A Simplified Approach (Finally)

I admit I’m a little stumped with my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady.” I have been questioning where we find the Osmonds after they have been married for more than three years and cannot stand one another. Things were dicey enough before she found out conclusively that he married her for her money, blabbed by his sister, the Countess Gemini. We know her reaction to this information: she flees to England for her cousin Ralph’s funeral against her husband’s wishes and does some serious soul-searching. This could have been the end of the marriage but she returns to Rome, her reasoning left to conjecture though there has been much speculation in the critical essays. I have reflected on her motives in other posts and think I’ve thrashed that all out.

Meanwhile, I had all sorts of ideas for Isabel’s future: leaving Osmond and becoming an activist/feminist, founding a children’s hospital, opening a gallery, a tea shop for expatriates in Rome, Osmond dying, finding new love, having more children, moving to Gardencourt, Pansy’s marriage, Madame Merle’s return, the Countess Gemini’s plight. I wrote outlines for all sorts of story-lines and have written reams of dialogue.

In the end, I decided all I want my sequel to do is explain how the couple has come to the impasse they’re in, solve the riddle if possible and do what Isabel said she would do in “TPOAL, save Pansy. I find I don’t care about their future as a novelistic format. I’m sticking with the past and the present.

I’ve got all sorts of things going on and nothing that could be called conflict/action/resolution but HJ wrote what he referred to as a character-driven novel and left a few threads hanging loose. I have come up with an idea from one of those loose threads. Or as the master would say, another brick. Meanwhile I’ll keep you posted and may even give some highlights here and there. I think it’s time to bring parts of my sequel into the light of the blogosphere.

Isabel's Will

I mentioned in the first post on this blog that I really didn’t have a handle on Isabel Archer Osmond, did not really understand if she was a victim of Gilbert Osmond or they were a matched set of egos intent on marital domination. I have read many essays and critiques of “The Portrait of a Lady” offering both observations.

For the most part, I think Mr. James was sympathetic to Isabel and writes she’d been “made a convenience of” by two conniving sophisticates she was no match for. Then I remember something that Ralph Touchett said to himself on the first day Isabel arrived at Gardencourt: She does not take suggestion. By this one sentence I can make Isabel my own character: She wants her own way. I get that. All of my life I have heard things like, “You do not take instruction well. You are stubborn. You are intent on things your own way,” and lately, “Why don’t you ever listen to what I say, do what I suggest?”

I understand Isabel better. She may have been a victim, but she waltzed into her marriage after her dearest friends and family members advised against it. Her friends know she’s miserable but she won’t admit it; she is too proud and too embarrassed. Only to Ralph who is dying will she confess her error. I respect her reticence but in the sixth chapter of my sequel to TPOAL, I have Mrs. Touchett tell her “no one appreciates or respects a martyr, Isabel, don’t carry that too far.”

In my sequel, Isabel most definitely knows she was/is headstrong. Her husband may be obnoxious, he may even be psychotic but she’s consciously aware that her own assumptions were based on a faulty premise composed in her own mind. I think that is why she went back to him. She does not see herself as a victim, she’d rather see herself as a foolhardy young woman prepared to live with her choice. Isabel is very big on choice. She does not want to get out of jail free.

And this is precisely the reason her husband objects to her: that streak of Emersonian morality and her belief in free-will annoy him. He is not bothered by any such philosophical concepts himself. His will dictates for his aggrandizement; tinged with only a mild irony. As Dostoevsky said in his story “The Gambler,” there is nothing so dangerous as sophistication.

Isabel's New Beginning

I wrote a couple different openings for my sequel to "The Portrait of a Lady." I lost the notebook with the first one but didn't mind because I knew I could do better. Earlier this week I found the missing notebook and decided to post the original first chapter. I'm sticking with the second version: this one sounds a little Danielle Steel(ish), not that I'm knocking her, I've enjoyed quite a few of her books. But she's no Henry James.

ISABEL RETURNS
Isabel Osmond returning to Italy on a wet, wintry day, after traveling through the night in a car that could have been warmer, could have moved faster, could have been more resplendent in any number of ways, but were largely unnoticed, her thoughts elsewhere. Mrs. Osmond was returning home after a month in England, her return to the Palazzo Roccanera would correspond to the anniversary of her marriage, five year to the day, her marriage she now knew a sham. She needed no reminder; had thought of nothing else for the past month since learning things she should have discerned, might have learned, but was obtuse, a word her husband used in reprimanding her, when he wanted to show his disdain for her simple equations. She marveled at her gullibility, but nevertheless, married she was and that is where her journey would set her down.

Her beloved cousin Ralph was now buried and for him she would grieve. She also learned what he’d done for her. And he understood how his gift had harmed her, indeed, knew it all along. She could only blush for shame at her naiveté, that she, Isabel Archer was so intelligent, so moral, so high-minded she need not heed the warning of those most concerned for her welfare. No, she will have the distinction of having deliberately planned a life--a union that was to fall so short of her measurements. That the man, Gilbert Osmond married her for her money, was not the worst thing in the world, it’s often done, but her husband was set up by his former mistress to marry a fortune.

How low Isabel felt riding the train through the night over a cold distant Europe who did not play fair, did not give Isabel Archer her due but took from her much more than money: She would never again possess her innocence or her trustful nature but perhaps at the age of twenty-seven it was just as well. Look where it had gotten her?

Isabel telegraphed her impending arrival to her husband who made no response. Isabel scarcely knew what would be awaiting her return. Her husband did not take disobedience lightly, and Isabel had greatly vexed her him by traveling to England to see her cousin as he lay dying. Isabel wrote of Ralph’s death but received not a word from the Palazzo Roccanera. Osmond felt Isabel made her choice and now she would live with it--he would be certain, could be depended upon to sink the blade of his rancor into her psyche.

Osmond married her for her money and now disliked entirely what or who was Isabel herself in inverse proportion to how much he cherished his newly acquired power. That he couldn’t control his wife was a bitter pill, but she knew his secret now, his wretched sister had betrayed him, and he knew not where this knowledge would lead. His wife knew that he, the great idealist, independent, detached from those shabby motives that drive other men, had in fact done something so shallow as to seek monetary gain for himself, he who had for years denounced all that came with position, possession and power, succumbed to the disorderly base action of marrying a woman who not only controlled the purse strings but would if Osmond wasn’t careful, control him, a thought too bilious to countenance.

“Dreadful woman!” he spat. She exasperated him. He had no patience with her ideas and most especially her friends. Now that her odious cousin actually had the decency to expire after threatening it for years, Osmond would be put in the position of feigning sympathy or forgiveness, neither of which he had the least stomach for. He would neither forget nor forgive his wife. She must pay and be made to kneel, only this would suffice.

Osmond had an idea just how much she would pay: he had discovered an early sixteenth-century altarpiece that he believed was painted by Giotto and would soon be put on the market if he didn’t come up with the required sum, costly of course, but for which his estranged wife would gladly disburse hard currency to win his favor. Gilbert could be merciless and his wife would not be allowed in from the cold until the altarpiece was prominently displayed in the main salon of the Palazzo Roccanera.

