Roderick Hudson (The ^AWorld's Classics)

By Henry James

Book Overview

'I had but hugged the shore' until Roderick Hudson, wrote Henry James. This is his first full-length novel and executed with such blazing, confident, thirty-one-year-old talent that even if he had produced nothing else, his fame would have been assured. Roderick Hudson, egotistical, beautiful and an exceptionally gifted sculptor, but poor, is taken from New England to Rome by Rowland Mallet, a rich man of fine appreciative sensibilities, who intends to give Roderick the scope to develop his genius. Together they seem like twins or lovers, opposing halves of what should have been an ideal whole. Roderick Hudson contains the obsessions that inspired all James's fiction but put across with a simple force and fire that he never quite caught again. 'Whatever the merits of "The Master" who wrote The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl,' observes Geoffrey Moore, 'they are not those of the "young Harry"-for whom the writing of Roderick Hudson was such a pleasure, and a triumph.'

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192815474
• ISBN13: 9780192815477
• Release Date: August 1982
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 444 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.3" x 0.8" x 4.6"

Customer Reviews

Readable early James

Henry James's first full-length novel (1875) features a classic Jamesian situation, an entertaining, witty and tortuous examination of romantic feelings that are caught up in a frenzy of youthful impetuousness, ambition and artistic genius, complicated by the social expectations of others and the unfathomable workings of the female mind. If it isn't entirely successful on those terms, lacking the kind of precision that James would become better known for in later novels, there is however an interesting subtext to the story where James considers that other topic of interest to him regarding notions of identity from a European and an American perspective and whether there is any compatibility between them. Such matters are considered not so much through the titular character as through the figure of Rowland Mallet, a young man from New England, with no fixed place in the world, no great ambitions, no woman or love in his life and no genius of his own. As a buyer and importer of European art however, he can however recognise genius in others and is particularly taken by an exquisite piece of sculpture by a young local man, Roderick Hudson. Believing that he can do something to encourage such talent, he proposes taking the young inexperienced man on an extended trip to Rome, taking him away from his law studies and the quiet dullness of New England life and hopefully through his patronage, see his ability mature towards delivering the masterpieces he is confident lie within. Mallet almost immediately regrets his decision to leave Northampton however, since in the days before their departure he meets and is taken by Mary Garland, the demure daughter of a minister, a cousin of Roderick and his mother, but his feeling are further conflicted when the young sculptor, galvanised by the impending trip, himself proposes and becomes engaged to Miss Garland. Mallet's faith in Roderick's talent however proves to be well founded, and even though the young man shows a tendency towards dissipation while discovering the wonders of Europe, his ability flourishes during his stay in Rome, creating a number of works that are well received. Rowland must reluctantly accept the impulses and drives of artistic genius, but when Hudson threatens to throw it all away for the extraordinarily beautiful Christina Light, Mallet knows he must intervene and find a way of doing so that doesn't reveal or hinder his own interests. Miss Light is a typically complex, beautiful and intriguing Jamesian heroine (and brought back for The Princess Casamassima), but here in his first novel he doesn't quite get to grips with her character. Hudson too is rather predictable in his playing the part of impetuous youth, while Mallet is a little more likeable and intriguing, but not particularly complex, hesitant, always maddingly reasonable (even in the remarkable having-it-all out with Roderick conversation at the end of the novel), but remaining an outsider to events in the usual Henry Jame

Early James, Italy and the American

Henry James brings Americans to Italy - and the Americans act American. There are a few stumbles in this book that don't detract from the story nor from Jame's voice. The semi-sophisticated American brings a hopeful artist, also American, to beautiful Italy, where the artist, instead of acting like a European artist, acts like a spoiled child. Roderick displays all that Europeans hate and love about Americans. And he gets away with it. It is only when his Mother and fiance arrive that the story turns from a soap opera into a tragedy. I happen to love Jame's later works and found this story exhibiting all the promise of his later books.

It's Funny That I'm the First...

I wonder why the discrimination (is it ignorance?) exists regarding James's first great work, "Roderick Hudson." Yes, it is early James, and yes, snobs, it is very "readable." It's a page turner, the sentences are short, and the clauses only interfere in the early chapters, as James revised this earliest work with woefully-advised insertions of his later style. Once you get past these early chapters, however, you will be carried along - there are a few laughs as colorless Rowland Mallet tries to rein in the wild, sensitive Roderick. Much of the action takes place in Italy - and you get to meet the delicious Princess Casamassima (at this point, Judith Light), to boot. A real winner - for me, second only to "Portrait of a Lady"---