This is a fascinating psychological drama, but oh my gosh does it go on, and on, and on! There is a scene where someone is looking at someone, and then turns around to look at a painting; this scene goes on for fifteen pages before anyone says or does a single thing. I’m exaggerating and probably making things up, but only a little bit! This book is very heavy on character development, nearly to the expense of everything else.

The writing, though, is luxurious and lovely, the descriptions almost overwrought, the scenes described in loving detail. James’s work is meant, I think, to explore the idea of the psychological drama, and he does that wonderfully. I think this novel, more than almost any other before that, explores the depths of each and every character’s thoughts, background, aspirations, and motivations. And while the novel is set in the late 19th century, so much of it is recognizable in the 21st - these characters are in so many ways similar to people I know, it’s nearly uncanny.

As for the story itself: I have to admit, I find it a little… strange. Isabel Archer is said, over and over again, to be a strong, independent, interesting woman, but I simply can’t figure out why; she doesn’t actually seem to do anything. And similar things can be said about the other characters: what does she see in Osmond (other than, I guess, his skill for interior decorating)? What’s so lovely about Madame Merle? Other than, maybe, Lord Warburton, I just don’t understand why anyone would bother to get to know any of these people, because they seem hopelessly dull. Why Isabel rebuffs Lord Warburton and Caspar Goodwood, I understand reasonably well; why she decides to marry Gilbert Osmond, I can’t possibly figure out. Likewise: the fact that Ralph Touchett enjoys flirting with Isabel Archer makes some kind of sense (even if it is a little icky by modern standards); but how he could become as thoroughly engrossed with her frankly very boring life… it’s all a little unfathomable. Which then begs the question, why did James bother writing this book? There are some interesting meditations on womanhood, and loyalty to one’s nation, and dedicating one’s life to service of a greater cause… but these get a little lost in the density of the story, I think.

I couldn’t help but compare this book to the other James novel I’ve read, The Bostonians. As far as that goes: I remember The Bostonians being similarly rather stuffy. The Bostonians was also way, way more anti-liberal than Portrait of a Lady, but both books similarly took a kind of odd glee in punishing strong women: Isabel Archer in this book, Verrena Tarrant in the other. James seems to be oddly enthused about attaching these women to guys who would generously be called losers today. It’s kind of creepy!

In any case: this book is sort of fun and interesting in its own way, for the first couple hundred pages, but oh my gosh, does Henry James need an editor.