Isabel arrived in Rome with the early dawn and quickly found a carriage to take her to the Palazzo Roccanera. She braced herself for what would take place. Her husband’s anger was a formidable challenge and after a month, she knew not how they would greet each other. She could never quite tell what form his animosity would take. It could roil on the surface of his personality or simmer on a back burner ready to scorch at the slightest change of temperament. She was cold and tired and needed to rest before facing her husband.

But Mrs. Osmond had learned the truth and that truth would free her. How she would use her new freedom would be subject to many variables not the least of which was her stepdaughter’s wishes. She had returned to save Pansy. It would be one way to redeem her shattered self-image. Her life, she felt, was a shambles. She entered her rooms and fell into her ornately carved bed murmuring, “Oh, to sleep once again, to have again what I have lost...”

After a night a heavy dreaming, she awoke to find the sun streaming into her room. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Oh yes, she thought, here, and she found she was glad to be home, back in Rome. Her maid entered and asked if she would like breakfast in bed. “No, I must dress and see my husband. Please send a note letting him know I’m back and will see him in one hour,” she ordered. She then prepared to steady her nerves because no matter what transpired between them, she would not be taking the compliant road ever again. That would be the obdurate beginning of Isabel’s next chapter--it was a start. Then she would seek out her stepdaughter and begin anew.

Oh, The Games People Play

There are many ways “The Portrait of a Lady” can be said to be a modern novel despite its verbiage. Henry James is considered the bridge between the nineteenth-century novel and the twentieth. His immediate influence was Nathanial Hawthorne but he wished to do something different, more modern, which to him meant psychological; more conscious, less circumstantial.

After an odious discussion with her husband about Lord Warburton's intentions toward Pansy Isabel ruminates on how she came to marry Gilbert Osmond; her sincerity, her initial adoration, her wish to bestow on such a gentleman, "the best in Europe," money she felt not rightly hers but that she could use for the enhancement of someone so fine. She traces the path of her own blindness and her husband’s disenchantment with her.

There were times when she almost pitied him; for if she had not deceived him in intention she understood how completely she must have done so in fact. She had effaced herself when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than there really was.

He said to her one day that she had too many ideas and that she must get rid of them…He really meant it…he would have liked her to have nothing of her own but her pretty appearance. She had known she had too many ideas; she had more even than he had supposed, many more than she had expressed to him when he had asked her to marry him. Yes, she had been hypocritical; she had liked him so much. She had too many ideas for herself; but that was just what one married for, to share them with some one else. One couldn’t pluck them up by the roots, though of course one might suppress them, be careful not to utter them. It had not been this, however, his objecting to her opinions; this had been nothing. She had no opinions--none that she would not have been eager to sacrifice in the satisfaction of feeling herself loved for it. What he had meant had been the whole thing--her character, the way she felt, the way she judged. This was what she had kept in reserve; this was what he had not known until he had found himself--with the door closed behind, as it were--set down face to face with it. She had a certain way of looking at life he took as a personal offense.

Poor Isabel did what so many women today do; they play dumb when they aren’t, play games, mask their true identity, diminish their own needs and desires. They're told you have to have to hide your temperament, pretend the things they say are worthy of The Sermon on the Mount and disguise any and all irritation until the poor chap is locked in. Later, all hell breaks loose when everything he does from being five minutes late, to not picking up his socks, to forgetting what she considers important dates can send her into a fit of explosive aggression that threatens to burn the house down or firebomb the car. It’s quite common, this sort of dissimulation still today.

Isabel had it right when she said it was her own fault for playing down her true spirit and playing up his. She concedes her own folly. I admire her for this acknowledgment, for not absolving herself from the tragedy that is her marriage. By refusing to be the victim, by viewing her own gullibility as not something that was acted upon but something that led her to her own choice, however regrettable, she empowers her future. This is the way HJ managed to write a contemporary novel in the nineteenth century.

In my sequel to TPOAL, Isabel does not play games, but is forthright. She has learned the truth and the truth has set her free. Osmond is still up to his old tricks but he too wearies of contradiction and mistrust. Nevertheless, thinking he has won the round, proceeds without caution. Oh, the games people play.

Isabel Needs to Lighten Up

I’ve been reading Diane Johnson’s amusing novels of contemporary expatriate life in France. One blurb on the back cover from the San Francisco Chronicle describes Johnson as a cross between Henry James and Jane Austen. I can’t go quite so far with the hyperbole but she does have something in common with both: showing the cultural divide between Americans and Europeans as with James and the wry humor of Austen so it’s not too much of a stretch. For today, they entertain and Johnson earns my approval and recommendation for what it’s worth.

Her books have me thinking: wouldn’t my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady” be ever so much better if I could give a dash of humor to Isabel Osmond and take away her victim status with wit and verve? Slay the humorless Osmond with sarcasm or irony, route Madame Merle’s serious dignity with mishap--a pie in the face, say, or tripping into a pile of manure getting out of her carriage? How about Pansy sneaking out on a date with a charming clown like Daisy Miller did in HJ’s story of the same name? And have the Countess Gemini brought up on charges of indecency after being seen topless in the Trevi Fountain? Everyone could sleep with everyone without a second thought. Osmond could be a closet homosexual which would account for his disdain for his wife’s charms who falls for Caspar Goodwood. Or he could be killed, run over by a donkey cart. It could be uproarious indeed, especially after I bring Mr. James McNeill Whistler into the story which, by the way, is in progress.

Unfortunately, the nineteenth century does not lend itself to such high jinks. If I am to use humor, and I do sincerely hope to, it will have to have the subtle wit of Mr. James who would never countenance slapstick or flagrant sexuality. Much too dignified. And women were to be protected from the coarseness of sexual innuendo unless they were of a certain breed and that would not be considered funny at all in decent society.

No, this was a more proper time and I hesitate to mess with it or the story will not ring true at all. But that doesn’t preclude me from delving into Austen’s copybook and taking a more lighthearted approach to Isabel’s situation than James has heretofore. It’s time for our heroine to take herself and her life less seriously and I’m sure she feels the same way. She was a sprightly girl after all, full of good humor and jest upon arriving in Europe. Are we really going to let a couple of conniving Eurotrash artistes ruin Isabel’s life? Her cousin Ralph was droll, her aunt Touchett wry and even Osmond, with his deadly seriousness, lobs a good line now and again at his sister. I feel a lot of rewriting coming on. I’m boring myself with the victim’s tale. And that is where Mr. Whistler will come in; that man knew how to deflect misfortune and turn it into a lark. He’s just the man to lighten Isabel’s heart. And just the artist.

The Countess Gemini: Lightweight or Powerhouse?

I haven’t brought the Countess Gemini back into my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady” yet except for a look back on the day Osmond found out of his sister’s betrayal and banished her from the Palazzo Roccanera forever. They had words and then she was gone. I’ve been waiting to reintroduce her as she is the one capricious female character in the novel. She is the story’s lightweight; lives for society, fashion, gossip and love affairs. Isabel, a high-minded American with an intellectual bent, pays little attention to her and Madame Merle would love to write her off but the countess knows too much of that lady’s history with her brother to be cavalier regarding her.

