4 stars. Very enjoyable (but too short for me) read. Good world building and characterizations. :) ( )

This is a difficult book to read. It's long. It was written as a serial, and you can tell. Sentences are long and convoluted, with multiple clauses. I frequently had to reread sentences twice. Henry James always seems unable to say something in 10 words when 50 will do. But in this book his style is willfully difficult, even obscure.

James tells the story though the thoughts of his main character, Lewis Lambert Strether, and the dialogue in which he takes part. This, I think, explains the extra difficulty of the style. Strether is courtly and kind, but never direct. His thoughts are as unclear and romantic as his speech is flowery. He is an observer, but he sees what he wants to see, and therefore his thoughts are often elliptical. Thus as we read his thoughts, we have to decode what's happening. But the information we have to decode is incomplete until a fuller picture accretes by the end.

And so, despite the difficulties, this is a deep and rewarding book. It is complex and interesting. James beautifully paints the setting, time and characters. The writing is controlled and the story frame is perfectly plotted, and evenly paced and presented. The work can be beautiful, but it is always brittle. For example, in one chapter, near the end, there is a masterly written interlude -- truly one of the best I've ever read -- in which Strether visits the French countryside. But this enchantment is succeeded by an encounter that shatters everything Strether thought he knew, and the story he had constructed, about his friends and his trip.

It is the subtlest of novels. Nothing is clear, or simple -- not to see, not to understand, not to choose. I think it is a masterpiece. And, at the same time, a hard slog. I'm eager to reread it. Yet I could understand others throwing it across the room after a couple of chapters, or even pages. ( )