The narrator of the story, a book reviewer, cannot discover the secret meaning and intention of his favorite author. He becomes obsessed with finding the "figure in the carpet." It made me think...
What is the secret intent of any artist's work? Can we enjoy reading, listening, or viewing art without ever knowing? What if we don't interpret it in the way that the artist intended? ( )

"A Figure in the Carpet" by Henry James is sometimes considered a short story and sometimes a novella. The narrator is a writer employed by a newspaper who is tasked with reviewing his favourite author's latest novel. After meeting said author, who tells him that his works include a secret, a kind of truth or particular point, the writer becomes obsessed with finding out what this secret is.
It was a pleasure to read this story because of the fascinating plot and the compelling writing style. Every sentence is on point and this made for an enjoyable reading experience. So far I have only read "The Bostonians" and "The Beast in the Jungle" by Henry James, which I liked both, but I enjoyed this one even more. The only aspect that was negative to me was the ending as it felt too constructed and too tragic. It was one unfortunate instance too many, and I would have wished for a bit of closure at least. Apart from that it is a great story and it has shown me once again that I wish to get to the other works of Henry James. ( )

This novella (or short story) is the first thing I’ve read by Henry James and it was … interesting. At first the style is a bit heavy, with very long sentences, but over time one adjusts. It’s a strange story told by a man who earns his living writing literary criticism (book reviews). He reviews a book by a well known author and then meets the man. The review is positive, but the author tells him that he’s missed the point — and all the reviewers and critics have missed it too. All his books, he says, every word he has written, revolve around a common idea — the figure in the carpet of the story’s title. The narrator reads through all the books again, but cannot figure it out. His closest friend does the same — but then, while in India, he has an epiphany and sends a telegram back to London saying that he has figured it all out. I won’t say what happens next, but if literary mysteries are a genre, this must be part of the canon. ( )

This is a brilliant, piercing account of the human hunger for meaning. A narrator who is also and always an outsider seeks the "general intention," the secret meaning, the figure in the carpet, of a writer's work. A friend says he has found it, but will reveal it only to his lady love. They each refuse to share a secret that galvanizes their lives and love. After their deaths, the narrator is left clueless. But was there ever a transcending truth, a key? Is it not instead a reader's destiny to search for meaning? And the notion that somewhere -- held by others, never by oneself -- there is a redeeming treasure that "explains everything": Is this not the chimera that literature chases? ( )

This Henry James short story published in 1896 is a lustrous, clear Tahitian pearl for those of us here on Goodreads since the first-person narrator is a young book reviewer who becomes obsessed with both Hugh Vereker, a much celebrated novelist, and also Vereker’s novels. It all started when our narrator penned a glowing review of the latest Verkeker and then had occasion to meet the great novelist himself at an evening social.

Enjoying his magazine review and also recognizing a fellow lover of literature, author Vereker takes an instant liking to the young narrator and shares his lifelong secret: all the critics, reviewers and readers of his novels have missed his "little point," that is, his central authorial purpose, a purpose profound yet so simple that “It governs every line, it chooses every word, it dots ever I, it places every comma.” Such disclosure has a powerful effect- the master’s words fuel our young narrator’s lively curiosity to dig deep and discover the hidden, mysterious Vereker secret.

Predictably, filled with youthful ardor, not to mention obsessive infatuation, the narrator’s excitement brims over – he relates the details of his conversation to his fellow reviewer, George Crovick, and Crovick, in turn, unveils it all to Gwendolen Erme, an accomplished author herself, having published her first three-volume novel at age nineteen, a young lady he desires to marry once Gwendolen’s dying mother finally shuffles off her mortal coil.

Now Hugh Vereker has not only one but three young lovers of literature aflame to embark on a quest to discover his "little point." And as part of their literary detective work, which both men likened to a game of chess, the narrator shares with Crovick one key reflection on what the author conveyed during that memorable evening of revelation, “For himself, beyond doubt, the thing we were also blank about was vividly there. It was something. I guessed, in the primal plan; something like a complex figure in a Persian carpet. He highly approved of this image when I used it, and he used another himself.” So, the answer to Hugh Vereker’s literary puzzle is likened to a clear-cut but weighty mystery we might uncover whilst looking carefully at a Persian carpet. Let’s pause here – please take a close look at this exquisite Persian:



Now let me add a bit of tantalizing information about Persian rugs I learned from a scholar of Middle Eastern art: these rugs can be viewed as a visual symbol of the universe. For example, in the above pic, rather than seeing the pattern as a flat surface, look at this rug as if you are looking up at the sky, as if you are viewing it in 3D, the outer rectangular border representing our material world and each successive rectangle contained therein indicating a further distant, more ethereal plane of reality leading to the far distant field of paradise in the middle. And all the symbols contained in this paradise are supercharged with meaning, especially the most central symbol, the eight petal flower. I don’t know about you, but once alerted to this methodology, casting my eyes on Persian rugs has never been the same. Anyway, my sense is our three literary investigators in James’ tale are attempting to uncover a comparable formula in the Hugh Vereker oeuvre.

There are a number of other themes in this superb tale, such as how the mysteries of literature may be more readily uncovered in collaboration with friends or one’s spouse and how a story can serve as a vehicle to theorize about the very nature of fiction itself, the dynamics of storytelling or the interpretation of narrative. However, I’d like to focus on one other major theme: author intention. When Henry James published this work there was much postulating and conjecture on authorial intention, more specifically on the author’s underlying message and meaning of why pen was set to paper in the first place. Of course, it is this authorial intention driving our three literary explorers in their probing the Vereker riddle.

A most formidable challenge to this emphasis on author intention was formulated in the 1950s by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley. Stated concisely, these two philosophers reasoned the author’s intention is only a secondary and much less consequential consideration; rather, any meaning contained within a piece of literature must be derived from the work itself. I have always wondered how Henry James would have responded to what Wimsatt and Beardsley termed “The Intentional Fallacy.”

I myself am inclined to agree with Wimsatt and Beardsley since, being a romantic at heart, I see literature taking on a life of its own well beyond the reach of an author’s ideas, philosophy, and yes, intention. But this doesn’t detract one bit from my enjoying this classic Henry James set in the atmosphere of genteel conversations, top hats and horse-drawn carriages, featuring a famous author who takes this Edgar Degas quote very, very seriously: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”





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