I was reading Henry James' "The Jolly Corner" today. For some reason, I never think I'm going to enjoy James until I start reading him. Even a story such as this one, a story I know I liked when I read it before, seems more work than pleasure until I actually get into it. I took it off the shelf this morning because I thought it would be helpful for the story I'm working on now.
If you haven't read it, it's about a man who haunts himself. That is, it's about an older man who returns to his empty family home after years abroad and tries to catch the ghost of the self that might have been if he'd stayed. I don't mean he tries to catch him on some figural level; he literally creeps around the house in the middle of the night pursuing his other self. Well, it is figural too, of course, but somehow the story gets away with the protagonist actually chasing himself around an old dark house without seeming merely silly.
James can be such a nut.
Anyway, we are to have the coldest day of the whole winter tomorrow—so close to spring! fie on you, Global Warming!—so I'll probably be shivering under a blanket, typing away, chasing the novel that might be.
2 comments:
I can't say that I've really dug into James, but I really love his Victorian ghost story, "Old Clothes," I think, in which two young maids battle over clothes and marriage, even after one of them is dead. He is so far away from ghost therapy, too, which is rare to find.
Definitely not "ghost therapy"--that's what I like so much about him (and why I'm reading some of his stories again now).
I've never read "Old Clothes," but I'll check it out. Thanks, B!
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