About this title: Lambert Strether is dispatched to Paris by the widowed Mrs. Newsome--his fiancée--to bring back her son Chadwick. It is rumored that Chad has fallen under the spell of a Frenchwoman of dubious reputation, and his mother wants him to return to take over the running of the Newsome Mills, in Massachusetts. Once in Paris, Strether undergoes a ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics
Date Published: 1960
ISBN-13:9780451512055ISBN:0451512057
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. 1960 Signet Classics paperback. NOT EX LIB! Pages lightly tanned, notes & underlinings, former owner's name torn from top of 1st page, creased spine, light edgewear. 384 p. Glued binding. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780192817037ISBN:0192817035
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Corner crease on cover. Hole punched in back cover. Some edge and corner wear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 503 p. Oxford World's Classics (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. The World's Classics. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co
Date Published: 1964
Description: Very Good. Very good, front cover has curl, spine is creased, has edgewear minor, writing in pencil on front endpage, no marks, clean & clear text, tight binding. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers
Date Published: 1948
Description: Fair. No Jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; pages clean, aged, first page is smudged. front hinge broken. cover soiled and worn. fair condition for age of book. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper & Row
Date Published: 1948
Description: Fair in Fair jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; Type: Ex Library Cover and pages clean. some edge/corner wear. binding secure. ex library insignia. dust jacket clean. read more
Description: Good. Mass Market pb. Good, with average condition problems for its age. Book has been read but remains straight, clean, and tight. No internal markings. In sealed plastic protection. 1960. Mass Market pb. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780451519894ISBN:0451519892
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Fair to Good condition. Lots of wear. Book is solid. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
"Tried to read it, and suffered greatly... maybe if I had been in school and we had been discussing it I would have enjoyed it, as it was I couldn't stay awake.
So I got the audiobook, and almost wrecked my car trying to listen to it... just as boring and mindless as trying to read it myself. Painfully dull tale of people walking around and talking about eachother, and ideas, and nothing ever happening. I envy those that enjoy this, I am not one of them.
Date completed is the date I quit trying for now... this is one of the few books in my entire life that I have not finished."
"Holy Christ, this thing took me forever. Not sure if I just don't have the attention span I used to, but I remember reading Portrait of a Lady in college and kind of enjoying it. At least being able to understand it. Now, I love reading Proust from time to time, so I'm no stranger to run-on clauses that split apart and spiral away and take you far away from where the sentence began, but I just could not keep up with whole pages of this book. I liked the interesting twist on the coming of age tale, and I can't say that I really hated it, I just never seemed to find its rhythm."
"This is the most difficult James I have read yet. Unlike his other books, "The Ambassadors" was not easy and engaging. I feel like this book was dedicated to a pursuit of complexity in conversation - I regularly reread passages to understand his meaning. Despite that and perhaps because of this conversational bent, the book itself is immensely enjoyable. It was like reading a play - there is a great deal of time devoted to setting scenes and frames of mind, internal soliloquys, and copious interaction between characters. It was structured such that one cannot see the end from the beginning. This is not to say the end is a surprise, more that any of a number of endings would not surprise. In this sense the book incorporates an element of reality, as choices and events often shape the future. James even mocks the 'fictional' in his work at a miraculously chance pivotal meeting near the end of the book. James' tendency to amuse himself as he writes is one the most endearing aspects of his work."
"In his preface, James discusses the making of a work of art, the writing of a (the) novel, the process by which a theme is chosen, grasped, and then enfleshed. He talks about how, a single scene with Strether having captured his fancy, all else in the story fell into place, both the preceding and following events and understandings. In a sense, this makes the process seem a bit too intuitive to me, a little as if the author is a mere conduit for the Muse, but that is probably not what James means to imply; rather he seems to be suggesting that if the critical and pivotal moment in the character's life is envisioned and understood, then what led to the point in time is in a sense predetermined, and logical consistency makes what follows inevitable - it is up to the author to discover what this consistent story is, and when he does, the story is successful. James discusses the challenges of writing a novel from the perspective of the main character when not writing in the first person (which makes the main character both subject and object). Thus, Strether cannot be self-revelatory, and so James supplies him confidantes in order to reveal his thoughts and character. Using his usual wonderfully complex syntax, James essentially writes a preface that is, in fact, an encomium to the novel form.
James, in all his writing, builds pictures by dribs and drabs, small hints relinquished seemingly reluctantly, all adding up over time. And always, always, there is the labyrinthine language, to be explored as one explores small avenues and alleyways of a delightfully unknown city, continuously quaint and fascinating. Always, especially in conversations, there is much verbal fencing so that the situation remains somewhat opaque, only slightly admitting rays of light now and then. Reading the novel is like building a jigsaw puzzle, small piece by small piece, nuances and hints being all important even when their importance in hardly apparent. The reader must engage in a continuous attempt, a subtle ongoing minuet, to understand nuances, shades of meaning, to interpret and understand in a labyrinth of shaded allusions, just what motivates people, what they intend, what they aim for. The question arises whether we really ever understand another person's motivations. Can we in fact really ever understand our own? And like Strether, do we constantly function with unconfirmed assumptions, unwarranted conclusions, guesses and hypotheses that have little basis or justification, often preferring to proceed on such bases rather than attempt to confirm or refute by simply asking directly?
The plot of this novel is crafted impeccably, event balanced by event, character balanced by character. I shall not discuss the plot here except to say that the twists and turns are surprising and yet, in retrospect, predictable, the denouement delayed by false resolutions, the end unexpected but fitting. I think this is one of the finest novels I've read, certainly one of the most satisfying."
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