Krishna
An old man is having tea outside a country manor and two young men are pacing, with cigarettes in their mouths.
The old man is an American who had bought the ancient manor. One of the young men was his son and the other was Lord Warburton – handsome, stylishly dressed man.
The old man is Mr Touchet and the son’s name turns out to be Ralph Touchet.
Meanwhile, the young and pretty niece turns up and introduces herself as Miss Archer.
Mrs Touchet is Aunt Lydia for Miss Archer, whose full name is Isabel Archer. When Lydia went to the US she took a fancy to her niece and had brought her over to England, and that is how she ended up in the castle.
Isabel’s eldest sister was Mrs Lillian Ludlow, who was out when these two got acquainted with each other. Of the three sisters, Lillian was the most practical, Edith Keyes the most beautiful and Isabel the most superior intellectually.
Isabel comes to England and charms Ralph, her cousin and even the uncle. They all take to her. When her friend the reporter also joins in, her outspoken manner kindles Ralph’s interest and she is openly scornful of his idle lifestyle.
When Isabel learns that a suitor in America to whom she was ambivalent towards has come over to England just to meet her again, she is put in a dilemma as she expects him to make a proposal. However Lord Warburton comes there, meets her alone and proposes. Inexplicably, she is not very interested and he would not take no for an answer. She asks and gets a few days to think about it.
Meanwhile Henrietta Stackpole, the reporter tries hard to make Isabel “like” the suitor Caspar as she does not want ‘her friend to fall under the spell of Englishmen’. She tries to rope Ralph in the scheme and make him invite Caspar but to their astonishment, Caspar declines.
Undeterred, she takes Isabel to London on the pretext of seeing the city and invites Caspar over when she is out. Offended, Isabel snubs him and Henrietta is upset. Isabel and we, the reader, are angry that Henrietta takes it upon herself to be intrusive in the choices of another person, albeit one she calls her friend.
For all the drama above, the book reads like a flat and droning chronicle, with unnecessarily complex and flowery sentences. It would work if the story was at least fascinating but it is like watching a slow art movie where everything barely moves and you stand there watching – for instance – rain trickling down the leaves for half a day or so. Very painful to read.
She goes back to the castle on hearing that Ralph’s father is sick and there she meets Madam Merle, a charming lady who is from America as well.
Now, Ralph secretly persuades the old man, who is dying, to leave a substantial sum to Isabel (without her knowing that he was instrumental). It shocks the whole community and Stockpole seems to have taken it ill.
So has Merle, who then tries to make Isabel “fall in love” with an older man, Olson, in Italy. Sometimes you don’t even know what motivates these people to behave this way. Added to that the very dry and pedantic style and the long winded conversation that goes nowhere wants to throw this book across the room or into the fire in the fireplace – classic or no classic.
What a boring book it is – The whole book is a series of obnoxious characters on one side – the unfeeling, uncaring Mrs Touchett, Ralph who keeps moping around, Henrietta who seems to be bitter and supercilious about everything American and very strong views (read as poking her nose into what is not really her business), Madam Merle who is forever scheming to hitch Isabelle to one of her friends but lies about it to Mrs Touchett when asked. These weird folks on one hand and a series of jilted suitors for Isabelle on the other. First her admirer in America who came over to England just to see her, then Lord Warburton who seems to be pining for her and goes everywhere, then Ralph himself, then you have Osmond who is ‘so polished’ that everyone thinks Isabelle must fall for him – all of them completely after her and Isabelle being ‘rude and cruel’ (you agree with that assessment often) to all.
It gets boring with very trite and complicated statements and people behaving very unnaturally. You need a load of patience and endurance to get through this particular book.
Meanwhile Isabelle decides to marry the poorest prospect Osmond against all others and still his suitors keep flocking to her and begging about their love, only to be snubbed again. Mrs Touchett is dismissive, trying to point out to Isabel that it was Merle who deviously orchestrated this alliance but Isabel is blind to any counter arguments. Her mind is made up.
What irritates is that when Osmond’s daughter Pansy (who is her stepdaughter now) chooses to marry a young main Reinier, she works with her husband to thwart her desires and get her married to ‘wealth’ – no other than her erstwhile suitor Warburton.
Ralph and Warburton still are pining to be her friends and you begin to wonder what is special about the lady Isabel (the namesake of the book’s title) that is even pleasant, let alone desirable. Even if the narration was not so uniformly long winded and boring, you would have lost interest. But given the pedantic tone, complicated sentences – it is almost an act of will to continue reading.
The old time sensibilities are there. Isabel wanted to leave Warburton and Pansy accidentally alone so they can have intimate conversation but could not. Now comes the interesting part. Henry James says ‘This is not because it was a base or insidious act because the women as a general thing practise such manoeuvres with a perfectly good conscience’. Really? Can you be any more sexist?
Also, she finds out that he hates Osmond. He in turn is highly suspicious and accuses her of sabotaging all his plans. In addition he openly admits that he loathes all her friends – Ralph (her cousin), Lord Warburton since he refuses to fall in love with Pansy as he, Osmond, desires, Kathy Stockpole whom he suspects of poisoning Isabel’s mind against Osmond. Everyone.
In turn, Isabel seems to suspect prior intimacy between Madam Merle and Osmond. All very confusing.
When Warburton is sent away, Madam Merle comes agitated and enquires what Isabel did to discourage him. Isabel realizes that Madam Merle is really a nosy parker and has in fact manipulated her to marry Osmond whom she now despises. By this time, you lose all interest in the characters. You read on because of the sunk cost of invested time and because so little of the book is left. The convoluted sentences – the use of a thousand words when ten would do – does not help. It is not as if we can excuse this because of the age in which it was written. Many classical writers – Dickens, Tolstoy, Tolkien, Dumas , to name just a sample – wrote much more coherently and interestingly.
It goes on in this vain. The ending is entirely unsatisfactory. There is a couple of twists and one of them is even good – She discovers how Merle and Osmond and Pansy are all related. We discover what Pansy really feels. We discover how Isabel realizes the great kindness of Ralph and how she realizes that it was the trap that led her to Osmond, whom she despises now.
She disobeys his direct orders (yes, this is the olden times) and goes to visit Ralph who is dying in Gardencourt in England.
As always all her suitors circle her for no reason at all: Warburton, Goodword – all of them.
The ending is abrupt and weird, as I already said.
The story has some moments but fully spoiled by the dry pedantic writing that requires the patience of a martyr to get through. On the whole, it is best not to spend all that time to plough through this one.
2/10
= = Krishna