Since our first visit to Venice, a little library of books associated with the place is being collected. I always need interpretors when I travel, and who better than Henry James?
"The Wings of the Dove" was a revelation when we studied it with Father Peter Connolly in what turned into a very close reading of text. I was very impressed by the locations, bewildered by the finesse of the emotions experienced and very very stunned by the Old Pretender's exotic style.
Since then, reading the more graspable brother, William, has helped to see the problem as it was presented and solved in a clearer light, but a course in linguistics and philosophy could be of help at this point again.
And it is to the rooms that I return for a sense of opulence and comfort, as those I found everywhere in the real Venice.
"Before the fire in the great room that was all arabesques and cherubs, all gaiety and gilt, and that was warm at that hour too with a wealth of autumn sun, the state in question had been maintained..."
2 comments:
Love that James. I am flabbergasted by how he conveys what's going on under the surface without ever really spelling it out.
Also, his vocabulary confounds me.
He uses "inveterate" more than I would and in unusual ways:
"from her inveterate corner of her sofa".
This is a word I usually associate with gambling and for liars.
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