Synopses & Reviews
Henry James (1843–1916) has had many biographers, but Michael Gorra has taken an original approach to this great American progenitor of the modern novel, combining elements of biography, criticism, and travelogue in re-creating the dramatic backstory of James’s masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady (1881). Gorra, an eminent literary critic, shows how this novel—the scandalous story of the expatriate American heiress Isabel Archer—came to be written in the first place. Traveling to Florence, Rome, Paris, and England, Gorra sheds new light on James’s family, the European literary circles—George Eliot, Flaubert, Turgenev—in which James made his name, and the psychological forces that enabled him to create this most memorable of female protagonists. Appealing to readers of Menand’s The Metaphysical Club and McCullough’s The Greater Journey, Portrait of a Novel provides a brilliant account of the greatest American novel of expatriate life ever written. It becomes a piercing detective story on its own.
Review
"In this innovative biography, written with flair and unostentatious erudition, Gorra tells the life of Henry James through the story of the composition of his novel, . ...Analyzing James's letters, journals, stories, and travelogues, Gorra traces the author's life and literary milieu, alternating a reconstruction of his travels with extensive attention to the novel's composition and reception. The book reads like an exciting voyage of discovery, beginning with James revising his novel 20 years after it was written, and later depicting his blooming consciousness as an author torn between an American and a European identity. Gorra's highly engaging introduction to James will be most attractive to lovers of literature who want to learn more about the craft of novel writing and will likely send readers back to the shelves to discover James all over again." Publishers Weekly
Review
"An elegant writer and perceptive critic, Michael Gorra now takes full and frank possession of Henry James' Portrait of a Lady: he inhales it, appropriates it, loves it, and returns to us all the glory, all the complexity, of Henry James and Isabel Archer. For those who admire James--or adore Isabel--and even for those who don't, Gorra's Portrait of a Novel comes to us as a revelation: charming, fresh, capacious, a surprise and a delight." Brenda Wineapple, author of White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Review
"In his resplendent , Michael Gorra breaks through the remoteness of the Master--that majestic but privately enigmatic figure--so that Henry James now comes to us with the sensuous immediacy of his quotidian reality: the rooms he lived in, the streets he trod, and the very texture of his inmost sensibility. Remarkably, Gorra achieves this living nearness through a deep literary mining of the heroine of a single novel: Isabel Archer of . In Gorra's ingenious and capacious reading, James stands before us with a clarity of seeing and feeling given to no previous biographer." Lesley McDowell The Independent
Review
"I've just finished reading , and I feel as if I've been traveling in the literal and imaginative footsteps of Henry James. Michael Gorra--one of the finest critics at work today--paves a way in this study for a new era in literary criticism, one that combines travelogue, memoir, intellectual history, close reading, and--above all--a profound sympathy for the world summoned by a major author. is one of those masterworks of literature that defies full comprehension, that demands rereading. There is no better guide to rereading James than Gorra, who has echoed this book in his own ways after hearing its deepest music, singing alongside it." Jay Parini, author of The Last Station
Review
"Starred review. Throughout this work of astonishing scholarship, Gorra directs our attention to the quotidian life of James (and his remarkable family), his composition of the novel (which first appeared in serial installments in the here and in England), the significance of the events and characters in the story, and the influence of the novel on the subsequent fiction of James and others.... Gorra's approach will appeal to scholars, fans of the James family and lovers of important novels and those who create them." New Yorker
Review
"Michael Gorra has...created a book that is an adventure from beginning to end.... There are places... where Gorra gets so close to the making of , he actually crosses over from literary history into the interior of James's consciousness. The interior world that Gorra imagines, and that we come to inhabit, is so plausible, so true to life, that his becomes a novel--a masterpiece of critical imagination." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Most of the books I read this year were published between 1850 and 1920. But among books issued in 2012, I greatly admired , Michael Gorra's intimate and engaging life of Henry James told through the story of the inspiration, composition, and publication of ." Rebecca Mead
Review
