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.
25 October 2010
19 October 2010
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:
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.
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.
13 October 2010
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.
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.
10 October 2010
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.
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.
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