Reading Reaction -- 9.2.09

[Ryan Browne]

Please answer the following in 250 words.

Doubtless you had some difficulty reading Henry James' "The Best in
the Jungle." Attempt to articulate the cause or root of your
difficulty. Please go beyond cursory explanations, such as "The
sentences were really long" or "He used big words." Yes, the sentences
are long, but push yourself to discover WHY the long sentences cause
so much difficulty. If you have other difficulties with the text,
please attempt to address these issues too and hypothesize as to why
they caused headaches.

[Ali Smith]

Henry James’ “The Beast in the Jungle” was a difficult read at best.
The language and long sentence structure left the reader waiting to
catch a break. I think the way James wrote the book parallels John
Marcher’s situation throughout the story. When we are first introduced
to John, he appears a lonely man that does not seem to fit into
society. As the story progresses, John’s main goal has been to make
sense of his destiny in life. He is constantly trying to figure out
what is going to happen to him, what is going to give his life
substance. Much like John’s confusion, the reader is given the
difficult task of trying to understand and keep up with James’ writing
style. James also goes into great detail that gives the reader a very
visual image throughout the short story. I found it interesting that
the imagery of small things like the inside of the estate in
Weatherend were given, yet in the end, Marcher has missed the bigger
picture in life and his “beast” is nothing more than what he has let
pass him by. I thought this short story was interesting because its
overall message seemed to be “carpe diem”. People get so caught up in
the smaller things in life and are often unable to see what has passed
them by before it is too late. Although the language seemed outdated
and the structure hard to understand at times, I thought the message
was important and enjoyed reading the story.

[Katie]

“The beast in the jungle” was more than just a difficult story to
read. It was confusing and was filled with unnecessary text. Although
the usual topics gave me difficulties, I felt like reading this story
was a puzzle. It was not enjoyable because I felt the need to
translate each sentence in english to make sense. Then from there, you
needed to piece it together with the last sentence to understand the
story. Not only was it an exhausting text but, it also did not consist
of much action. It was hard to keep my attention because the book
began with Marcher meeting May in a secret room. The two characters
discussed many topics throughout the book but hardly any action took
place. My attention span to read this was very slim. I also feel the
author placed too many unnecessary word in the text. An example is on
page 451 when May is discussing the “secret”, she states, “ I myself
have never spoken. I’ve never, never repeated of you what you told
me.”. Would this novel be the same without all of the language though?
After I finished the story realizing that Marchers life has been spent
away with worrying, I almost feel this story would be even MORE less
interesting without the intense use of language. Though the language
is hard to read, it captures the reader by evaluating the sense of
passion the author had for this story. Readers are able to catch a
break, almost like unleashed from the jungle of words, when the
enticing and catchy language is full of meaning, for example, “She
had, with her gliding step, diminished the distance between them and
she stood nearer to him, close to him, a minute, as if still charged
with the unspoken.” (pg 467)

[Luke]

“The Beast in The Jungle” turned to be more sophisticated as I read
more. The words in the story threw you off wondering sometimes. It
made me think “Can you get to the point already?”. The author lingered
the words with the more advance diction. For example, “There had been
after luncheon much dispersal, all in the interest, in the original
motive, a view of Weatherend itself and the fine things, intrinsic
features, pictures, heirlooms, treasures of the arts, that made the
place almost famous; and the great rooms were so numerous that guests
could wander at their will….”.(it dragged for another three lines). I
had a hard time regaining interest in the story after the first three
pages. It took me a while to grab a concept and understanding of the
story. The story goes into so much detail that it drains the reader
with a very good visual image of what might be the story’s tagline.
Marcher could possibly be looked as creepy as the author describes him
in the room with the woman. Reading some insanely long sentences was
like trying to understand yoda.

It seems as though in the book, James shows the struggle of Marcher’s
past like it’s continuing to invade or depress his life. A forgotten
memory that seems to torture him for a while. Marcher and the woman
reminisce their treasured memory and try to reconnect but in turn did
not work out. The language that was used made me think of how much
trouble we have as people letting personal things in our past go. The
author lured the reader to long trains of thoughts that I, myself,
couldn’t get out off. I had vague interest in Henry James’s message of
what he was trying to convey throughout the story.