In TPOAL, the Countess Gemini is married to an Italian count who is “odious.” We don’t know much about him other than that he is a "very bad husband" and controls his wife by withholding money. She is not exactly a puritan herself and lives the exact sort of life Henrietta Stackpole warned Isabel against; shady characters in a corrupt society leading fraudulent lives with low morals and no earthly purpose. It seems our heroine landed herself smack dab in the midst of this milieu in the Old World and everyone is worried about her throughout James’s tale.

Although Isabel gives the countess short shrift, it is the countess who finally fills her in on the details of her husband’s past with Madame Merle and Pansy’s maternity. The countess said she was bored with her not knowing. She was sick of Osmond walking all over this innocent American who had too much integrity, too much desire to please. The countess didn’t exactly do any one any favors but since Osmond’s use of the higher ground was in her opinion, a sham, she’d finally had enough of her brother. She didn’t admire naiveté in a grown woman (Isabel) and wanted to see Osmond taken down a bit. She likes Isabel even though, as she says, Isabel doesn’t much care for her. She doesn’t owe any loyalty to Madame Merle so she spilled the beans. For one of the TPOAL's minor characters, she plays a huge role in the end.

Now I’m going to bring her back in the sequel as a woman who has left her husband, has no money and nowhere to go. Henrietta will take up her cause. Good old Henrietta, one of the book’s more capable characters. I feel the only way I can help all these women is to have them go into business or find useful work. That’s the American spirit, the modern way.

But she’ll have to carry her weight in this story. I’ve too many characters floating around not really contributing much to the plot. Actually, there isn’t a plot. I’m building chapter by chapter and to be truthful, not much is happening so far. I’m just resurrecting HJ's characters while not exactly doing much with them. I’d introduce new characters but I’m afraid I’ll go to far afield and not be able to find my way back. I knew writing a sequel to this long, nuanced novel would not be a cakewalk. I have thoughts of putting it aside as James himself did. He left it to incubate for about four or five years. But I’m into it for fifteen chapters so onward and upward and all that.

Restoring Madame Merle

I’ve brought Madame Merle back to Rome. She happened to meet Osmond at a dinner party but has not yet encountered Isabel. They saw each other in a hotel lobby but were distant enough to avoid communication.

Madame Merle is now Mrs. Gerald Halpern; I thought a new start in life would be good for this slightly cracked vessel. Her husband is a wealthy manufacturer from Illinois who fell for Madame Merle when he heard her play a Schubert piano sonata at a party of swells in New York. Madame Merle was once again earning her keep by singing for her supper or in this case playing with her exquisite white hands. Mr. Halpern had never much chance to hear classical music in his busy, industrial, Midwestern life and was smitten. He is not cultivated though he leans toward its seductive quality, an attribute James gives many of his American characters. Mr. Halpern courts Madame Merle, she allows it, they marry within a month and immediately set sail for Europe and a life of high culture as only Madame Merle can ascribe to. He knows nothing of her past except that she is a widow and as he is a widower, about the same age, mid-forties, so there they are, now in Rome for the season. She plans to revel in her renewed glory and more power to her. Mrs. Halpern has no plans to grovel before society as she may have before nor to worry much about the Osmonds.

That is until she sees Pansy in a hotel lobby with Isabel and feels the pangs of motherhood--she is impressed with the woman her daughter has become though she will not break her deal with Osmond or do anything to tarnish her reputation but she is going to enter the picture when Osmond tries to marry Pansy into a shabby noble family to a gambling prince without a shred of character. I will have her be the one to break it to Osmond and twist his arm in favor of the one Pansy does truly love: Isabel’s nephew, a medical student at Oxford. Unless, of course, none of this works out. Anything can happen with a first draft. I’ve already got too many disparate things going on.

I’m being pretty nice to the woman who has caused our Isabel much heartache but I always like a comeback and in the end aren't we always responsible for our own destiny? Isabel herself believes in the old Emersonian cudgel of self-reliance. And if I remember correctly, she did say something about not escaping one’s unhappiness, one’s fate when turning down Lord Warburton’s proposal of marriage. I have some nice things in store for her. Mr. James sincerely did eschew happily-ever-after but I may have trouble with that. Isabel, as her cousin Ralph said, was not made for suffering. I'm not partial to it either. I'm even having trouble wishing Osmond an unhappy fate. I'll have to get tougher before this thing is over.

If you would like to hear how seductive Schubert's piano sonatas can be, here are links to a very fine live recording by Alfred Brendel and a highly rated collection by Mitsuko Uchida.

The Tragic Muse of Mr. James

Henry James had a cousin named Mary Temple, who was called Minnie. She was a high-spirited lass who questioned everything, had a way with words that confounded just about everyone, exasperated men by saying exactly what she thought on subjects they felt had no place in a woman’s head at all and pretty much did just as she pleased including chopping off her hair at age seventeen, that representative symbol of all that is feminine. And not into a fashionable bob, but something more like metal patient scary or punk-rock rebellion. She was a very modern girl in the mid-to late-Victorian age.

Her cousin Henry thought her the best, the brightest the most marvelous person in the world. He told his brother William that though he wasn’t in love with her, he truly loved her. William deemed her “bad” but later apologized for his ill feeling and believed, like his brother that Minnie was quite special after all.

HJ believed in the rights of women. He thought women of spirit were given short shrift, denied the right to sparkle and thwarted at every turn. He thought marriage a gamble, wanted nothing to do with it himself, thought for the most part, this pursuit lacked distinction.

Minnie also loved her dear cousin Harry, as he was then called, who understood ambiguity, word-play and gifts of the spirit. They spent a good deal of time together in Newport as teenagers and spoke the same language--that of artists. He hoped she would not be soldered to some dud who would keep her planted in the soil of mediocrity. They talked of going to Europe where girls of her ilk often ended up--there was no place for them in puritan New England society. Minnie abhorred hypocrisy, blandness and settling for less than was one’s due. She wanted to roam free and talk only of what was “true.”

Instead, she developed tuberculosis and at twenty-three a death sentence was the inevitable sounding. She wanted desperately to go to Europe with HJ who was now in England sure she would get well in the country of George Eliot whom she worshipped. She wrote HJ of her planned voyage and the fun they would have together in Rome; plans that never came to fruition. By age twenty-five she was in her grave.

HJ was beginning his artistic life--he visited George Eliot and eventually knew all the great writers of Europe but he carried Minnie’s spirit with him always and said that she was the template on which all of his female characters were built, and most especially, our heroine, Isabel Archer.

It was said that Isabel is a composite of Minnie and James himself. Isabel does seem to be a little more tempered with some of the writer’s seriousness. Minnie is also said to be the inspiration for the dying Milly Theale in “The Wings of a Dove” but we are only concerned here with Isabel who is assuredly not dying. In chapter LIII of TPOAL, Isabel who feels she is whirling in an abyss of death after all that has been revealed and her forlorn journey to England has a moment of inspiration on the train:

Deep in her soul--deeper than any appetite for renunciation--was the sense that life would be her business for a long time to come. And at moments there was something inspiring, almost enlivening, in the conviction. It was a proof of strength--it was proof she should some day be happy again. It couldn't be she was to live only to suffer; she was still young, after all, and a great many things might happen to her yet. To live only to suffer--only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged--it seemed to her she was too valuable, to capable, for that. Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid to think so well of herself.

