The Wings of the Dove (book of the month)

[lovejuice]

melville's selection. if i remember correctly, it's space oddity's favorite book. i'm a bit embarrassed since i have yet finished the last one, but we will eventually get through that.

i'm a bit excited by melville's choice since i always want to read a good henry james.

http://alabasterbrow.blogsome.com/images/helena.jpg

[SpaceOddity]

*yays*

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'll go for this one. I'll put a hold on it at my library tonight.

[Melville]

I read the first 100 pages while on vacation. So far, I'm having some trouble getting comfortable with James' prose, with its very mannered style, its elliptical descriptions, and its endless nests of subordinate clauses. But I really liked his almost physical description (in his introduction) of the narrative's structure, and his set up of the characters and their relationships is vivid and precise (maybe even too precise, since the setup seems a bit too transparent). Anyway, my expectations are still high.

[lovejuice]

this book's such a bitch to read. (no, it doesn't take me one whole year!) but eventually i finish it, and have to say while i'm lukewarm about the book itself, i fall in love with james's style and prose. it's daring and funny. i love how he can blow up some insignificant events/scenes to gargantuon proportions, while leave out many central things in the narrative.

but really for someone who has never read any pynchon's, this is the most dammingly difficult thing i have ever read in english. (non-fiction aside) perhaps i will try my hand with some of james's shorter work, so that i can appreciate him more.

[thefourthwall]

Turn of the Screw is fairly accessible prose-wise and short, but wonderfully complex and subtle.

[Mara]

I finally got around to ordering this from bookmooch. I'll post thoughts when I get through it.