On Sep 1, 2:02 pm, Ryan Browne <ryan.j.bro...@gmail.com> wrote:

[mjha...@crimson.ua.edu]

Matt Harris
9/1/09


The Beast In The Jungle


“The Beast In The Jungle” is without a doubt, and hands down the
hardest story I have ever read. I was reading so slowly that a
caterpillar crawling on the floor could have beat me in a race. For
people who do not like to read, like myself, it makes it even more
difficult to learn to love and enjoy reading when I read stories like
this.
While I was reading I never knew when I was going to find a period
and get a rest. Although, there were multiple sentences with lots of
commas, but it is very aggravating and makes the passage hard to read
when you never know when a new train of thought is coming. For
instance, on page 475 in the second paragraph it states, “The sight
that had just met his eyes named to him, as in the letters of quick
flame, something he utterly, insanely missed, and what he had missed
made these things a train of fire, made them mark themselves in an
anguish of inward throbs.” Not only can I not translate this sentence
to English, but also Henry James just had to put multiple commas in
the sentence to make the reader more confused then ever before.
After reading the story I am still not exactly sure what happened. I
would say I have a gist of what happened throughout the story.
Although, I must admit the last paragraph does a tremendous amount of
help to give the reader more knowledge about the story. Therefore,
after reading that paragraph I felt a sigh of relieve that the story
was over, and I felt extremely good about myself for conquering the
daunting task of reading this story.

On Sep 1, 2:02 pm, Ryan Browne <ryan.j.bro...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Calan]

“The Beast in the Jungle” was definitely a tough read. It was nearly
impossible and quite exhausting. Not only were the sentences long,
the paragraphs were quite long as well. A combination of these two
factors gives the reader no chance for a break to digest what is being
discussed. After reading the short story I have no doubt that Henry
James vocabulary is enormous. Considering mine is so small I had to
continually stop and look up the meaning of words which slowed down
the reading process much further. I believe the read was exhausting
because the narrator is not our main character as in “The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Yellow Wall-paper”. The narrator is
telling the story to the reader in a way that is very descriptive. It
seems as if the bulk of the story is what is being imagined. As a
reader, I am not used to being presented with so much useless
information that does not necessarily affect the result. “They looked
at each other as with the feeling of an occasion missed; the present
would have been so much better if the other, in the far distance, in
the foreign land, hadn’t been so stupidly meager” (449). ‘In the far
land’ and ‘in the foreign land’ mean the exact same thing. The point
that is being made is that the other person is not close. This story
has a lot of text and information but there is not much action
involved. The lack of action also contributes to the tough read.

[Kristen]

There's no denying that "The Beast in the Jungle" was a difficult
read. Quite intimidating as a matter of fact. I believe it is so
because Henry James goes so far in to detail that he goes off on
unnecessary tangents and confuses the reader. The sentences, I feel,
try to explain too much all at once and in too much of a round-about
way. I also feel like James tries to be too sophisticated with his
language. Not that the words are too big, anyone can use a dictionary
and look them up. However, I feel like the words he uses are too
fancy for the situation happening in the story. He meets with a woman
that he met one other time in his life while his home is being shown.
Granted it's a beautiful story; I just don't it really constitutes the
use of such flamboyant language. It almost makes you just not want to
bother with it. In all honesty, I feel like he's focusing more on how
he words himself and whether or not it sounds good rather than how he
actually feels about May Bartram. It's kind of that situation where
the story teller just gives way too much information; unnecessary
information. I think if he would just keep it simple and explain how
he feels so all readers could understand it instantly, more people
would appreciate it for his feelings and the beauty that he is trying
to portray.

