Vanessa Redgrave and Madeleine Potter in The Bostonians, directed by James Ivory, 1984
"'On the whole', wrote R. H. Hutton, reviewing The Bostonians in the Spectator in 1886, 'though we can truly say that we have never read any work of Mr. Henry James which had in it so much that was new and original, we must also say that we have never read any tale of his that had in it so much of long-winded reiteration and long-drawn-out disquisition.' Of all James’s major novels from his middle phase, it is The Bostonians which so often seems to elicit qualifying 'thoughs' and 'buts', even (or especially) from its defenders and admirers. Indeed, its creator got a pre-emptive strike in first, remarking in a letter to his brother William that 'all the middle part is too diffuse and insistent – far too describing and explaining and expatiating'. ..."
TLS
2018 January: The Bostonians (1886), 2018 September: The Golden Bowl (1904), 2018 December: Washington Square (1880)
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