The Aspern Papers and Other Tales (Penguin Classics)

Henry James's ornate Victorian prose irritates many contemporary readers. Not me. I admire it and learn from it. On the other hand, the core of his yarns can be acknowledged to seem dated, revolving as they inevitably do on the life of the 19th century English and American upper class. Dated, perhaps, yet inordinately interesting and refreshing. Isn’t it bracing to read about societies where good manners, civility, style, and appreciation of the classics still prevail? This compared to the vulgarity, Philistinism, and lack of breeding that dominate today. Two stories in this collection stand out: "The Aspern Papers" and "The Author of Beltraffio". The narrative in each case involves the writings of a literary genius; each also holds the reader's attention until their respective ending, which in both cases are sad and shocking. The remaining stories in this particular collection are less compelling, though of course retain the singular entrancing character of Henry James’s works.

Great stories and well written.

Join the unnamed narrator - 'a publishing scoundrel' - on his quest to Venice to find and possess The Aspern Papers; where you will journey through a magical Venice of faded palaces and meet with Juliana Bordereau, the very aged mistress of the long-dead American poet of renown, Jeffrey Aspern. In attendance with Juliana is her niece and lifelong companion, Miss Tita Bordereau. Both ladies are American by birth, but have been self-exiled in the city still clinging to the Romantic period of the earlier nineteenth century, for more than a lifetime it seems.The tragedy continues with little touching moments; like the one where the narrator asks Miss Tita: "You don't mean to say you are also by chance American?""I don't know; we used to be.""Used to be? Surely you haven't changed?""It's so many years ago - we are nothing."From that brief verbal interchange I gathered that the author was setting up the character of Miss Tita (a plain, fiftyish spinster), and he was. Later we will find that beauty is seldom the surface exhibit we take for granted, but more an inner energy that transforms us to an ethereal state. I, for one, was ever on the side of Miss Tita and all the more saddened by the tale's eventual denouement.Katabatic Voices? I have always been a night person with a book to read at my bedside. Thus it was that I started this tale a little after midnight, as the katabatic winds flowed down the mountainside of my temporary (Covid-19) home in the Welsh valleys, bringing with it the voices of Venice. I managed to get to within 20-pages of the end of the tale before putting the book aside and switching off the bedside light, reasoning that the voices would still be there tomorrow. But as with all great story telling, sleep would not come as I found myself more and more concerned over the fate of the Misses Borderereau; resulting with the light going back on and picking up the book once more.In conclusion, I found more in the great American man of letters, Henry James this time around (having last read him more than 40-years ago) and would gladly offer 10-stars if Amazon would finally - after all these years - please deign to review their grading system to either color coding or an alpha-numeric scale. Five stars is too simplistic for the millions of works and different genres available.Back to Henry - The Aspern Papers is a story not to be missed ...

Henry James is a much respected writer, an American who lived mostly in Europe, and became a British subject towards the end of his life. Some of what he writes is good, but he has a tendency to write long, very, very long meandering paragraphs. The Aspern Papers and The Author of Beltraffio are the only two tales worth reading.The Introduction by Michael Gorra and Philip Horne's Chronology are most revealing incites about the author.