[cjrogers]

"The Beast in the Jungle" was a very difficult read. It was very
cinfusing and I did not fele like I could follow the text. To me it
felt like just words, nothing important, it was as if he was just
writing random words. It was so incredibly frustrating that I felt
like putting the book down and not reading it. I felt like there were
so many loose ends because I could not follow the text. When I
finished reading it was as if I had read nothing at all. I think he
uses long sentences to keep the reader thinking and thus attached to
the story. I personally dislike this story because I cannot tolerate
his interpretive jargon. If he has something to say he should come out
and say it as opposed to just writing down words and sentences that
don't really make any sense to me. His sentences are drawn out and
have so much detail it makes me think that we are actually hearing a
person think out and describe what exactly was going on. It was almost
like a rambling old man telling stories about yester-year. Marcher
might be dwelling in the past and talking about his misfortunes and so
that would explain the style of writing, the writer is actually trying
to emulate someone recalling a memory from the past. He speaks in such
and obscure way that the reader wonders if he will ever get to the
point, and to be honest, I do not know if he ever does. It seemed like
a waste of my time.

[Tricia]

When a story is titled “The Beast in the Jungle” a reader expects an
action packed story. With some short staccato sentences with vivid,
fast paced details and a mind-gripping, page turning plot line. James’
story would be the exact opposite. Instead of short, action packed
sentences his story is full of long drawn out descriptive paragraphs.
Quoting one sentence of this story would successfully complete my two
hundred and fifty word quota for this reaction. I assume the sentences
are long, drawn, out and lonely paralleling the main character’s life,
but seriously can he get on with it already? James spends several
paragraphs explaining the room before he gets to introduce the main
characters. Also the third person perspective is not helping his case.
Third person is not as engaging as first person. I think James uses
this because Marcher feels like an outsider in his own life and he
wants the reader to see the story as Marcher does, but again seriously
could he make it any less engaging? After reading a fast paced story
such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” this story seems to be never ending. I
would take feminism insanity over this lonely story any day. This was
definitely one of the more challenging assignments to read. Instead of
feeling accomplished or enlightened at the end, I feel relieved. Thank
goodness it is over.

On Sep 1, 2:02 pm, Ryan Browne <ryan.j.bro...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Kristofer Khoury]

The overall plot of "The Beast in the Jungle" was incredibly hard
to comprehend. There are parts in the story where I understand James'
wording but I do not understand his word choice. Plus all the commas,
and what looks like run-on sentences sometimes make me think of James'
grammer usage rather than his choice of words. I never knew an author
could write a work like this with such obscure use of dialoge. I feel
like James' could have easily portrayed the ideas of fate and love in
a much simpler way. The only thing here is that I feel it is all apart
of James' point in writing the text.
Such a hard story to follow with all the grammatical and word
choices most people are not used to reading, and having to focus on so
much vocabulary in one or two sentences comes to the point in my mind
that this was James' intent. I feel the difficulty of this novella is
significant to the fact that James wants the reader to focus on the
overall theme and point of the story rather than the dialogue. Just
like Henry James's making the connection of fate and lost love and how
focusing on one's own fate and not the fate that is already in your
life (the love of his wife)is part of the point needing to be learned.
Since this is the first time for me to read a story by Henry James, I
am now curious about the dialogue in the rest of his works.

[Tracey]

Henry James is obviously a man of intellect but the words he uses in
this piece are a beast; he made his work almost impossible to read. I
found myself reading each sentence at least twice, trying to sift
through the extra words. I don't understand why anyone would want to
write something so difficult to interpret. It was like going to the
dentist. The sentences dragged on forever and his roundabout manner of
story-telling was incredibly frustrating. The first sentence made me
gasp. "What determined the speech that startled him in the course of
their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken
by himself quite without intention- spoken as they lingered and slowly
moved together after their renewal of acquaintance." What? I think the
sentences were hard to read because the sentences were structured so
strangely. It seemed like James tried to showcase his vocabulary
instead of telling a story. "It hadn't taken them many minutes, after
all, to put down on the table, like the cards of a pack, those that
constituted their respective hands; only what came out was that the
pack was unfortunately not perfect- -that the past, invoked, invited,
encouraged, could give them, naturally, no more than it had." I looked
at the other works by Henry James in the book and found that they
aren't nearly as difficult to read. I found "The Beast in the Jungle"
to be cramped and disappointing. I couldn't understand what he was
trying to get me to understand because of the manner in which he tried
to tell me. I'm just glad I got through it and I'm very happy it's
over.

