What Maisie Kniew by Henry James (1897)

I chose to read this novel, even though I usually don't enjoy reading Henry James, because it was referenced in the introduction to Edith Wharton's novel The Children, which I reviewed last month. It is true that both novels concern similar plot situations--couples who are self-centered and too busy with their own sexual escapades to be adequate parents--but they are entirely different in style and impact. That difference determines the reason I love Wharton and dislike James. While she writes in an elegant and flowing fashion and includes emotion as one of the motivations for human action, James writes in a jerky and unnecessarily complicated fashion and concentrates on the workings of the intellect. James is just too dispassionate, too cold, so to speak, for my tastes. He writes exclusively for the head, analyzing his characters' actions and thoughts to the point of tedium.

The plot itself is actually interesting, although more than a bit like a soap opera. Six-year-old Maisie's parents have gone through a rancorous divorce, fighting about money and the custody of their daughter. The novel's narrator says, "They had wanted her not for any good they could do her, but for the harm they could, with her unconscious aid, do each other. She should serve their anger and seal their revenge...." An agreement is reached whereby they will take 6-month turns of custody. The day comes, however, when the parents decide they can better annoy each other by delaying taking a turn. Poor Maisie.

The situation complicates when both parents remarry, the father to Maisie's beautiful one-time governess and the mother to a charming count. Neither marriage appears to be successful, but the new stepparents show the child more attention than do her natural parents. Then more complications arise when the stepparents meet and are instantly attracted to each other. And then.....

This has the sound of a very sad and emotional book, but the way James tells it the story becomes more an examination of how Maisie grows to an intellectual understanding of her true situation and learns to spot the weaknesses and hypocrisies of the adults around her.

Many have appreciated this book. I'm not one of them. At the back of the Penguin Classics I read, the editor included some early reviews of the novel, one of which says, "It is undoubtedly a work of art, but hardly one which we wish to hang on our walls." My thoughts, exactly.