One of the great heroines of American literature, Isabel Archer, journeys to Europe in order to, as Henry James writes in his 1908 Preface, “affront her destiny.” James began The Portrait of a Lady without a plot or subject, only the slim but provocative notion of a young woman taking control of her fate. The result is a richly imagined study of an American heiress who turns away her suitors in an effort to first establish—and then protect—her independence. But Isabel’s pursuit of spiritual freedom collapses when she meets the captivating Gilbert Osmond. “James’s formidable powers of observation, his stance as a kind of bachelor recorder of human doings in which he is not involved,” writes Hortense Calisher, “make him a first-class documentarian, joining him to that great body of storytellers who amass what formal history cannot.”
Henry James was born in New York in 1843 and was educated in Europe and America. He left Harvard Law School in 1863, after a year's attendance, to concentrate on writing, and from 1869 he began to make prolonged visits to Europe, eventually settling in England in 1876. His literary output was prodigious and of the highest quality: more than ten outstanding novels, including The Portrait of a Lady and The American; countless novellas and short stories; as well as innumerable essays, letters, and other pieces of critical prose. Known by contemporary fellow novelists as 'the Master', James died in Kensington, London, in 1916.
Anita Brookner is the author of twenty novels, including Falling Slowly, Undue Influence, and Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize. She lives in London.
看完了书,把坎皮恩的同名电影找出来重看了一遍,有趣的是导演在处理女主角和奥斯蒙德的恋情上突出了性的吸引,后者将女儿抱在腿上,手指抚摸女儿的手背给了女主很大的刺激,这是个很好玩的视角,因为原著给我的感觉完全是反的,不远万里随君行的美国追求者反而最有男子气概,...
评分 评分I suddenly found myself sobbing like a baby after reading this novel, as if I myself had confronted that tragic destiny of Isabel. It’s said that a novel is in its broadest sense a personal, a direct impression of life. When we read between the lines, we a...
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
评分Life is better, because there is love. Death is good, but there's no love.
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