“Of course I move among miracles. It was all phantasmagoric.”
This statement by protagonist Lambert Strether sums up the experience of reading The Ambassadors by Henry James. The book is a bundle of contradictions: simple in plot yet endlessly complex in execution, expansive yet strictly circumscribed, a comedy and tragedy at the same time.
The plot is almost trivial. Mrs. Newsome, a wealthy widow from New England, sends her fiance Lambert Strether to Paris to fetch back her son Chad, whom she fears has been entrapped by a “wicked woman.” Strether, much to the annoyance of Mrs. Newsome, falls in love both with Paris and with Chad’s alleged seducer, Marie de Vionnet. Madame de Vionnet indeed seems both charming and respectable, hardly the “base, venal–out of the streets” creature of Mrs. Newsome’s worried imaginings. She is encumbered with an estranged husband, but as Strether learns to regard her relations with Chad as “virtuous,” this doesn’t seem like much of a problem. Strether not only doesn’t return Chad to his mother, but actively encourages him to stay in Paris. Frustrated by Strether’s failure, Mrs. Newsome next employs Chad’s sister, Sarah Pocock. Sarah is, to put it mildly, unimpressed with both Madame de Vionnet (“Do you consider her even an apology for a decent woman?”) and with Chad’s new European sophistication (“I call it hideous.”) Strether by this point has clearly defected to the Parisian camp and breaks off relations with Mrs. Newsome. Following Sarah’s departure, Strether observes Chad and Madame de Vionnet on an outdoor excursion and comes to the conclusion that their relationship is, in fact, adulterous. Far from being scandalized, his concern is only for Madame de Vionnet, whom he intuitively feels will be abandoned by Chad. Before returning to the States, he has a final interview with Chad, in which he tells him “You’ll be a brute, you know–you’ll be guilty of the last infamy–if you ever forsake her.” Despite Chad’s protestations, he leaves Paris with the conviction that Chad will soon tire of his benefactress and that their affair, “virtuous” or no, will come to an end.
The style of late James is known for its difficulty, and I did find myself reminded of Joyce and Faulkner. I found it hard to read for long periods of time and it took me quite a while to finish the book. Early on, I was bothered by the apparent mismatch between the “heavy” literary style and the “domestic comedy” of the plot. As I proceeded, though, I began to appreciate that the language serves admirably to mirror the ever-changing psychological states of the characters. James sometimes approaches stream of consciousness with his odd sentence structures and his constant interruptions of himself.
The Ambassadors, while written in third person, is entirely from the viewpoint of Lambert Strether. The reader sees Chad, Madame de Vionnet, and Paris entirely through his eyes. He seems a reasonable enough person, so there is little chance of a dramatically unreliable narrator as in Turn of the Screw, but we must still take into account his biases. Strether is somewhat naive and seems inclined to think well of people once he meets them. It took very little to convince him of the innocence of Chad’s relation to Marie. Strether also seems (in marked contrast to the other Americans) to b a natural Europhile, perhaps due to his sense of not having led a full life in America. He admits as much himself. In his famous “Live all you can” speech to his Parisian friend Little Bilham, he says, “Of course at present I’m a case of reaction against the mistake; and the voice of reaction should, no doubt, always be taken with an allowance.” In light of this statement we must ask ourselves: Is Marie de Vionnet the elegant countess that Strether sees or the vulgar woman that she appears to be to the other Americans? Has Chad really been transformed into a worldly sophisticate by Paris and Marie, or is he just a kid having a European fling before he settles into respectable adulthood?
One of the major themes of the novel, and, I gather, of James in general, is that of American vs. European society. America (as represented by the manufacturing town of Woollett, Massachusetts) is morally conservative. American virtues include propriety and wealth. The American characters (at least those not “contaminated” by Europe), while not always the most pleasant, are generally honest and plain-spoken. Europe, by contrast, is presented as a society in which values such as creativity and manners can trump wealth. The Europeans are likable, but are not always quite what they seem. Even the innocent-seeming Little Bilham is guilty of a serious lie. Clearly James prefers Europe (as shown by his biography), but he is not simplistic enough to imagine it superior on all counts. Still, James’s Paris is a lovely place, and I couldn’t help but imagine the garden parties in the glittering light of James’s close contemporary Renoir.
A cursory glance at some of the critical literature shows the influence that this novel had on a large number of writers. Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises is also a tale of Americans on the Continent, and a number of parallels have been noted. The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith, can be seen as a “what if?” scenario in which Strether turns out to be a criminal sociopath.
I am extremely glad that I had the opportunity to read this extraordinary novel and I hope to re-read it someday and to read some of James’s other writings. My intention for this year, however, is to read a wide sampling of Americana, so I am resisting the temptation to go on a James spree.