To be sure, her wings have been clipped, she has been put in the cage by Osmond just as her cousin Ralph predicted. And that’s the point of my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady;” to give Isabel back her wings and release her from the cage. That is, if she wants release--she did return to the Palazzo Roccanera and Osmond. Maybe she will grow to love her cage. Or her captor. Maybe the cage is only symbolic, unable to imprison a free-spirit, at least without her permission. We shall see.

"The Private Life of Henry James: Two Women and His Art," by Lyndall Gordon, ISBN 0-393-04711-3, was used as a reference for this post.

Impressionism: Madness!

Below is a sketch I've written that may or may not be included in the final draft of my sequel to "The Portrait of a Lady. I like to write these short stories to get my mind working on ideas for the continuing conflict between Isabel and Gilbert Osmond.

Gilbert Osmond entered Caffe Greco at eleven on a rainy Thursday morning in an aggravated disposition having just come from his art dealer, Raymond Durelli, where to his utter amazement he learned that a picture had been sold for a substantial sum to none other than his very own wife, Isabel, and she had not even requested the discount usually reserved for the better customers, of which, as his wife and he a frequent buyer, she was entitled to, though this is not first and foremost what had him in a furor.

No, what had him in such a fury was that she was buying a work of the so-called Impressionists; a laughable style of no redeeming value perpetrated by dealers in Paris to make fools of naive Americans and significantly line their own pockets while encouraging artists of lesser merit in their hostile campaign against all that was deemed intelligently sublime in the art and craft of painting as it had been practiced for centuries but was now to lie fallow as charlatans committed this fraud on the art world.

That his foolish wife of little taste should be among such gullibility was an outrage to Osmond, more so, as he had been negotiating for a superb Gian Lorenzo Bernini architectural drawing that was to be marketed for a considerable price tag of its own, and Osmond, hoping to extract this sum from his wife’s bank was incensed that she should part with one half the needed cash for this daub by the irascible James McNeill Whistler, a poseur, a hack, possibly the worst of the assemblage calling themselves Impressionists.

Osmond ruefully thought to himself Isabel had not the intelligence to choose the more talented of the bunch, Edgar Degas, who had at least a formidable set of skills lacking in the rest of the group even if he chose to align himself with these third-rate daubers, something he was sure to regret in time.

Now he was to learn by an indirect route that his duplicitous wife had purchased a minor chalk and pastel drawing of the Campanile Santa Margherita in Venice, a more weak, unfulfilled representation one was likely to find of a motif that had been rendered by so many artists in the past it was now almost a cliché but leave it to Isabel to be willfully obtuse--her central ideas having been born in ignorance, encouraged by a society gone mad.

She also had to know he would not hang this piece of humbug in the Palazzo Roccanera--she was therefore planning to hang it in Gardencourt, her house in England--a fact Osmond found as disagreeable as the artists she chose to sponsor and where Mr. Whistler made his home although he did not place the two facts within the same frame.

As Osmond ordered a campari and soda and took a corner table he chanced to see a personage he vaguely recognized, that of Mr. Edward Rosier, a collector of objects de art, old lace and enamels, and once a suitor of his daughter Pansy to no avail, a face he did not immediately distinguish--the gentleman had grown stout and now sported a full beard--and before Osmond could place him, wishing thoroughly to ignore him on principle, could not but take the offered hand as Mr. Rosier approached his table though inviting him to a seat would have been beyond Osmond’s sociable endurance.

“Ah, Mr. Osmond, don’t tell me you are now looking to establish in your drawing rooms a sampling of the Impressionists; I would never have taken you for one who falls for such shenanigans but it is all the rage these days so you may have made a good investment.”

Osmond glared at the impudent man, his eyes ablaze with rancor and deigned not to answer this mocking accusation but instead return the jab: “I don’t in the least know what you mean, Mr. Rosier, is it? Ah, yes, now I remember you and your little collection, you sold it, did you not? And got a good price too if I recall.”

Mr. Rosier colored a little at the obvious reminder of their shared past and decided to continue his subtle attack on a man he thought sinister. “I’ve just come from Durelli’s and I couldn’t help but notice you and Mrs. Osmond now possess a Whistler drawing, might I congratulate you?” he said with a factious grin.

“You may congratulate my wife if that is what it is, I myself know nothing of Mr. Whistler nor care about his meager efforts.”

“I understand your wife is a great friend of the artist. He’s quite sought after-- quite the darling of the public. I hear he is to paint Mrs. Osmond’s portrait. You are tolerant: a portrait by Mr. Whistler can take considerable time. Many ladies have been quite worn out posing for hours a day, with never-ending sittings...he takes great pains with his portrayals...and for a dear price, I'm told.” With that he gave a hearty laugh, tipped his hat and left Osmond stewing.

Osmond’s mood was blackening to a deadly rage as he contemplated what the insufferable man Rosier told him. If it were true, he would surely have to rein in his obdurate wife again. She would become a blot on his reputation as a collector of Old Masters and antiquities. He would have to demand Durelli refund the money for the Whistler drawing and put it toward the Bernini. As for the alleged portrait, tolerance had never been Osmond’s forte and it would not now be practiced in any way regarding the Impressionists, a trend that will soon, and can only be, regarded as a bout of madness, he thankfully concluded.

How Can I Follow the Money?

Another quandary I’m having writing my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady” regards the money. We know Isabel inherited from her uncle Daniel Touchett a sum of 70,000 pounds. With this inheritance, so vast it would seem, Gilbert Osmond was convinced by his friend and former mistress Madame Merle to make an “effort” for Isabel. She was referred to as “very rich.” They marry and live in a palace in Rome, lavishly furnished in Osmond’s irrefutable taste, and I would wager that taste runs to the expensive as he’s busy turning the palazzo into a museum. Isabel herself is regal in her brocade gowns and velvet capes.

I’m not sure if this 70,000 pounds was the total sum of the bequest or if it was the annual sum. In Jane Austen's novels, every character is thoroughly dissected and judged by his or her annual income so I’m not sure if Isabel’s bounty was 70,000 or 70,000 annually although James never uses the word “annually.” Would 70,000 pounds be so remarkable if it had to last a young woman of twenty-three her lifetime with enough to spare to disburse a share to her sisters which she immediately did? Even if today you multiplied it by ten, would having 700,000 pounds be “very rich” in these inflated times? 700,000 pounds a year would be pretty dang wealthy in my opinion but 700,000 total could be gone through pretty quickly if you were to buy a palace and redecorate it? Or would those 70,000 pounds be more like seven million today? I’ll have to look into it.

In the nineteenth century living in Europe was still inexpensive, American dollars went a long way which is why there was such a large expatriate community; it was a way to make a meager fortune go further and I believe life in Italy was quite the bargain. Mrs. Touchett lived in a cavernous palace of historical importance in Florence but she was really, really, rich though James does not say in numbers how rich that was.

