Henry James: The End of The Wings of the Dove

When I first read The Wings of the Dove, I was on a Henry James binge. During frequent breaks at work, I read James on the roof of the office building.  “Go on; take a break,” my boss used to say. He didn’t particularly mind what I did so long as I got my work done.  And The Wings of the Dove proved to be one of my favorite reading experiences, much to the astonishment of those who couldn’t get through The Turn of the Screw.

Perhaps The Wings of the Dove does not quite rank up there with The Golden Bowl, but this elegant novel is one of James’s best.  Not all, however, like it:  some despise what they consider the heroine Milly Theale’s weakness:  kindness.   Milly, the charming, generous, thoughtful, witty young American heroine of The Wings of the Dove, was one of James’s favorite characters, based on his idealized cousin, Minny Temple, who died young of tuberculosis.  Milly, who is trying to hide her serious illness from her chaperone, Susie, as they travel,  has no experience of English society and is dazzled by Susie’s rich friends in England. Milly trusts the people she shouldn’t trust, because Susie is also an innocent.  Kate Croy, a brilliant English “friend” who is dependent on a rich aunt, discovers that Milly is dying and plots to fleece her of her money.   Kate  persuades her boyfriend, Merton Densher, a journalist, to pretend to be in love first with Kate and then with Milly, while Kate pretends to despise him.  When Milly dies, he will inherit the money; then he and Kate will marry.

Densher, to give him some credit, is not as sociopathic as Kate.  At one point, when it is clear their plot has been uncovered, he says:

“We’ve played our dreadful game and we’ve lost.  We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our feelings for ourselves and for each other, not to wait another day. Our marriage will–fundamentally, somehow, don’t you see?–right everything that’s wrong, and I can’t express to you my impatience.  We’ve only to announce it–and it takes off the weight.”

And he is relieved.

But Kate, strangely, continues the game.  

It is ridiculous to blog about Henry James–I could spend days and weeks and months writing a paper on those lines above.  But I love James, and I urge you to read him if you haven’t.  It’s a complete luxury to have time to read this kind of novel.

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Henry James & a Contemporary Giveaway

Sometimes I want to read nothing but Henry James.  It’s been abnormally hot, there’s water in the basement, and my carbon footprint has increased because I’m using the air conditioning.  

Retreating to the complex world of Henry James is very calming.  You know where you are in his  turn-of-the-century novels.  The same plots recur, though wrought with significantly different details and characters.   In two of his late masterpieces, The Golden Bowl and The Wings of the Dove, he weaves convoluted stories about innocent Americans exploited by greedy Europeans who marry, or try to marry, them for money.  The iniquity of the couples who impose sexual triangles on the unsuspecting Americans is appalling.  Nobody could be more cynical than these villains. Yet James shows us exactly how one villain gets warped in The Wings of the Dove.

I am wholly absorbed by The Wings of the Dove.  The sentences are ornate, the structure of the novel superbly sculptured, and the moral issues dazzlingly presented.   The triangle in this novel consists of a scheming English couple, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, and Milly Theale, a thoughtful, kind rich American woman who is very ill .  Kate and Densher are in love with each other, but they are too poor to marry, according to Kate.  And Milly becomes their mark.

Milly is charming, thoughtful, whimsical, insightful, brave–and doesn’t have the faintest idea that people might use her.  Recently orphaned and traveling through Europe with a writer, Mrs. Stringham, Milly agrees to Susie Stringham’s plan to go to London and look up an old friend.

The friend turns out to be Mrs. Lowder, Kate’s aunt, who wants to introduce Milly to society as a kind of wealthy pet. And Milly is enchanted by the sophistication of Kate and mistakes her manner for friendship.

Kate is amused, manipulative, apparently a friend,  but without the emotions of a friend.  Milly confides that she is dying.  And Kate makes her plan. (Do you hate Kate as much as I do?)

In the beginning of the novel, Kate is almost noble.  She offers to give up her prospects of money from Mrs. Lowder to live with her roguish father, whom her aunt has forbidden her to see. Her father forbids this.  He wants the money.  And so Kate goes on the road to perdition.

This is an excellent read, James at his best.

CONTEMPORARY GIVEAWAY: If you would like my copy of Dori Ostermiller’s enjoyable novel, Outside the Ordinary World, in return for stamps, leave a comment.  First come, first serve! I have to finish it first, but I should be done by the weekend. 

I wrote about this novel here.

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