Roderick Hudson

Henry James is one of my very favorite writers, and his unmatchable skills are already on full display in this early novel.

The book generates drama through the psychological tensions between the artist Roderick Hudson and his benefactor, Rowland Mallet, characters who accrue archetypal charges against a timeless Italian backdrop.

Roderick Hudson represents the tensions innate to artistic creation, both on the level of individual discipline and social liberation. Holding it all together is James's unmatchable prose, so gorgeous and vivid it totally carries you away.