I had a long slow argument with Henry James while reading The Wings of the Dove. Was he an immortal genius? Or a purveyor of pretentious soap operas? Here’s who won the argument:
“On that especial issue, Peter made something like a near approach, taking into account his great reasons, the particulars and nuances and complexities, they being, of course, more important than the main point, they being really fine, and grand, and ravishing, and although he hung fire on his answer, and really, who might blame him, before committing himself, as it were, to a more definite position, which if stated plainly, might fall a little flat, might seem a little thin, might reveal too baldly a poverty of thought and a desolation of feeling, conveniently concealed in a thicket of syntax, great flashes of brilliance aside, yet he did half commit himself, in the end, all of which is to say, perhaps, he wouldn’t decide James wasn’t coming out something more ahead than not.”
Peter Galen Massey 
Haha, my eyes had the same reaction to that paragraph as they have to James’ writing. They skipped to the end to try to cut to the point and then, when no point was in sight, just ended up totally lost. On my third or fourth try, I finally managed to get through it.
I thought it best to review James in a Jamesian way. He deserves it.
I love finding myself “concealed in a thicket of syntax.”
I try not to conceal myself by accident, although I don’t always succeed. Here — Pete types with a puckish smile — I did it on purpose, of course.
I know the feeling. Henry James can drive you up the wall. I tried out The Ambassadors, read a quarter of it without catching sight of…well, anything, to be honest. I gave up in disgust. However, I later on read The Turn of the Screw and found that to be utterly engrossing and truly terrifying so I’m actually quite divided in my opinion of the man.
There are about 150 pages in Wings that I think are worth the hype: when Merton is in Venice. Otherwise, it tried my patience a bit. James’ characters are always talking about remarkable other James’ characters are, and I’m never particularly convinced by the evidence of remarkableness presented. Perhaps the point is that they are all buttering each other up all the time. But I keep getting the feeling that it is James wanting us to see how remarkable they are, and by extension how remarkable he is.