The Princess Casamassima

It has been almost a month since I've blogged about my Henry James adventure. For my blog post with thoughts about The Bostonians see here.

A few days ago I finished The Princess Casamassima. James wrote the novel very soon after The Bostonians, and I think even began to serialize in American magazines before The Bostonians had finished. Perhaps the most striking thing, to me, about the Princess is how current it seemed. Here is a novel about a would-be suicide assassin sworn to do the deed without question because of vague political feelings that something must be done to change the rigidly cruel social structure in the West. The conspiracy of "socialists" is international in scope. Their goal, apparently, to disrupt the status quo in capitalist western Europe.

Anyway, there are too many resonances with current events to ignore. I'd like to examine a couple before moving on. The first, perhaps less resonant but still present, is the story we are telling ourselves today in the West, and especially in the US, about "Islamic terrorism." There have, of course, recently been attempts in print and film to explore the psychology of suicide bombers and the like. What might lead someone to such a desperate and apparently futile act? In the novel, Hyacinth (the hero and assassin) quickly loses his zeal for the movement well before he is asked the act he has sworn to do. Yet, he maintains his integrity regarding that oath until the very end. And that he does so is completely believable, even inevitable and oddly sympathetic to this reader.

The second resonance is the political environment in which the novel takes place. Set in Victorian England, many of the novel's central characters, actually maybe all except Hyacinth in the latter half, are continually talking about bringing down a system designed to keep the poor poor and to make the rich richer. James seems to be referring to "socialism" and not "nihilism" as other writers at the time were talking about. Sorry, I keep putting socialism, etc., in quotes - James never really completes the portrait of socialism in the novel, I think rightly, as I don't think James intended this to be a political novel, just as The Bostonians was not intended to be political although its characters were swept in political causes. Despite not being a political novel, the context feels incredible so like today's. I was reminded not just of the several administrations in the US before President Obama's, but also of the apparent confusion on the left today about what we are actually struggling for. In the novel, exactly what these characters are trying to do is unclear, even to themselves, other than to bring down capitalism and create a more egalitarian society. None, though, seem to have a very good idea of what that utopia would look like, or they do but change their minds continually. Anyway, the progressive splits of today seem to have analogs in this novel, and in a way, the novel sheds a fair amount of light on how these kinds of splits occur. James seems to say, we are only human after all, and any political ideal that requires personal sacrifice is ripe for hedging and half measures.

The novel itself is brilliant, at least in my view. I have seen recent criticism of the novel that Henry James didn't really know his subject material (the seedy underbelly of London, in particular) and that the novel reflects this. I think, though, James knew his limitations and that writing some sort of Dickensian political book was not his aim. The novel revolves around Hyacinth. After several novels in which his central characters are women (The Bostonians, The Portrait of a Lady, The Europeans, etc., etc.) this is an interesting break for him and he pulls it off well. Hyacinth, to my mind, is a gem: thoughtful, loyal but questioning, loved and reviled, certain of his convictions and then confused, infatuated and later disillusioned. I'm not sure what would satisfy these critics. Perhaps they really want this novel to be political, and like I said, I doubt that was ever James's intention.

Criticism at the time the novel was serialized and published was for the most part positive. Unlike The Bostonians which hit too close to home, American critics seemed to like the novel very much. Even the hard to please British reviewers were impressed (although they got hung up on issues of sexuality celebrating Princess as the first of James's novels to be really "masculine" and therefore potentially "great"). In fact, it is odd (or perhaps enlightened?) that the critics considered the novel "masculine." Ok, it is about political assassination plots and all that which I guess fits the masculine stereotype to some degree, but Hyacinth is hardly "masculine." He is downright effeminate, which is one reason I came to care so much for him. Yes, he becomes infatuated with a woman, the Princess, but he never lets the infatuation get very far and quickly becomes disillusioned with her. She embodies the stereotype of the rich progressive, at least at first. By "rich progressive," I mean well-meaning people who contribute oodles of money and talk well about social issues but don't really give up their comfortable lives or, in their hearts, truly believe that the egalitarian utopia will mean a social step down for them. As the novel progresses, she breaks this stereotype wonderfully. She gives up everything material and is willing to kill (and die) in Hyacinth's place, not out of love for him personally (well, that's somewhere in her head), but mainly because she is committed to the movement.

The narrative style is also very refreshing. It is, compared to Henry James's early novels, rather long, but it flies by. There are very few of those moments in the novel that seemed to happen too frequently (most especially in The Bostonians but even Portrait) when the novel doesn't seem to be going anywhere. In Princess, there is plot and it drives the novel along, even if plot is not James's central concern (he is much more fascinated with his characters, as always, than he is with the "story"). Also, his narration is very transparent, again in stark contrast to The Bostonians, in which the narrator inserts himself continually, and sometimes heavy handedly. At least, I was drawn into the novel from the very beginning and it never left off. In fact, I wanted it to go on, although of course it could not after the events at the end which I won't reveal in case someone out there decides to read this novel for the first time. I hate to ruin endings for people.

I think I will leave it there for now. I could talk quite a bit more about the novel. There are fascinating side characters, and it is also to consider the novel in the political context of the 1880's, when suicide bombings were occurring in London and other European capitals. However, I'll leave that for now.