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.