As fanatic and obsessive as I am about the work of Henry James, I am also as equally infuriated by the work of Henry James, in an almost interior form of begging the question, as in the evolutionary sequence of chicken and egg. I am reading a clean five dollar copy of Dove on kindle for two reasons: A sister Jamesian identifies Lionel Croy's *badness* as an avowed and active homosexuality, and I am comparing it, the text, to the film adaptation. I have already read this novel four times, and though it is an inversion of Portrait, it is not my favorite Jamesian masterwork. I am not partial to Milly Theale. Egads. To make matters worse, I am restarting The Golden Bowl this morning, and this link jammed my printer my first year online because I was trying to save money by printing Richard Hathaway's etext. Lot of paper. The Golden Bowl infuriates me so much that I can almost forgive David Foster Wallace his suicide.
Did you expect that? What does the one have to do with the other?
I cannot assert that GB is a fav, not in the context of a common reader liking a certain work best, but I'd say it is the Master's most difficult dark comedy, even though branding it that way is not quite right. The inane and banal trivia in our minds. I want to leave my personal library to someone, or to the right place. The very thought of my sister Stephanie throwing out my books, my manuscripts, is too much to bear. I have to get working on this. Will I ever publish in HJR before I am dead? Will I ever coax Gregory Zacharias into accepting my apology for trying to make a facetious joke?
The suspense! It's certainly killing me.
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