(no subject)
Jun. 29th, 2005 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decemberthirtyI finished The Master last night. It was really quite understated in a way that I ended up liking a lot. I find myself wanting to use words like "quiet" and "gentle" to describe both the story and Toibin's prose style. The book had almost no plot that could be described as such, preferring instead to meander back and forth through the episodes of Henry James's life, sometimes relating events as they occurred, sometimes lingering over memories of the past. It was often difficult to tease out all the different strands of storyline and to remember what was past and what was present, but I found that it didn't much matter; I was content to let it all wash over me.
As I read the book I developed quite a fondness for Henry James, or for Henry James as Colm Toibin has imagined him, at any rate. I liked his taciturnity and restraint, his intense awareness of manners and class, his overriding need for solitude. I spent half the time thinking that I needed to be more like Henry James, and the other half thinking that I'm too much like Henry James already. I was impressed with the way Henry's repression and intensity of emotion were communicated; it was effective enough that a scene as potentially boring as Henry lying in bed listening to the floorboards creak as his guest moved about his house was as full of exquisite tension for me as it was for him. I also thought that Toibin was particularly good at dramatizing Henry's need to avoid being tied down, the way that need was related to his need to write, and the consequences that his actions in service of that need had for the people closest to him. Reading about the fates of Minny Temple and Constance Fenimore Woolson, it would be easy to think of Henry as cold and self-serving, yet for some reason I remained sympathetic.
On a purely personal level, I also appreciated the way Toibin described Henry James's creative process. I especially liked the fact that Toibin frequently depicted Henry being in the middle of a story or novel before realizing exactly what it was about, because it validated my own experience of getting two-thirds of the way through the first draft of my novel and suddenly saying, "Oh! So, that's what I'm writing about!"
As I read the book I developed quite a fondness for Henry James, or for Henry James as Colm Toibin has imagined him, at any rate. I liked his taciturnity and restraint, his intense awareness of manners and class, his overriding need for solitude. I spent half the time thinking that I needed to be more like Henry James, and the other half thinking that I'm too much like Henry James already. I was impressed with the way Henry's repression and intensity of emotion were communicated; it was effective enough that a scene as potentially boring as Henry lying in bed listening to the floorboards creak as his guest moved about his house was as full of exquisite tension for me as it was for him. I also thought that Toibin was particularly good at dramatizing Henry's need to avoid being tied down, the way that need was related to his need to write, and the consequences that his actions in service of that need had for the people closest to him. Reading about the fates of Minny Temple and Constance Fenimore Woolson, it would be easy to think of Henry as cold and self-serving, yet for some reason I remained sympathetic.
On a purely personal level, I also appreciated the way Toibin described Henry James's creative process. I especially liked the fact that Toibin frequently depicted Henry being in the middle of a story or novel before realizing exactly what it was about, because it validated my own experience of getting two-thirds of the way through the first draft of my novel and suddenly saying, "Oh! So, that's what I'm writing about!"