Then we come to the questions regarding marital money: Does Osmond immediately come into possession of Isabel’s fortune as her husband? Is the reason she hesitates to leave him because he now has possession of the money and property? Or like today, half of it? I don’t know what the laws in Italy on such matters were. I would suspect they favor men. Is the fortune, in English pounds, in an English bank not subject to Italian laws?

Then there is Osmond’s property in Florence. He owned a modest though attractive villa on a hillside with splendid views. Did he sell it when they moved to Rome which enabled them to buy Palazzo Roccanera or do they now own both? In fact, are they renters and not homeowners at all? Will they ever run short of money if they spend too much on a lavish lifestyle? All these things are a consideration when writing the sequel because money has a great deal to do with complications arising between a couple. Does Osmond have complete freedom with the checkbook or does Isabel have control over the finances? Does he get an allowance, like a kept man? That could explain some of his animosity. Does she lord it over him or is he a spendthrift out of control?

All these factors have to be considered. Much of it I can make up but it would be good to know the exact details for correct understanding. Money is always an important framework in fact and in fiction. It is what makes the world go ‘round and life run smoothly. Jane Austen understood this completely and never left us in any doubt as to who possessed it, who needed it, and how much there was for building a life together. She understood not all lifestyles are created equal and didn't mind spelling it out.

The Osmonds in Six Sentences

I occasionally visit a site called sixsentence.blogspot.com where stories are written and posted in six sentences. Lately, when I'm wandering aimlessly with my sequel to "The Portrait of a Lady" I spin something in six sentences that may or may not end up in the sequel. I do it to get my mind working without getting involved in the logistics of the story. Below I've given you the six-sentence wonder I posted yesterday. It also works for my own short story blog, velburkowski.blogspot.com, a site where I am attempting to write one hundred short stories. All in all, I'm getting a lot of mileage out of these six sentences as they are now posted on three sites. I received one comment saying it was written in a style of days-gone-by. That's a good compliment: It's what I'm striving for with this sequel to TPOAL.

ISABEL'S SHADOW
Isabel Osmond was having difficulty swallowing her meager repast of fruit, tea, bread and honey after having come from her husband’s study an hour previous where they quarreled about a sum for an old master painting he wished to purchase that she felt they could not afford at this time.

While sitting in a small courtyard adjacent to the dining room in a desultory mood, Mrs. Osmond was delivered a telegram - by mistake - a missive intended for Mr. Osmond from a woman who identified herself as Mrs. Halpern. The message sent to Mrs. Osmond’s husband, Gilbert Osmond, suggested a time and a place for a meeting with an implication that it was of some urgency though not anything dire in nature.

Isabel at first confused as to the identity of the woman had her maid summoned and instructed her to dispatch the telegram to her husband’s butler, Higgins, not thinking much of the incident, assuming it was in relation to his lately manic acquisitiveness for paintings of the Renaissance period and that immediately preceding it. He was in negotiations with several owners of such paintings and was in a flurry of communication and travel a propos potential sales.

Mrs. Osmond drank her tea, nibbled at an orange slice but left the bread untouched and was about to leave the courtyard before the sun became intense when her mind clicked into operating mode: she remembered where she had heard the name Halpern - it was her husband’s former mistress Madame Merle, recently remarried, once again plotting with Osmond, their intrigues a thing a great flowering - of which Isabel could only speculate on while the blood raced to her head precipitously, aware that once again she would have to contend with her husband’s secretive past when what she had hoped for was a future free of its menacing shadow.

Artistic License

The thing I like about Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond is that they are watercolorists--artistes, if you will. I like painters in general so it’s probable that I'm going to cut both of these shady characters some slack in my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady,” my opinion being, they can’t be all bad.

Here’s a conversation between the former lovers in Osmond’s modest villa in Florence with the charming views and the “perfect rooms.” Madame Merle is paying a call to tell him of her find; a Miss Archer who will meet all of his requirements, mentioned in the previous post, and that she plans to bring her to see his “museum.” She has piqued his interest but he diverts her for a moment to digest the information.

…he pointed out the easel supporting the little water-colour drawing. ‘Have you seen what’s there--my last?” Madame Merle drew near and considered. ‘Is it the Venetian Alps--one of your last year’s sketches?’
‘Yes--but how you guess everything!’
She looked a moment longer, then turned away. ‘You know I don’t care for your drawings.’
‘I know it, yet I’m always surprised at it. They’re really so much better than most people’s.’
‘That may very well be. But as the only thing you do--well, it’s so little. I should have liked you to do so many other things: those were my ambitions.’
‘Yes, you have told me many times--things that were impossible.’
‘Things that were impossible,’ said Madame Merle. And then in quite a different tone: ‘In itself your little picture’s very good.'

What has this conversation to do with anything? Nothing really. I like her criticism to make her own point, then alternately, to compliment. Madame Merle has a way of speaking in dichotomies--not to be taken literally. This is apparent throughout James’s novel. Osmond uses similar methods to obfuscate. Poor Isabel, young, unworldly, is no challenge for these two spin-meisters. They lead her down a path.

I include a sketch of Rome by one of my favorite artists, Claude Lorrain for no reason other than the Osmonds now live in Rome where my sequel is taking place and that I’m in an artistic frame of mind and want to gussy up the post a bit. Since Osmond and his little water-colour sketch are a only a fiction, I have looked elsewhere for visual interest.

"View of the Church of St.Trinita dei Monti, Rome," c.1632, 
Claude Lorrain

Who Is Madame Merle, Really?

Madame Merle figures largely in “The Portrait of a Lady” but James never wrote from her point of view; what we know of her is through dialogue with the other characters or what they said about her. We were never inside the conscious of Madame Merle so it is easy to write her off as a shady character with sordid motives who did our heroine Isabel quite a disservice but once again, James did not go in for such black and white depictions. He was an artist first and foremost, never caving to popular taste with easy characterization.

Ralph Touchett had his reservations about her--he suspected she was not quite as presented. He sensed a driving unfulfilled ambition. In Chapter XXV he says,“…she pushes the search for perfection too far--that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She’s too good, too kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She’s too complete, in a word, I confess to you that she acts on my nerves…” When Isabel asks him if he knew anything that was not to the honour of her friend he replied, “Nothing whatever. Don’t you see that’s just what I mean? On the character of every one else you may find some little black speck…but on Madame Merle’s nothing, nothing, nothing!”

We do not know until Isabel knows that she was once Gilbert Osmond’s mistress, that the two made a pact to look out for each other after the affaire d’amour ended. We then learn along with Isabel that Pansy is the daughter not of Osmond and his first wife, but of Osmond and Madame Merle. It’s too bad Ralph could not find that little black speck before his cousin married. He may have been able to dissuade her with something more than a hint that Osmond was somehow “small.”

