Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)'s Reviews > The Golden Bowl

For a man who was never married nor, to the best of my knowledge, was ever in a long-term relationship with a woman, Henry James has written a novel that drills down deep into the heart of the dynamics of marriage and relationships between the sexes. While a stoutly thick novel, it largely swings back and forth between the relationships of three married couples--just six people; and like most of James's fiction, The Golden Bowl is a psychological tour-de-force. This is a tale that allows the reader to experience what a protagonist is thinking, and about what a protagonist thinks another protagonist is thinking. Sometimes facts are not facts, and sometimes assumptions and inference provide glimpses through clear glass, and other times everything is murky and quite unclear.

This is a complicated and richly complex novel that involves a very wealthy American patron of the arts, Adam Verver, and his daughter, Maggie. While in Europe acquiring art for his museum back in the states, the Ververs decide to acquire a husband for Maggie. Enter Prince Amerigo of a titled, but now poor, Italian family. Ah, but this marriage now upsets the harmonious balance in the relationship between father and daughter. Maggie now determines that the best thing is for her widower father to remarry. Enter Charlotte Stant, a young, vivacious and street-smart poor American expat. Little known to Maggie and Pere Verver though is that Prince Amerigo and Miss Stant are very 'well acquainted', very well indeed.

It is probably safe to postulate that as long as there are humans linked in marriages or relationships there will be adultery or cheating; not in each and every relationship, but it is a real enough threat that we all know that lurks in the darker fringes of our psyche and soul. The question that remains to be answered in each and every relationship is how it is dealt with; and that is what this novel--The Golden Bowl--explores. Not only the circumstances leading to the extramarital affair, but how each of the characters in the novel responds to it.

I think, for me, the novel's most powerful character is Maggie. Through the course of the novel the reader watches her mature and grow in knowledge and the capability to see what is happening around her and deal with it in the fashion that brings the least amount of pain and anguish to all involved, and most especially to her father and even herself.

The most tragic character for me is Charlotte Stant, as I believe that she knows going into her marriage with Maggie's father, Adam; and even her adulterous relationship with Prince Amerigo; that while she can attain financial stability, it is not clear that she will ever achieve romantic stability. There is a scene near the end of the novel where Charlotte and Maggie have a quiet, but forthrightly candid conversation on the balcony of the Verver estate. Both women know what the other knows, and both women know what needs to occur moving forward. The reader can almost hear both women panting as they breathe and think, the reader can feel the pounding of the pulses in arteries of both women as they face off and discuss how they will manage their marriages. It is gripping stuff, to be sure.

Like The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl is late Henry James, and it requires the reader's full dedication, commitment and concentration. Nuance, subtlety, innuendo, and inference are your watchwords. Masks and facade camouflage the powerful undercurrents of emotions that course through each of the characters as the tale unfolds. And while Henry James has crafted a fascinating portrait of marriage and relationships in The Golden Bowl, it is first and foremost a brilliant examination of human nature, and this is its relevance to each of us as we can see glimpses of our own selves and our own behaviors in each of the novel's characters.

A solid 4.5 stars for me.