[Cori Powell]

"The Beast in the Jungle" gave me, like everyone else, much
difficulty. It was one of the most challenging things that I have ever
read, and metaphorically like trying to attack a beast in the jungle.
The punctuation that Henry James chose to use throughout what he likes
to call his "short story," was one of the main reasons that I had
trouble. It seemed as if James would go on and on with his thoughts,
never taking a break. He used many commas and semi-colons which made
all of his ideas run together. For me, concise sentences are great to
throw in every now in then. It gives me, as a reader, a break from
having to tackle each sentence and each word one by one. Another
reason for my confusion was the word choice that James chose. He used
elaborate language that doesn't relate well to the modern reader (and
i'm sure the readers in the early 1900s would have trouble relating,
as well). He would say the same things over and over again, but in
many different words. For example, James writes, "Thus in short he
settled to live -- feeding all on the sense that he once had
lived..." (474), and then again he repeats himself, "...a perception
so sharp that nothing else in the picture comparitively
lived..." (474-5). The only reason I could come up with for why James
would write this way is because he wants the reader to feel like they
are struggling to see the importance of the story, but can be
successful in finding out what the true meaning is, just like Marcher
realizes the importance of life in the end.

On Sep 1, 2:02 pm, Ryan Browne <ryan.j.bro...@gmail.com> wrote:

[vsjackson]

“The Beast in the Jungle” was very difficult to read. The text seemed
very out dated to me and I had a hard time understanding what was
going on in the story. The sentences are long and confusing. I had a
hard time concentrating on the plot because the language that Henry
James uses was very complex and hard to comprehend. I had to read
many of the sentences over again to make sure I knew what was
happening in the story.
John Marcher is a man who believes he will experience a monumental
event in his lifetime and never focuses on the present because he is
so obsessed with what is going to happen to him in the future. He
spends his life waiting on the huge event he believes is going to
happen to him, and in the meantime misses out on his present day
life. This belief is a huge secret to him. He happens to run into a
woman named May Bartram, who he met years ago in Italy, who remembers
Marcher telling her his secret. Bartram and Marcher become great
companions and spend much time together. Marcher is so obsessed with
his fate that he ignores the love of Bartram and as a result brings
her down with him. He later realizes that the great misfortune in his
life was that he did not pursue a relationship with Bartram and has
thrown his life away waiting for his mysterious fate.
The long sentences in James’ story may represent Marcher’s life. The
sentences are very long and almost exhausting to read. This is very
symbolic to Marcher’s life because he has lived a long exhausting life
waiting for something to happen to him when nothing every does. Except
for the fact he has wasted away his life focusing on the future
instead of the present.

On Sep 1, 2:02 pm, Ryan Browne <ryan.j.bro...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Laura Pope]

"The Beast in the Jungle" was a difficult story not only to read but
to comprehend. The author used extremely long sentences which often
included more than one thought. This made it really hard to take in
the entire sentence and a few times I even had to re-read a sentence a
couple of times before I could grasp the entire thing. Also, James has
a strange way of wording and explaining things. It seemed almost
symbolic of the fact that the character, John Marcher, had this
elaborate description of how he and this woman had met, only to find
out he was completely wrong. He had met her a number of years ago, but
it was a much different setting than he had remembered. Just as John
was confused, I think James wanted to do create the same confusion in
his writing. Like John Marcher's situation, the words are there but
they are written differently, just as his memory was there, but he
remembered it differently. Although it was quite difficult to read, it
was interesting because it required some thought to decipher what the
author was trying to say. I think the way James wrote the story makes
the reader get into the story more because they really do connect with
the confusion the character is experiencing.