The Master by Colm Toibin

I've never cared very much for Henry James. His writing is too dry, unemotional, and down-right difficult to read for my tastes, particularly since his characters are people entirely outside my realm of experience, and everybody is just so polite and guarded, only hinting at what they mean. With my favorite Victorian novel being the wildly passionate Wuthering Heights, it is no wonder that I've not liked to read James, because he is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Thus I am quite surprised that I enjoyed this fictionalized portrait of Henry James as much as I did. By portraying the inner life of his subject, Colm Toibin has miraculously made me want to read James again, because now I feel I can better understand why his characters behave as they do and why he wrote as he did. Toibin has also managed to write in prose very reminiscent of James's (except, thankfully, without imitating his pages-long sentences) to make the novel even more convincing as a true account. In short, this novel is extraordinarily well done.

The account follows James from the 1895 failure of his London play Guy Domville to the beginning of the new century at his home in Rye, with back flashes to pivotal episodes of his life. What emerges is a psychological study of a complex man who was himself guarded and secretive, particularly about his sexuality, one who pulled back from intimacy, failing those who loved him.

I am not a homosexual man, as James apparently was and as Toibin admittedly is, but I found some of the descriptions of restrained passion to be powerfully erotic. Toibin has successfully portrayed James as being cool and intellectual on the exterior, while at the same time being emotionally intense internally. Quite a writing feat.

As a contrast, Toibin also reveals the detached writer-side of James, as he uses his dead sister, his dead cousin, and his dead friend as models for his heroines.

The Master was a shortlisted finalist for the Man Booker Prize (2004) and included in many "Best of..." lists for that year. I highly recommend it to anyone who has read some or many of the novels of Henry James. For those who have not read James, I believe anyone who values good writing would appreciate this, but not as much perhaps.