"Masterly and evocative... In his , Michael Gorra also offers an exemplary approach to what remains a complex and fascinating subject." Alice Kaplan The Best American Poetry blog
Review
"...Michael Gorra in ... takes the rare but wise decision to approach James through the channel of a single work... In deference to James's brilliance, Gorra has assumed the role of a professional prismatist. He peers at the book from multiple angles--those of biography, geography, publishing, textual variation, and mild erotic sleuthing, among others--as if hoping to catch it at an unfamiliar slant." Colm Toibin Wall Street Journal
Review
"The author's encyclopedic understanding of not only James, but also his influences and contemporaries, offers a thoroughly illustrated and appropriately tumultuous picture of fiction's awkward adolescence between stilted Victorianism and modernistic messiness. The reader does not have to love or even be particularly familiar with James's work to enjoy this book; this is as much a story about the creative process itself, or the function of genius, as it is about any particular product." Anthony Lane New Yorker
Review
"Both personal and profound. Michael Gorra's intense focus on a single work reflects his deep curiosity about this novel and displays his loving scrutiny of it. Gorra's study, while keeping , its heroine Isabel Archer, and the years of its creation (1880-81) at its center, roams gracefully through James's life and art." Nicholas Mancusi, Daily Beast Daily Beast
Review
" does a great deal to explain why James's book should have proved so timeless, so timely, and so enduring. Incisive, informative and hugely entertaining, Michael Gorra's 'tale not of a life but of a work' is at once a brisk, compressed biography of James... [N]ot only instructive and a pleasure to read, but (as Gorra doubtless intended) it also sends us back to James with a deeper appreciation for his literary technique, his painstaking approach to language and style, and above all, the genius and profundity with which he portrayed the characters who continue to populate our imaginative world and accompany us, at home and abroad." Barbara Fisher Boston Globe
Review
"[A] success in bringing the novel and its author into such vivid close focus... All readers of this novel feel, as Gorra says, that Isabel Archer will have 'some life beyond the words that fix her to the page'. It is a tribute to his book that he makes us feel the life, of the book and its characters and its author, so deeply. He earns the right to end with James's wonderful words, 'There is really too much to say'." Francine Prose The Sunday Times (UK)
Review
"A highly satisfying account charting the evolution of a classic... Mr. Gorra takes us along this journey of self-discovery with the erudition and friendly tone of a master essayist... It is a testament to Henry James that The Portrait of a Lady remains as powerful and as touching since its publication, and thanks to Michael Gorra's Portrait of a Novel, readers will be inspired to return to it anew with a more learned eye." Hermione Lee The Guardian (UK)
Review
"One of the many pleasures of Michael Gorra's book is that he too has loved this novel since he studied it in college, and wants to share his passion for it. He has also taught it for many years, at Smith College, and he has written the kind of patient, sensitive, acute study that gifted teachers should write but rarely do." Francine Prose The Sunday Times (UK)
Review
"A new and interesting approach to writing about Henry James... Although an academic, Michael Gorra does not write like one...[An] excellent book." James Wood London Review of Books
Review
"An entertaining and highly personal account of an artist's struggles with his greatest creation, charting the rhythms, people and places of James' working life. Gorra brilliantly reshapes the story of James' consummate story... To call Gorra's work a detective story; or a diary of literary tourism, as he visits James' temporary European homes in Italy, England and France; or even an intimate biography of a writer's secret development--all this only hints at the grand spectacle and suspense Gorra builds as he reveals the self-proclaimed Master at work, refashioning his legacy, rewriting his literary will, bequeathing to generations of writers the great gift of the primacy of character over plot. thus ranks alongside Mario Vargas Llosa's examination of Flaubert's as an inventive watershed in literary criticism... Gorra's exquisite commentary on James's ageless masterpiece may be as close as we get to a last word on the Master and his lonely obedience to his Muse. It is a word worth savoring." Joseph Epstein The New Criterion
Review
"One of the many merits of Alan Ryan's monumental new history of political philosophy is that it restores our enthusiasm for politics.... Mr Ryan's historical approach helps us at the very least to look at our problems from new angles, and at best to harness the help of history's sharpest minds in producing policies.... an impressive achievement: an enjoyable mental workout and an admirable monument to a lifetime of academic toil." Arlice Davenport Wichita Eagle
