Novel Approaches: ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ by Henry James
Close Readings - A podcast by London Review of Books
In The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James borrows from Eliot, Austen, folktales and potboilers, but ‘the thing that he took from nowhere was Isabel Archer’. James transformed the 19th-century novel through his evocation of Isabel, a woman who wants and suffers in a profoundly new (and American) way. Deborah Friedell and Colm Toíbín join Tom to discuss the novel that established Henry James as ‘the Master’. They dissect James’s and his characters’ complicated motivations, the significance of his 1905-6 revisions, and the ways in which a ‘primitive plot’ irrupts in a painstakingly subtle and stylish novel. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Further reading in the LRB: Colm Toíbín on Henry James: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n01/colm-toibin/a-man-with-my-trouble Ruth Bernard Yeazell on Henry James’s life and notebooks: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n01/ruth-bernard-yeazell/the-henry-james-show James Wood on The Portrait of a Lady: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n19/james-wood/perfuming-the-money-issue Next time on Novel Approaches: 'Kidnapped!' by Robert Louis Stevenson. LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiobooksna
