is the American dream. And while eschewing it will not make us happy--there is no happiness in Washington Square, only the kind of humor that would be cruel if it were not so funny--it will finally allow us to maintain our dignity "for life, as it were."

Rating:
Summary: A great little book
Review: I had the pleasure of playing Morris Townsend in The Heiress, the play version of James' Washington Square at my local theatre. In preparation for the role I read the novel and was delighted. Unlike the play, which tries to make up the viewers mind about who is good and who is bad, James' original novel is all about gray area; one never really knows who is the antagonists are. Catherine, no doubt, is the protagonist, but its hard to gauge who the real villian is, Morris or Catherine's father. Either way, it doesn't matter as Catherine ultimately makes her own decision, which is what the book is really about: taking control of one's life. Like any James work, Washington Square is a thought-provoking read. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Frustrating story but still a Henry James fan
Review: I like Henry James for his fine observations of human nature, and this book did not disappoint in that aspect. He writes about complex matters in such a lucid manner, I feel like I learn a little more about how people are everytime I read his books. But this story was frustrating because all the characters were so strongly stubborn! I was engaged to the end though disappointed with it. I did learn, though, how quietly cruel people can be and how life should not be wasted in a game of pride!

Rating:
Summary: One of James' most accessible works
Review: I love the writing of Henry James, but it can be dense and difficult to navigate. I recommend Washington Square as a good introduction to his work. The book is quite short, and the writing is fairly straight forward, but still complex and beautiful. The story is a classic and has been retold in several movies, including the brilliant "The Heiress." The theme of a person with inner beauty, but who is physically unappealing and awkward being unappreciated by his/her parents and society is certainly relevant, and the novel's herione remains contemporary. If you like this novel, then move on and sample some of James' more difficult work.

Rating:
Summary: Musical prose!
Review: I picked this out of a box of my university books while cleaning out the basement, thinking I would try a page or two before tossing it. An hour later, I climbed the stairs, admitting I was going to read the whole thing and enjoy it. I think the other reviewers have done a marvelous job of plot detail as well as literary merits in terms of character stude, period piece, etc, so I will add just the one thing I haven't read in the few reviews I have read:

Henry James is a wordsmith. He enjoys words, relishes them, and composes with them in such a way as to share his love of language with the reader.

THIS is what made this book a joy to me. Many times I found myself rereading sentences and then reading them aloud, just pleased with the way they were worded. "She had given this account, at least, to everyone but the Doctor, who never asked for explanations which he could entertain himself any day with inventing," writes James in Chapter II of Mrs. Penniman, and I had to read that one three or four times before I stopped smiling.

Read it while awake, read it while alert, read it when you have time and quiet to enjoy the pure music of James' prose, for at least to me, that is the beauty of Washington Square.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly Good
Review: I rated this James work a 4 based upon recent completion of "The Portrait of a Lady" which I hold as a 5. Disturbingly good was the impression I have of the novel. I was intensely disturbed by the characterization of a lovely women as less than smart, and less than fair in appearance. The description of Catherine, none the lacking due to Jame's gift of portraiture, made an impression on me. She became depicted in my mind's eye not as a homely dolt as her father chose to describe her, but instead a woman worthy of many, and owner of a beauty that many would consider cozy and warm. Her growth from a child to a woman of stature, and stolid grace only enhanced her beauty to me as the book progressed to it's end. She became the embodiment of an independent, not unlike Isabelle Archer in "The Portrait of a Lady." Isabelle Archer, in seeking the recapture of her independence could only have done better by knowing and reproducing the manner in which Catherine Sloper gained her's. Independence in both characters was ultimately pure, and gained through they're own hands, but Catherine's if possible, was enhanced simply because she lacked the millstone of a husband during her quest for true unadultrated independent freedom of character.

Rating:
Summary: For a school book it was pretty good
Review: I thought Washington Square was well written, but lacked a "good" ending. I felt Catherine was slighted by not getting a husband and growing to be an old maid. Besides this, the book was good. There were characters you loved to hate and it was a novel for all those feminists to hate. Since I had to read this for a book project at school, I couldn't really get into it because of the thoughts of impending essay to be written on it. All in all it was a good, not great, read.

Rating:
Summary: See honey, Dad told you so
Review: In the hands of any other writer, "Washington Square" could have ended up being a simple soap-opera, as its subject is typical of that genre. Catherine Sloper is a rich heiress to a wealthy physician. Her mother has died and she lives with Dad and a spinster of an aunt, an almost Emma Bovary-kind of woman, constantly devising romantic affairs where only the crude reality is happening. Far from the verbosity of other of his works, James uses here a cold, dispassionate approach of high irony and deep psychological insight. Character-building is at the top, more remarkably so for so common and risky a subject. Catherine is not beautiful, but she's destined to become very rich, and then along comes Morris Townsend, a young man from a "good family", but poor and jobless. He is charming and good-looking, and of course shatters Catherine's small world apart with his gentlemanliness and his wit. Catherine falls in love with him, encouraged by the naïve and romantic aunt, who plays intermediary to the lovers. But Dr. Sloper, Catherine's father, is a much more worldly man than the two women. He is cold and astute, and immediately suspects what Morris is after -his money. This is no romantic novel, dreams won't come true, but only the hardets reality. James has written here an acute psychological story, a most realistic one for anyone who wants to read and understand.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to James' "Middle Period"
Review: James wrote somewhere that his tales were often about the children of light being destroyed by the darkness. This moving tale of a plain, sweet girl's devotion to a worthless fortune-hunter and the strength and wisdom she finds too late is a powerful example of this theme. This is a novel less ornate, shorter, and easier to get through than some of the later masterpieces. An excellent introduction to James.

Rating:
Summary: An austere little gem
Review: Often unjustly overlooked in the Jamesian canon, Washington Square achieves the almost impossible; it makes a character who possesses neither great beauty nor wit absolutely compelling. Although Catherine's fate is ultimately tragic, she does gain revenge on the two gentlemen who wrong her, albeit in a rather oblique way.