Roderick Hudson

At a certain point I couldn’t help wondering if Henry James hadn’t used the two main characters in this novel to have a detailed and protracted argument with himself. Rowland might be seen as HJ in his social guise and Roderick a mischievous projection of his precocious genius. You could describe bo......more

Roderick Hudson, egotistical, beautiful, hot, and an exceptionally gifted sculptor, but poor, is taken up by Rowland Mallet, a rich man of "fine appreciative sensibilities", who is kind of totally in love with him and it's so kind of gay but cute, you know, and he gives him $$$ and takes him to Italy......more

I truly enjoyed this sophomore effort by my favourite 19th century novelist, Henry James. So the story is a little on the melodramatic side, so coincidences abound, so the characters somewhat feel like cardboard cutouts of characters. This is the Master’s first attempt at a novel (if we discount Wat......more

Max Beerbohm on James : "To read Henry James is like taking a long walk uphill with almost of a mind to turn back, until, when you look back and down, the country is magically expanded beneath your gaze, as you never saw it." This, his 2d novel (1875), explores the double image of Rowland and Roderic......more