Was recently reading The Princess Casamassima, which is Henry James’s attempt to write a serious, naturalistic book about the emotional and physical life of the working class. Now I know some people are laughing at that sentence, but I don’t think it’s bad! The man is a master of psychology and characterization, and in this book he writes some characters that are truly deep and interesting, whether its Millicent Hemming, a beautiful shopgirl who thinks she’s sort of on top of the world, to Hyacinth Robinson, a bookbinder and anarchist who’s slowly swayed by the lure of the upper classes.

The first two thirds of the book were riveting. I loved the characters being introduced and the deepening and complication of their relationships.

But the last third was a slog! And as I was reading it, I was like…hmm…I remember this slog. It’s exactly like Henry James’s middle-period book What Maisie Knew, where the book turns into all this arch, sideways commentary between and about the various characters, and it feels like you’re lost in this labyrinth where everything is implied and never said.

And then I looked up when Henry James had written this book, and I realized he’d written it right after The Bostonians (one of my favorite of his books) and a few years before What Maisie Knew, and I was like ahah, I’ve found it! The exact moment where Henry James was like…screw this typical comedy of manners stuff, I am a master of this, and I can do it in my sleep. I’m gonna try something different.