Is that not a great cover? This is a continuation of Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady. I read Portrait of a Lady years ago – I think it’s my favourite Henry James novel – so this sounded intriguing. I was always disappointed that Isabel married Gilbert Osmond.
Here’s the blurb …
Isabel Archer is a young American woman, swept off to Europe in the late nineteenth century by an aunt who hopes to round out the impetuous but naive girl’s experience of the world. When Isabel comes into a large, unexpected inheritance, she is finagled into a marriage with the charming, penniless, and–as Isabel finds out too late–cruel and deceitful Gilbert Osmond, whose connection to a certain Madame Merle is suspiciously intimate. On a trip to England to visit her cousin Ralph Touchett on his deathbed, Isabel is offered a chance to free herself from the marriage, but nonetheless chooses to return to Italy. Banville follows James’s story line to this point, but Mrs. Osmond is thoroughly Banville’s own: the narrative inventiveness; the lyrical precision and surprise of his language; the layers of emotional and psychological intensity; the subtle, dark humor. And when Isabel arrives in Italy–along with someone else –the novel takes off in directions that James himself would be thrilled to follow.
As I wrote earlier, it has been a while since I read anything by James, but the prose style of this novel feels Jamesian. We have the old characters; Madame Merle, Pansy, Aunt Lydia, Ralph Touchett (just in passing), and Henrietta Stackpole. The settings range from London, Paris, Florence and Rome – quite the Grand Tour.
No spoilers, but I was happy with how this ended.
I do think you need to have read A Portrait of a Lady before tackling this one, but, if you have, then I highly recommend this one.