About this title: At the age of twenty-two, Catherine Sloper is regarded as a rather mature blossom, such as could be plucked from the stem only with a vigorous tug. She is neither clever nor beautiful (her taste in dress verges on the vulgar), yet Morris Townsend finds Catherine exceedingly charming. Less, it must be admitted, because of her evident goodness and ...
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Description: Good. Spine is well creased. Covers show wear at the edges and corners. Good Grade C average reading copy. Binding is Mass Market Paperback. Pages tanning. Used books may have price stickers. Most orders ship on the next business day. read more
Description: Good. Spine has some creases. Covers show wear at the edges and corners. Good Grade B reading copy. Binding is Mass Market Paperback. Pages tanning. Used books may have price stickers. Most orders ship on the next business day. read more
Description: Good. Paperback, Penguin Books, 1973, cover is clean with edge and corner wear, text is clean and tanned, spine is tight, ships within 24 hr. sku G 10 A. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780451522740ISBN:0451522745
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Signet Classic paperback. Intact, no markings, cover shows slight shelf wear, lightly tanned. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780140432268ISBN:0140432264
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Price clipped. Light edge wear to soft cover., LIght page tanning from age. Previosu onwes notes on back side of front cover. Some highlighting to text. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 224 p. Penguin Classics. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very good. Light edge wear to soft cover. Clean text no marks. Light fold line to spine from reading. USPS delivery conformation on all domestic orders e-mailed to you when shipped. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Peter Smith Publisher
Date Published: 1970
ISBN-13:9780804902106ISBN:0804902100
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. pb looks unread text clean solid shelfwear on cover stamping on spine smokefree. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: Young adult. read more
"Washington Square. The story of Catherine Sloper, her family and her suitor Morris Townsend. I typically enjoy period pieces, but this one I hated with the fire of a thousand suns...and that might be putting it lightly. In my opinion, there was absolutely no (NO!) redeemable qualities in this book. Catherine Sloper, a perfectly plain, but well raised girl from a very wealthy family and her father, Dr Sloper, a perfectly socially mannered man, as well as being as loving as an iceberg come to a disagreement over the suitability of Catherine's suitor, Morris Townsend. Here is where the practical mother in me takes over: OF COURSE HE IS AFTER YOUR MONEY YOU STUPID TWIT! $40,000!!!! Did you SERIOUSLY not see that coming?!?!? Honestly, I have an immeasureable amount of affection for my daughter and even if I thought her very plain and not so bright (which I would NEVER think...even at 8 months she is gorgeous and brilliant) I would be looking out for her welfare. Dr. Sloper just decided to kind of be a jerk about it. What's worse, Catherine's overly romantic widowed aunt gets involved and becomes Townsend's confident. After making her wait for Townsend and pine for him for well over a year (with her aunt's prodding), Townsend makes Catherin believe she has given him up and proptly disappears. Well, after her father shoves 'I told you so' in her face and dies and Catherine spends a quarter century as a spinster, Townsend comes back into her life (again, with her aunt's prodding...) and wants to know, now that they've waited so long they are free to marry and be together forever. Thankfully, she is in her right mind and says no (to which he wants to know why...my answer: because of sleezey, gold-digging as*es like YOU!) and presumably goes to her death as an old maid.
One of the other reviewers asks: Did Morris ever have any real regard for Catherine or was it all for the money? In my opinion, it was all for the money. In any case, it never seemed to me that Morris showed any interest in anything but Catherine's $40,000 upon the death of her father. And even in the end, her father was so sure that she was just waiting 25 years to marry Morris that he carved a bit out of her money so Townsend wouldn't come a calling as soon as he was cold.
I think, honestly, the aunt is to blame for the majority of this girl's suffering. She puffed up Catherine and Townsend to believe if they just waited out Dr. Sloper all would be well and everything would be golden. As though any parent trying to throw their child a lifeline would just give up without a fight. Ha.
This book deserved far less than one star (like 5 negative stars) and has totally turned me off of Henry James for good, I fear."
"Henry James is the master of "showing" without "telling". Washington Square is a good book to start with if you are interested in this author. In some of his later books it might require some discussion to identify the antagonist, but it is not a lack of skill which makes this so. James writes his characters with such complexity that you feel as if you are spying on real people. The main character of Washington Square is a young woman who moves in the constricting circle of both society and her father's wishes. As a suitor presents himself for her hand, the reader will be silently deliberating his intentions. In the end, the reader will still be deliberating. Read it and discover the mystery/realism/skill of Henry James."
"Washington Square reads like an outline, the bare bones of a novel that moves the reader from scene to scene, each of which consists of a conversation between only two characters which moves the plot a little further along. The conversations themselves are straight-forward declarations with both characters take turns verbalizing an action they plan to take or an opinion on another's action. This plot technique gives the impression that you are reading through sketches of a novel James one day plans to write, but one which he will dress up with transitions and adjectives to create a more fleshy world.
The simplicity of the plot in some sense belies the complex ethical judgement readers are forced to make about the central situation (and there is only one). The feelings we have about the predicament, and the way in which the characters both create and respond to it, is the heart of Washington Square's worth as a novel.
Mildly recommended, particularly for those who enjoy Victorian romances (there is a meddling aunt who is hilarious), but check out James later work beforehand if you haven't already done so. This is a rare piece that the American writer actually set in America - like most genuises who were born in the US, he decided to spend most of his life in the UK and set the vast majority of his work there, so that is another incentive to read it."
"Reading this book for my book club. It's a bit like going back to school, challenging my brain with "real literature," but I'm glad I'm reading it. I think I'll appreciate it more after our book club discussion in one week."
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