Your post helped me to decide to jump right in. I love that sentence! I find it incredibly witty — I actually laughed out loud! The humor, for me, lies in the phrase ” . . . at the time of quite other calls upon it . . . .”

James could have just said that Densher was a pretentious jerk, but instead he lets us discover for ourselves exactly what kind of pretentious jerk he is. He does this in one sentence, or, more particularly, by way of an offhand clause buried in the middle of a sentence. It’s dry humor at its driest.

I haven’t read the book yet, and thus my interpretation of Densher here is based only on this one sentence. I realize I may be totally wrong, but it’s a first impression based on an incredibly vivid description. There are clues in this very sentence that my first impression of Densher might be wrong — his messy hair leads me to think that he’s only selfish, not pretentious, by taking all the time in the world to contemplate the sky while other people are impatiently tapping their toes. And even though he’s selfish and possibly pretentious, he sounds quite sexy — that sort of langor drives some women mad.

The point is that we could have endless debates about the kind of guy Densher is from this one-sentence description of a single gesture. That’s what I call good writing — I’d almost call it economical!

“the latter” refers to his hair AND his head; the opposed former would be his legs.

Hmm. James wrote:

It was the accident, possibly, of his long legs, which were apt to stretch themselves, of his straight hair and his well-shaped head: never, the latter, neatly smooth, and apt, into the bargain, at the time of quite other calls upon it, to throw itself suddenly back and, supported behind by his uplifted arms and interlocked hands…

If “latter” means hair AND head, it seems weird to say “never, the latter, neatly smooth”. I understand the idea of someone’s hair never being neatly smooth, but not their head. So here I think “latter” refers to head, but not hair. On the other hand, surely “it” refers to head, but not hair. But the grammar suggests that “it” refers to “the latter”.

I’m probably being too pedantic: I know what James means; I just think he’s saying it ungrammatically.

Yes, it is the left brain that is brutally logical, utterly uncreative, without imagination, nothing but the remorseless, relentless grinding of rational gears. You know, like science. Whereas, the right brain is all intuition, creativity, warm gooey feelings, sunshine and lollipops, pixie dust and moonbeams, roses and rainbows. Like art.

“I agree; good to see any -ologist reading advanced literature.”

What is “advanced” mean here, anyway?

Grandma Ann on Jul 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

Ha-ha! You are an astronomer who reads Henry James to unwind after a long day and I am a musician who listens to Feynman lectures for the same reason. Puts me to sleep nicely.

Heh, I’m all mashed up between the gears. I’m either a scientist who paints and draws at the end of the day to unwind, or an artist who reads through the the latest in regenerative engine cooling systems before turning in for the night.

I actually hold a BFA in sudtio art (drawing/printmaking).

Alas, it’s good to hear so many people are not nearly as two dimensional as they are made out to be.

The syntactical complexity, I think, is not an accident. James was always concerned with subtle or implied, unspoken details of the relations between his characters, and in the late novels this is taken to an extreme. For example, much of the main plotline of The Ambassadors consists of Strether, the main character, attempting to discreetly divine the nature of the relationship between Chad (the prodigal son abroad) and Mrs. de Vionnet. This is not only the question of whether they are having an affair, but the degree to which she has influenced his manner or thinking – the usual Jamesian collision of European manners and putatively naive Americans, only with more twists in the late period works.

The roundabout syntax and thicket of words that the reader must part reflect the indirect and uncertain psychological dance that the main characters are engaged in, where they spend the entire novel, essentially, trying to divine what the other characters are thinking and the influences on their thought.

A completely different example of difficult-to-untangle sentences is the run-on historical narration of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, which is sometimes almost as difficult to parse. But there, rather than the subtleties of grammatical correctness and psychological insight, the syntax serves to reinforce the headlong dash of the characters to their historically pre-ordained fates.

The chapter goes: “My mother is a fish.”

Yeah, go ahead and condescend me.