The Master

This novel is in the POV of Henry James, following him around England and the world during the last years of his life, watching him pick up threads of inspiration for his stories. The reader is privy to his awful, slow awareness of how he had irreparably hurt the women in his life, including his sister.

And yet, he defends the selfishness he needed to do his art. Written in his style, which he referred to as “The Mystery of the Self,” you have to love his writing to love this book, and I did. Some people don’t.

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This is not a new book, but after listening to Tobin speak in 2022, I wanted to read his treatment of Henry James, an author who always intrigued me because of his devotion to writing, choice to live as an ex-pat, and highly intelligent, slightly crazy family. Among other things, I learned from Tobin that James’s family wasn’t just slightly crazy.

The book is a beautiful examination of the differences between solitude and loneliness, and I was fascinated to read of the many ways in which the people who mattered to James in his life found their way, reimagined, into… show more.

How much would you be willing to give up for fame and greatness?

By 1895, Henry James had written a number of all-time classics, including Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady, but had never achieved the kind of commercial or popular success he thought he deserved. So in his fifties, he started writing for the theater, hoping to break through.

The Master begins with the London opening of his play Guy Domville, which turns out to be a flop, and follows James as he comes to terms with this failure, and all the other sacrifices he has to… show more.

The Master is a bravura portrayal of a great writer and a complex, lonely individual. The novel begins when James is at a low point in his writing career. We often forget that great writers have these lows, but for any writer the writing life is full of insecurity and real or imagined failure and James was no exception. At the start of this novel, he has chosen to retreat from public life by buying a house in Rye, England. In this new, private existence, he endures the consequences of his need for a protected space in which to write,… show more.