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.