Review
"An elegant testimony that [] can stand up to endless re-readings, accommodating you as you age." The Economist
Review
"Marvellous... James's sensibility suffuses [Gorra's] language, creating a book that feels not unlike reading James: stately, reflective, nuanced and wise." David Yaffe The Chronicle Review
Review
" is an opening shot in a revolution, an intrepid attack on the ceremonies of academic criticism... Not only a gift to non-specialist readers, who have been starved of literary discussion. It is also a troop movement in a campaign to wrest authority over criticism from the academic interpreters." Sarah Churchwell New Statesman
Review
"James has become a solidly major figure, one of a handful of Big Names, as Michael Gorra's thorough, level-headed new book, , suggests. A scholarly (or fanatical) love letter, it reads like a biography of --its gestation, development, reception--or perhaps a well-researched novel about Henry James that favors the early period." D. G. Myers Commentary
Review
"I wish I could give this sublime marrying of the art and the life 10 stars...Gorra is a delightful guide through James's world, tracing the American's steps in Florence, looking over the Arno from the point that James did, or mounting the stairs of his home in Rye. His investigations never detract attention from his subject, but he permits the admittance that he sheds tears at Isabel's final scene with the dying Ralph. At literary festivals throughout the country, readers always ask writers how they write. This books tells us, but never was demystification such an enjoyable and inspiring experience." Leo Robson The Nation
Review
"...nobody to my knowledge has written more perceptively about . Gorra's reading of the novel is consistently revealing...is not only instructive and a pleasure to read, but (as Gorra doubtless intended) it also sends us back to James with a deeper appreciation for his literary technique..." Lesley McDowell The Independent
Review
"It is a tribute to his [Gorra's] book that he makes us feel the life, of the book and its characters and its author, so deeply. He earns the right to end with James's wonderful words, There really is too much to say." The Sunday Times
Review
"Michael Gorra...has pulled off an astounding feat...in this impressive study...Gorra goes anywhere that strikes his fancy, and the result is splendid: a book to reread in years to come, a model for what criticism can do when happily married to biography." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"...he [Gorra] has written the kind of patient, sensitive, acute study that gifted teachers should write but rarely do." London Review of Books
Review
"...Gorra's marvellous portrait of ..." London Review of Books
Synopsis
Finalist for National Book Critics Circle Award: Biograph One of the Best Books of 2012: The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, The Millions, Kirkus Reviews, Boston Phoenix A revelatory biography of the American master as told through the lens of his greatest novel.
Synopsis
Henry James (1843-1916) has had many biographers, but Michael Gorra has taken an original approach to this great American progenitor of the modern novel, combining elements of biography, criticism, and travelogue in re-creating the dramatic backstory of James's masterpiece, (1881). Gorra, an eminent literary critic, shows how this novel--the scandalous story of the expatriate American heiress Isabel Archer--came to be written in the first place. Traveling to Florence, Rome, Paris, and England, Gorra sheds new light on James's family, the European literary circles--George Eliot, Flaubert, Turgenev--in which James made his name, and the psychological forces that enabled him to create this most memorable of female protagonists. Appealing to readers of Menand's and McCullough's , provides a brilliant account of the greatest American novel of expatriate life ever written. It becomes a piercing detective story on its own.
Synopsis
A revelatory biography of the American master as told through the lens of his greatest novel.
Synopsis
Chosen as one of the "10 Books to Read for 2013" by msn.com.
A revelatory biography of the American master as told through the lens of his greatest novel.
Synopsis
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Finalist for National Book Critics Circle Award: Biography One of the Best Books of 2012: A revelatory biography of the American master as told through the lens of his greatest novel.
About the Author
Michael Gorra is the Mary Augusta Jordan Professor of English at Smith College, where he has taught since 1985. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation and, for his work as a reviewer, of the Balakian Award from the National Book Critics Circle. His books include The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany; After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie; The English Novel at Mid-Century; and, as editor, The Portable Conrad. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.