This review is for "The Reverberator".

I was glancing through a critical work on English Literature during the 19th century when I tumbled across the title of this book. It struck a chord with me and, knowing I have it, decided on the spot to read it. Now, just to clear this up, no matter how much you might want The Reverberator of the title to be some sort of roaring, wracking steam-punk engine, it's not. It's a newspaper, a prototype of The National Enquirer". However, the story is rife with reverberations, as well.

At this point, let me say I love Henry James. This is a typical Jamesian novel, actually more of a long novella - only 140 pages in the LOA volume, a short, not difficult and rewarding read, an exploration of the brashness of America against the backdrop of the crumbling facade which was the Europe of the day. The new, lively egalitarianism of American society set against the decay of the Ancien Regime and it's pretenders. This is a favorite theme of James. One he explored briefly in 'The Portrait of a Lady" and, more deeply, in "The Golden Bowl".

The issue at hand is a marriage between these two worlds, the daughter of an immensely wealthy, but unprepossessing, unselfconscious American gentleman, and the scion of an ex-patriot (several generations removed) American family. A family most self-conscious, a family married, in all respects, to decadent, minor royalty. One gets the feeling they are glad they escaped America, a land of self-reliance and energy for Old Europe, where a few connections is all one needs to indulge one's indolence. And the Proberts are nothing if not indolent.

It occurs to me that James sets them up as an ex-pat family to make plain his point here is a clash of cultures, not heritage, although heritage does play a role, as it turns out, the opposite role of the cultural clash. This may be a modern reading and something that might have come as a surprise to James, however, I doubt it. There may be a lesson in this with regard to some of our modern immigrants, as well.

As a matter of course through the events of the story, this indolence and much else besides is made public in an edition of The Reverberator, much to the supposed chagrin of the Probert family. It seems that living an indolent life is not undesirable, just that the details of that indolence should not find their way into public view. Another sign of the decadence of Europe in the face of the burgeoning meritocracy across the water.

Europe and America are definitely competing cultures in this novel. With, from the standpoint of an American, me, the Europeans coming out rather poorly in the tiff. However, as James matures, I think he takes a step back from this attitude, finding much of value in the old ways that are being willy-nilly trampled by this same American bull-in-a-china-shop approach to culture. But in The Reverberator James is not afraid to stomp on the lilies and the dandelions alike. I don't think at this stage of his life he is capable of seeing the lilies.

A classic example of the difference is the description two suitors for the same hand give of their prospects in life. The American suitor will provide for his intended by taking The Reverberator in a new direction, making it a newspaper in demand, giving the American audience what they want, while the European suitor has a small dependence from a deceased relative, and will surely inherit enough from his father to provide a comfortable life for his hoped for wife. Independence and Dependence juxtaposed in the two suitors. One looks forward to the crush of responsibility and opportunity limited only by the imagination, while the other has no imagination, responsibility, nor the freedom to discover any. Of course the Frenchified Proberts consider themselves superior to the Americans, while the Americans don't much see the fuss. For the Americans, who you are, is meaningless, it's what you do that counts.

What a wonderful metaphor this story makes for the passing of the baton from Europe to America. I'm not sure James understood his story in those terms, but it most definitely is the story he wrote.

I give this story four stars, mostly because he improved on it later in his career with the "Golden Bowl", but as I've said before and will, no doubt, say again, James on a bad day, and there were decidedly no bad days in the writing of this book, is better than all but a handful on their very best days. Had this been nearly anyone else, it would have rated five stars. James and George Eliot stretch the curve, deeply. What an observer!

NA

"The princess casamassima", "The reverberator", "The tragic muse"