AtDDtA1: The Princess Casamassima

[Dave Monroe]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 1:22 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114339
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0108&msg=59073
>
> A review of the Henry James novel
> The Princess Casamassima
>
> http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/james.htm

>From Henry James, "Preface," The Princess Casamassima (NY: Penguin,
1987 [1886]), pp. 33-48 ...

"It seems probable that if we were never bewildered there would never
be a story to tell about us ....  Therefore it is that the wary reader
for the most part warns the novelist against making his character too
interpretive of the muddle of fate, or in other words too divinely,
too priggishly clever.  'Give us plenty of bewlidement,' this monitor
seems to say, 'so long a there is plenty of slashing out in the
bewliderment too.  But don't, we beseech you, give us too much
intelligence; for intelligence--well, endangers ....  It opens up too
many considerations, possibilities, issues ...." (p. 37)

"The whole thing thus comes to depend on the quality of bewilderment
characteristic of one's creature, the quality involved in the given
case or supplied by one's data...." (p. 39)

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