Gorgeous fucking prose. The language is textured, beautiful, sublime. Isabel Archer is the independent, imaginative, stubborn as a bull heroine with whom everyone should be acquainted.

I really thought she was going to marry Goodwood when he came back at the end but her decision to return to Rome, in spite of her misery, really caught me off guard! There are so many ways to read into it, but in my opinion right now, she did it because she didn't want to feel like a victim. She always wanted to be in control of her life and her decisions and in her mind, marrying Osmond was a decision she made, not one she was coerced into. The only way for her to find some resolution is to frame her life as her choices and her mistakes. She takes responsibility for her life, even when she could have written off her miserable marriage as the result of external factors (the odious fucking Madame Merle's scheming). Rather than view herself as an injured bird in need of rescuing, she stands by her decisions, this is the culmination of her independence and self-regard. I can't say I would have made the same decision but it did me good to witness Isabel make her own decisions and take responsibility of her own life.

Damn, Henry James, excellent work.

meh.
This was a slog of a slog. the writing was...well it was a LOT. but it was fine. the dialogue was actually quicker and wittier than i had imagined going in. but i didn't like the protagonist. i do not feel like it was a great multidimensional female character written by a man, which is what EVERYONE has been saying about it. I think what they meant was, "it's a pretty good try at writing a female character...for a man. right?" but it's not. and there are men who can write multidimensional female characters. probably. i can't think of any right now, but probably. this one's not it.
i guess what i took from it and found interesting was that it made me reflect on the ways in which we are all complicit in our own doom & downfall. isabel certainly makes some stupid decisions and holds fast to philosophies that do not serve her well at all.
but also, cut that shit in HALF. cuz i just can't read any more pages. it is a length that implies great authorial self-indulgence.

4.3

Insanely good; a book I wish everyone would read. Incredibly heartbreaking. Worth the six months it took me to read the damn thing in the middle of my own personal marriage drama. It is very crazy to me that I chose to read this book when I did and finished it when I did. The end almost killed me. I relate to and pity and feel angry toward Isabel Archer almost more than any other literary character I can think of. She is going to be in my heart for a long time. I loved Anna Karenina as a novel, and I know Anna and Isabel are both regarded as early feminist heroines, though both tragic, but I think I ultimately relate more to Isabel and therefore find her choices and conclusions about life far more heart wrenching. Highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Victorian heroines or feminist female characters. Isabel is richly drawn and deeply sad. I loved this book.

The book was unnecessarily long. And it was very sad. Isabel is an independent thinker and goes to the extreme. It's the age old dilemma. Free will doesn't insure good choices. Got way too tedious by p. 300.

Sometimes it's so easy for me to be a lazy reader, and when I feel like that I pick up a sturdy book like this. And it's a struggle, I can't lie. The descriptions in this book are dense but they are beautiful and before long it wasn't hard work. Yay for making your brain work!

3.5

james pulling out the hard manhood line on like the second to last page was crazy

I have been trying to read this book FOREVER, and once I got past the somewhat boring beginning, I really started to enjoy it. But it ended so abruptly that I actually came away disappointed with it.

Truly the most beautifully written book I’ve ever read, though also extremely heartbreaking. I kept rereading lines, phrases, and even whole pages, trying to figure out how certain words could be joined together so masterfully. James has a way with metaphors (he describes some pretty complex feelings and emotions in terms of simple yet beautiful ones). This is my first James novel, and I found that he was very intelligent and witty.

I didn’t love how unrealistic Isabel Archer was. She was extremely stubborn and blind throughout the entire book, which I’m almost positive would be too exhausting to keep up in real life. However, this book made me think and feel deeply. I strongly recommend it.

Some quotes I loved:

‘...I always want to know the things one shouldn’t do.’
‘So as to do them?’ asked her aunt.
‘So as to choose,’ said Isabel. - Page 121

An Englishman’s never so natural as when he’s holding his tongue. - Page 141

‘Do you know I’m very much afraid of it – of that remarkable mind of yours?’ - Page 163

‘There’s always a little of it and never too much at once,’ she said, ‘It never wets you and it always smells good.’
She declared that in England the pleasures of smell were great – that in this inimitable island there was a certain mixture of fog and beer and soot which, however odd it might sound, was the national aroma, and was most agreeable to the nostril. - Page 241

‘I haven’t always been happy,’ said Madame Merle... ‘Such a wonderful thing!’ - Page 244

All of chapter 39

Had to get into the cadence of the language, but once I did, I thoroughly enjoyed it.