shopping cart
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
HACKER SAFE certified sites prevent over 99.9% of hacker crime.

Related Aisles



Ships free on qualified orders.
$11.25
TRADE PAPER, NEW
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
available for shipping or prepaid pickup only
Available for In-store Pickup
in 7 to 12 days
Qty Store Section
25 Remote Warehouse Literature- A to Z


The Figure in the Carpet

by Henry James

The Figure in the Carpet Cover

ISBN13: 9781592243082
ISBN10: 1592243088
Condition: Standard
All Product Details
See More Like This

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

For himself, beyond doubt, the thing we were all so blank about was vividly there. It was something, I guessed, in the primal plan, something like a complex figure in a Persian carpet. He highly approved of this image when I used it, and he used another himself. "It's the very string," he said, "that my pearls are strung on!" The reason of his note to me had been that he really didn't want to give us a grain of succor — our density was a thing too perfect in its way to touch. He had formed the habit of depending on it, and if the spell was to break it must break by some force of its own. He comes back to me from that last occasion — for I was never to speak to him again — as a man with some safe preserve for sport. I wondered as I walked away where he had got _his_ tip.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
pmg963, October 12, 2008 (view all comments by pmg963)
I believe that, like in many other Henry James stories, the "I" telling the story is mistaken. He leads us into a wild goose chase. He is James' typical smug narrator, someone who is simply wrong. In "The Figure in the Carpet", the "I" admits he is stumped. Was he looking at the problem from the wrong perspective?
I have assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that through this story James was telling us that his writing has a hidden intent, a secret mechanism. And that we can decipher the secret through an accurate interpretation of this story. But like the narrator, I still haven't discovered the secret.
Perhaps I am reading too much into the story. Have I ended up being like the narrator, who tries and fails? Perhaps it was James' intent, that we try and try, yet fail in the end!
Paul Goldring
pmg963@eastlink.ca
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9781592243082
Author:
James, Henry
Publisher:
Wildside Press
Subject:
Literary
Publication Date:
September 2003
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
108
Dimensions:
9.00x6.00x.26 in. .37 lbs.
  • back to top
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.