Madame Merle set Isabel up. She convinced Osmond to “make an effort” in regard to Miss Archer; Osmond, who had long ago given up on effort said he would only do so if certain contingencies were met: “Is she beautiful, clever, rich, splendid, universally intelligent and unprecedented virtuous? It’s only on those conditions that I care to make her acquaintance. You know I asked you some time ago never to speak to me of a creature who shouldn’t correspond to that description. I know plenty of dingy people; I don’t want to know any more.” To which Madame Merle replies, “Miss Archer isn’t dingy; she’s as bright as the morning. She corresponds to your description; it’s for that I wish you to know her. She fills all of your requirements.” To be fair to Gilbert Osmond he did connote she might be meant for something better. Madame Merle said that didn’t matter, only what use she could make of her and Osmond replied, “I’m sorry for Miss Archer!” It shows he had a sense of self-deprecation, that he may not be the rank egotist he is later depicted as.

Who is Madame Merle in private? What are her thoughts? She’s a compelling composite of the highly cultivated, sophisticated, ambiguous European. James has her heading to American, a pariah of sorts, to stay a good long time. As I said in an earlier post, I decided to bring her back to Europe with a rich husband in tow. I wanted to do something nice for her. She’s tarnished goods but I feel sorry for her. She's also a plein air painter, something I dabble in myself. I need her in my sequel; I need all the dark horses available to get this thing trotting at a good clip.

Henrietta To The Rescue

I reread chapter ten of “The Portrait of a Lady” in which Henrietta Stackpole, a journalist and great friend of Isabel’s has followed her to England and arrives at Gardencourt where she immediately confronts Ralph Touchett with all her prejudices and exactitudes and sets to work on him. She accuses him of having abandoned his country, America, of having no work to do and refusing to marry and I assume produce children, all in her opinion, the price everyone must pay to be a part of the great future. Patriotism. Contribution. Establishment. The fact that the poor man is gravely ill holds no sway with her. She tells Isabel she does not believe in sickness, has never been sick and that one should work in spite of it. She’s quite a pistol.

She comes to England with the desire to meet the nobility, not to fawn over them but to write about the inner lives of the establishment. She wants to get to the heart of a thing, she says. When she finally meets Lord Warburton and his sister, neighbors and friends of the Touchetts, she cuts them no slack. While she rebukes Ralph for indolence, she has less respect for inherited wealth, the ownership of a vast estate, including its people and having a high position without working for it. She demands to know what the sister is about, chastises the poor girl for having nothing to say for herself and lets Lord Warburton know that he is most certainly remiss--she is not at all sure how deep it goes but that she intends to find out. That Lord Warburton is considered a radical reformer, she bypasses. He implies he can agree with her in principle but the system is deeply entrenched and reform will be long in the future. Henrietta is not impressed.

Ralph, once he finally understands Miss Stackpole finds delight in teasing her mercilessly. The banter between Ralph and Henrietta Stackpole is James in a lighter mood and these two characters remind us of how Isabel arrived in Europe in high spirits with a great deal of humorous jesting amongst her friends. Toward the end of the novel Isabel is so cowered by her husband she cannot even receive Henrietta or her cousin in her own home and in fact wishes them to leave Rome altogether. She is nervous and embarrassed to have them see what has become of her.

I wasn’t sure how much Henrietta would figure in the sequel to TPOAL but she is one of the more likable characters in James’s novel so I have given her a place. In truth, I can’t resist her. She’s a modern American career woman so I can get a feel for her. In fact I have a better feel for her than for Isabel who still eludes me. And Henrietta’s just the one to stick it to Osmond. Needless to say they can’t stand one another. He has no sense of humor to deal with her as Ralph and Lord Warburton had. He finds her unbearable and when he finds anyone not to his favor, they are banished from his kingdom. We’ll have to change that.

In A Killing Mood

I woke up in a really bad mood yesterday and decided I was going to kill off Gilbert Osmond in my sequel to "The Portrait of a Lady." It’s not that I have so much against him, it was just something to do. I thought if I got rid of him all the women--Isabel, Pansy, Madame Merle, Countess Gemini--could be free of his burdensome presence and have some fun in Palazzo Roccanera. I sat down to begin writing and decided I might need this character for conflict. Too bad. I was really looking forward to writing about an accident I’d conjured up for him. I’ll save this passage for possible later use. Instead I killed off Caspar Goodwood who wasn’t much a part of anything and I was sick of him popping up in HJ's novel, stalking Isabel and refusing to take no for an answer. He adds nothing to her story; just a rejected suitor from her youth who won’t move on. I was hoping I could have him go down with the Titanic but we’re still in the 19th century so that wouldn’t work. I won’t say how I killed him off, I’ll keep it a mystery so I don’t give away the story, such as it is, with no real plot I’m set on. But I keep writing...

The Missing Three Years

Last night I went back and read chapter XXXIV where Isabel listens to her cousin Ralph while he tries to discourage her from marrying Gilbert Osmond by telling her she will be put in a cage. After a long conversation where Isabel assures him at the beginning he needn’t bother as she is quite set on the thing, Isabel asks at the end, “Do you think I am in trouble?” and he replies “One is in trouble when one is in error.”

Moving into chapter XXXV we listen to Gilbert Osmond profess fine words to his betrothed on their future happiness, his own delight. “I won’t pretend I’m sorry you’re rich; I’m delighted. I delight in everything that’s yours--whether it be money or virtue. Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.” When Osmond’s daughter Pansy is told she says it’s very delightful, “…you and papa will suit each other. You’re both so quiet and serious.”

The couple marries without fanfare and we are moved three years forward not privy to anything that happens in those three years except that a son is born, to die six months later. How did he die? What was his name? We don’t know. In the 19th century it was not uncommon for babies to die in the first year. James doesn’t seem to have anything to say on this event and it is lightly passed over. Why include it at all? Today the death of a six-month-old son would be worthy of a few sentences if we are, as James said, studying the psychological motives of our character. We have no idea if or how this affected Mrs. Osmond and certainly not Gilbert Osmond. Again, I may be trying to inflict 21st-century psychometrics on the 19th century. But just because babies frequently do not make it to the first birthday does not mean a shock hasn’t taken place. I could come back to this in my sequel but should I? I just have a nagging suspicion that part of the couple’s disdain for each other may have begun with the death of this son. But we don’t know, it was not a part of HJ’s framework.

So all happiness was expected and all happiness lost with all the naysayers (almost everyone in the story) proven correct. That is the compelling drama of TPOAL. It is also what bothers me; those missing three years. How have they become enemies within three years? Not that it can’t happen, marriages often break down in three years, give or take. But why in this case? The question hasn’t been answered to my satisfaction. Nevertheless, Mr. and Mrs. Osmond have fallen apart and that is what I have to grapple with to write a sequel.

Where Am I To Go With This?

Tossing around in bed last night while the rest of the country was worrying over their need of gainful employment, lack of health insurance, swindled investments and the cost of a good haircut, I was obsessing about Isabel Archer Osmond and Company. I had two things going on that were not necessarily in agreement: One, I wanted to end “The Portrait of a Lady,” do what James wouldn’t do which was to tidy up all the loose ends and conclude the saga of Isabel and her failed marriage. (Have her divorce the beast or suck it up and find new interests.) By chapter five I had already done that. I had the couple reach a truce in chapter two and all the other characters falling into a set place with nary a conflict or piece of misery anywhere. Everyone is happy. Or at least accepting;

Two, while it is my natural instinct to give Isabel a happy ending, or at least a life-goes-on-such-as-it-is ending, a sequel must have its own story which is conflict, action, resolution. I’m in over my head and find it tough going inventing a story set in the 19th century in a foreign country. Now what?

