After the discussions of Henry James in
Reading Lolita in Tehran, I decided to try out some more Henry James. Daisy Miller looked like a short work. It has a super simple plot. An American girl meets an American guy in Europe. They develop something of a friend/romantic relationship. The girl also meets with other local guys. She tells the American she was engaged. She later dies from a fever after a late-night rendezvous with a European guy. However, before she died, she wanted to make sure the American knew she was not really engaged. Surprisingly, the story is good and well written. Daisy comes across as a striving flirt among a "moderate new money" crowd. She is not part of the "upper" ex-pat crowd in Europe and she knows it. Yet, she also knows she is quite pretty and will use her charm on men to get what she wants. There are "rules" of societal engagement in the late nineteenth century America that she likes to flout. She takes advantage of her position in Europe to be different and try to live her life as she sees fit. You get the sense she is striving to move up the social ladder, but is not quite ready to commit. Eventually her behavior catches up with her, leading to her untimely death. The male interest, Winterbourne seems nearly passive in this experience. While initially taking an active role in the introduction to Daisy, he later seems to be a passive participant.
Despite being written almost 140 years ago, Daisy Miller reflects some of the "American Elitism" that is seen today. Despite spending extended time in Europe, the Miller's still view Schenectady, New York as the source of everything great. Even far away from home, the American norms are expected to apply.
A shy girl meets a boy. She comes from a wealthy family. He is not rich. Her dad thinks he is in it just for the money. The couple are convinced they are in love. The dad threatens to take away moeny. That does not fazed them. Eventually dad goes to exteme. The couple struggle with what to do. It must have felt like a more "modern" version of Jane Austen back in the days.
Aspern Papers reminded me of Nabakov's "Pale Fire". In both, an academic is obsessed with himself and a certain poet. They both display the dirty underbelly of academic research. In Aspern papers, the narrator goes to grand extremes of deceitfulness in order to obtain the papers from the poet. Stylistically it is fairly good, though the pacing can be slow and the story somewhat repetitive. I grew to hate the narrator while also wanting him to succeed.
