Henry James' readership must be shrinking to a nub of scholars, students, and a handful of readers tuned to his peculiarly jammed frequency. Whatever point he was making with his ever more abstruse writing must be a point long past worth making. It is hard to imagine the modern reader taking pleasure in James - his themes seem so dated and his treatment of them so very heavy handed. Much of An International Episode consists of leaden, awkward conversations. As I listened to an audiobook version, I empathized with the LibriVox readers who struggled mightily and fruitlessly to find some manner and inflection that might make James' words sound conversationally plausible. ( )