Now I don’t have a sequel is what. I have an ending that James might have used but did not care for happily-ever-after, rarely used it, was chastised and made to suffer for it especially when he wanted to convert his novels into plays to make some serious money. He was told the theatre-going public would not tolerate a story without a happy ending, he tested that theory and found out the hard way, it was true. So biting the bullet, excuse the cliché, “The American” was the rewritten to those ends only to see it fail miserably at the box office while his nemesis Oscar Wilde succeeded brilliantly and lucratively which had been Mr. James‘s goal all along. James thought Wilde’s plays trivial exploitation, riddled with nonsense. The public loved them. He thought Wilde an exhibitionist and a major poseur. The public showered him with praise. Nothing much has changed. Just substitute literary novel into Hollywood screenplay and you understand Mr. James’s wretchedness. Not to be daunted he tried for several years to write successful plays and still dejectedly failed. His heart was broken and his coffers mostly unrewarded. I include a few quotes on the night his failed play ended in hisses and boos: The theatre is an abyss of vulgarity & of brutish platitude: from which one ought doubtless to welcome any accident that detaches one. And then, I have practically renounced my deluded dreams. The horridest four weeks of my life.

In the end he could not write seriously a happy ending; and when he attempted to change the outcome the whole thing fell apart. It was his idea that a novel should be the stuff of realism and psychological investigation and wanted no part of infantile fantasy.

And that is why I was awake last night wondering what I have gotten myself into. How could I pull this off without delving into the worlds of schlock and soap opera the master would abhor? I didn’t even get around to my own unemployment, lack of health insurance, homelessness, bankruptcy and really bad hair. But I have my priorities and HJ cannot fault me there.

"Henry James: The Imaginative Genius," by Fred Kaplan was used as a reference for this post. It is unavailable through Amazon, hence, no link but other biographies are available if you would like to read more on Henry James.

Italian Hours (I Wish)

I’ve discovered a little problem writing my sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady” and that problem is Italy. Or the fact that I have never been there. Henry James spent much time in Italy and set most of TPOAL in Florence and Rome. While writing TPOAL he fell absolutely in love with Venice. He described the "pure light air," talked of his room "flooded with the splendid sunshine," and in Florence, his "supercelestial" villa with "the most beautiful views on earth," so enchanting, so seductive was its spell he was often unable to work. He had a large community of friends in the three cities and plenty of distraction. Nevertheless, he was able to give a luxurious rendering of the Italian cities that alas, I will be unable to emulate in my sequel unless someone out there wants to take me to Italy. I am available for this journey, I am unemployed and free as can be, vowing to write something worthwhile if only for myself. As it is, I can only use second-hand material, either from TPOAL or from James’s travel writings and letters, or just information on the Internet. If I were in a villa in Florence, a palazzo in Rome or an apartment in Venice I could sparkle with descriptive passages while modulating the relationship of Isabel and Osmond. A simple hotel room would probably work just fine.

That said, James did not spend a great deal of wordage describing scenery in TPOAL. This was a character-driven novel and besides Isabel Archer Osmond, there were plenty of other characters that had to be rounded out, piles of dialogue and psychological insight to administer though he was able with a few succinct descriptions to place us in Italy with the Osmonds, especially in Palazzo Roccanera, their home in Rome. So it will probably be alright if I’m a little thrifty with descriptions as I will be busy with the Osmonds, Madame Merle, Pansy, Henrietta Stackpole Bantling and Mrs. Touchett. I also plan to introduce a few more characters so I may be forgiven if I can’t with any sensuousness describe the Italian light, its smells, the beauty of the people, the grace of the gondoliers, the cathedrals, piazzas, ruins…the sunrises and sunsets. If I do, I’ve either got a wonderful imagination, Mr. James is speaking to me from the afterlife, or I read it in a travel guide. That is, unless someone wants to take me to Italy and be of assistance with a more accurate portrayal. Below you will find links to a couple of HJ’s books on Italy. He wrote a great many travel pieces on Europe for American magazines that were later compiled into books. It was good money and earning money was necessary to live the good life which he certainly did. While residing in London he dreamed of Italy. I’m dreaming of Italy myself--I hope it will help.

Gilbert Osmond: Total Rat or Just Misunderstood?

Gilbert Osmond remains somewhat of a mystery to me. We know he married for money but we are not at all sure he didn’t admire Isabel a little. He said some very touching things to her in their courtship. He told Madame Merle he thought her full of grace and charm. But three years into the marriage we learn she is unhappy but I am not sure if it is because he is a bully, an emotional blackmailer, a woman-hater or any combination thereof, or if Isabel simply gets on his nerves with her opinions and personality, nothing more than an innate incompatibility that time will distill as it does for many couples after the initial shock of recognition takes place, after the courtship ends and reality sets in. Is he devious? Yes, certainly. Is he violent? Isabel says he is not violent, but simply “he does not care for me.” What does that imply? In another passage she says “It’s not you, it is me he hates.” Is she just oversensitive, overly dramatic? Is she reacting to a lack of affection or lack of respect? Does he disregard her physically and does a lack of sexual interest recoil inside of her as a snaky form of rejection? It’s hard to know. James does not exactly spell it out. All we know is that Osmond married for money, though not solely for money, is attached to his own ideas, fond of having his own way, is petulant, condescending and keeps his wife at arm’s length. The same could be said of her. Yet the relationship began with affection and warmth. Where did it go? We don’t know. Osmond tells Madame Merle that he wished to be “adored” but since that is not to be, he has to live with it.

James spends many chapters with the surrounding characters, Isabel’s friends, while they speculate on her marriage, the state of her mind but Isabel herself offers little but that yes, she is to be pitied. She admits she is unhappy, but doesn’t tell us exactly why other than her husband apparently can’t stand her. Why not? A feminist reading on the novel tells us it's the old standby: the need for a husband to dominate and defuse a strong woman with "ideas." I can agree up to a point but to me the situation screams sexual incompatibility, something James would never broach.

I think Mr. James got tired of Isabel after a while and gave up on her. As a man, he couldn’t quite get inside the head of a mature woman in an unhappy marriage. He was not married and perhaps tinkering with the Osmond’s marriage became too challenging for his limited resources. He had an idea of a lady, what might happen if certain events were put in place but it got too complicated when the actual marriage became the story. He was only interested in Isabel Archer Osmond up to a point; that point being her choice once free of monetary concern, after which, he lost interest. He did his fact-finding, he reported the findings. He did not go in for the “so then what happened?” the book was quite long enough and he worked on deadline.

So as I speculate, I've begun my sequel and have only to figure out Osmond's state of mind. Is he the bad guy? It would certainly make my job easier if I could make him a really odious character, given to pettiness, infidelity, shady dealings, collusion. But James did not go in for such easy assertions. He wanted to make a fiction that was like life and in life there are many shades a gray. In marriage it's usually he who weeps and wails the loudest is the victim but it's not necessarily the truth. My first chapters have him petulant, sore over his wife's trip to England, peeved at having been outed by his sister--he's lost a lot of leverage with that and mostly bored by Isabel, except for the money of course. You see, I've a lot to flesh out with Gilbert Osmond.

