I'm not sure if it was James' intent to get me to totally dislike the main character of The Ambassadors, but I do. Lewis Lambert Strether is a mess of a man. Charged by his fiance to go to Paris and retrieve her son, Chad (from a previous marriage,) Strether stays so long in Paris, immersing himself into society there, that a second wave of relatives show up to attempt to complete the job. Ultimately, Strether and the reinforcements sent in fail to bring Chad home. Chad is in love with a married woman living in Paris apart from her husband so she's got her own complications to content with. Just the same, it takes an entire novel overflowing with confusing plotting and speculating to see Strether arrive at this noble act of allowing himself to fail so love can prevail.
In the middle of all this, Strether seems to fall out of love with his fiance as a new Parisian friend, Miss Gostrey, falls in love with him. While encouraging love to take top priority with Chad, Strether ultimately refuses to accept the love of Miss Gostrey and returns home to his unloved fiance.
Confused yet? This just scratches the surface of a story overpopulated with characters (some referred to by two different names) and jam-packed with three-page paragraphs and seriously long run-on sentences. The style gets so tedious I found myself letting my mind wander as I read, which led me to be pretty confused through most of the book. I almost question why I read The Ambassadors for fun. I just loved The Bostonians so much, I wanted to try something else from James. I can honestly say I think Henry James writes women better than men.
Few characters in classic literature really annoy me. I can tell you that Fanny Price (Mansfield Park) is at the top of my list and that Emma Woodhouse and Hester Prynne linger in the top 10. It has been a while though since this list has grown, but I have to add whiny Lambert Strether to my #2 spot and close the book (ha, ha) on Henry James for a while.
I've always considered myself to be well-read mostly because of the hefty amount of classics under my belt, but it wasn't until my Dad started lending me his books that I became widely-read.
My preferred literary genres consisted of Chick-Lit and 19th Century British Literature until my Dad introduced me to two authors I'd never heard of before. Robin Cook healded in a love for scientific thrillers and led to my reading a lot of Michael Crichton as well, and Nelson Demille ushered in an affinity for crime dramas - especially when John Corey was on the case.
These two new genres dumped a ton of boks into my lap that I couldn't put down. I began checking the "coming soon" section on bn.com to see when these guys would publish again - thankfully Robin Cook writes a lot. Eventually I started sending my Dad my copes of Cook and Demille as my collection became more current than his.
After my Dad died, all these books came to me. Now they sit on my bookshelf, slightly out of place among Elinor Lipman and Jennifer Crusie but significantly more important than most of the books in my library. They forever unite me to my Father (I love how books can connect people!) and constantly remind me that steppin gout of one's comfort zone (in anything) can yield something wonderful and new you never knew existed.