The following books were used for reference in this post:
Modern Critical Interpretations Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady, Harold Bloom editor; ISBN 1-55546-008-9
Modern Novelists, Henry James, by Alan W. Bellringer, ISBN 0-312-02056-2

Meandering with Isabel

I am meandering around with Isabel Osmond’s life, not certain where it will go. I’ve brought her back to Rome, back to the Palazzo Roccanera and her flinty, mean-spirited husband Gilbert Osmond, had her stand up to him on the first day back and tried to portray him as James had. He is a most interesting character. More on him in the next post. I’m pleased with the second chapter where the couple meets after her return and talk it out. I felt so satisfied with the dialogue I was psyched up enough to begin this blog. Now I’m ruffling through the characters,  reading Isabel’s state of mind hoping to find some new conflict that will make a story. I have Isabel and Osmond in a truce for now which doesn’t make for exciting reading but truces end, don't they?

James had Madame Merle leaving for America where she was to stay for some time but I decided she was too worthy of a character to put in exile, too much a part of the story to ignore. I brought her back from America  early with a rich husband in tow. I wanted to do something nice for her: James left her in a failed state, pitiful, banished and despised by Isabel, Osmond and  Pansy, who is her daughter, though the girl is as of yet unaware of her parentage. Will I change that?  I’m not sure. I first want to know who is the real Madame Merle and will write more on her later.

Henrietta Stackpole is an appealing character; a feisty, opinionated American journalist, who incidentally,  has the last line in the story with the unsatisfactory ending. I’ve put her prominently in my sequel beginning in the seventh chapter but am not sure how much of her life I really want to go into, or rather, how important she will figure in Isabel‘s life. James had her ready to start a newspaper with a legacy from Ralph Touchett and I’m keeping with that though I changed it to a magazine. We both agreed it was high time she married Mr. Bantling so I have her married and settling in London.

Isabel plans to find a suitable husband for Osmond's daughter Pansy after her father refused her first suitor, Edward Rosier in James’s story. Osmond wanted her to fetch a better price, namely marriage to Lord Warburton, but that did not go as he hoped for which he blamed Isabel. I was adamant that I’d  rescue poor little Pansy in my sequel. I have Mr. Rosier engaged to a French girl though he shows up once more at the Osmonds Thursday evening soiree to goad Osmond and attest his sincerity to Pansy. Though she is not a large character, maybe will figure as a catalyst for more trouble with Osmond. She’s sweet and docile, not the stuff of  high drama. Unless…

So there we are. I have the first six chapters completed to my satisfaction and the first draft of chapters seven, eight and nine but as I said, have not got the exact gist of the situation installed in my outline nor my mind. “Brick by brick” as Mr. James said.

Mr. Sargent's Painting

"Street in Venice," by John Singer Sargent
1882, oil on wood.

I just finished reading a book on blogging that suggests pictures are a necessity to break up the text on the blog. I didn't want any old picture so I thought of what I would use on a book jacket when or if such an opportunity should arise. So now one of my favorite paintings graces my blog and it portrays who I think of as Isabel Archer when she was young and free, before Gilbert Osmond. The painting is, as it says, by John Singer Sargent and works well for my purpose. It was painted in 1882 and "The Portrait of a Lady" was published in 1880-81 so they work nicely together. Sargent spent much time painting in Venice. James fell in love with Venice working on TPOAL: He set most of the novel in Italy. Both were American expatriates highly regarded in their artistic endeavors. They were very good friends, knew many of the same people and were sought after. Both remained single throughout their lives. The artist painted HJ's portrait in 1913. I won't go any  further on Mr. Sargent, but you get the picture. I hope it inspires you to see the original in Washington D.C. It's one fantastic painting.

So now we have some visual interest, I've done my part. I have to get back to my sequel, no easy task.

Me and Mr. James

I began writing a sequel to “The Portrait of a Lady,” Henry James’s “big” work that he intended to be his masterpiece with more than a little trepidation. I don’t for a moment pretend to write like the master. Mr. James was far too eloquent to be glibly imitated and far too worldly to be replicated by myself. His was a work of the 19th century but his writing life was filled with many of the same modes and manners of 21st century publishing: Low sales, constant rewrites, bad reviews, failed stories, competition and the desire to live up to the greatest in literature. Add to it all, the ambition to create something grand and lasting when the culture was often shallow, venal and narcissistic.

For myself, it has always been one of my top five novels, possibly the top, along with "Middlemarch,” “Washington Square,” "Pride and Prejudice” and “Persuasion.” But it was with the fourth reading this past year that I realized I still do not know Isabel Archer Osmond though I should: James put so much into this character that we should know her perfectly. Still, I have many questions about her; her reactions and mostly her marriage. James said he was going to build a character "brick by brick" and see what would be the result. These days, a character has to be spelled out completely or the story would be said to be, unrealized or ambiguous leaving the reader with a sense of unfinished business. Critics also thought it to have an unsatisfactory ending, in fact no ending at all, to which he replied, I’ve given you a look at a character within a time frame. It is for others to answer the question of what happens outside of this frame, though I am not directly quoting him.

Since James left it open, I take that as a challenge to continue on with the life of Isabel Osmond, at least her weary return to Rome after her beloved cousin’s funeral and to what life will offer her after knowing the truth of her husband’s betrayal, Madame Merle’s part, his daughter’s maternity and her own “unhappiness” that now has a point of reference. I do not yet know how far this will take me into her life, maybe just a year or two. Maybe I just want to get even with Gilbert Osmond and Madame Merle. Maybe I want to see little “limited” Pansy saved from her father’s egomania. I’m beginning with an open mind. Maybe I will save this marriage. Or not. We’ll see. I plan to build it brick by brick as James did and see what we are learn. I have a no-nonsense newspaper style not given to flourish and ambiguity. Still, I wish to be true to the characters, their speech patterns, personalities and positions. It would be natural to make Gilbert Osmond the demon but is he necessarily and not just a snobbish European patriarch with an emotionally immature wife? Is Madame Merle a conniving witch or a mother seeking the best for her daughter? Is Isabel an innocent abroad or budding feminist seeking her own ideas and way? Is the marital struggle one of two egocentric personalities fighting for dominance? She is much loved and highly regarded by her friends and family but is she a warm and responsive wife? Does she even like men? She turned down two highly regarded specimens before settling on Osmond whom she thought less likely to consume her.

By the way, I'm already up to chapter six in my sequel. Not bad. I'm not at all sure where I'm heading with this. I've outlined some ideas but haven't gotten the real feel for where Mr. and Mr. Osmond will end up. That will be the purpose of this blog: trying to figure out just what Mr. James would do and what I can make of them. Stay with me, but I must tell you, I'm not going to post my sequel here. That will be for a publisher. But I will let you experience with me the laborious process of continuing where the master left off. It's off to Rome. Vel