A easy to read, non-Freudian biography is my favorite kind, so thanks for that Mr. Novick. This is nicely structured, it flows beautifully, it includes some nice little tidbits of literary history, and exhaustive research. On the downside, Novick isn't much good at talking about James's actual writing: he focuses far too much on the ostensible content (in his view, essentially, bourgeois inwardness), and not nearly enough on James's technical feats (a little bit on his use of close third-person, but not much else). That's fine; it would be much less easy reading if there were huge chunks of narratology in there. But the absence of narratology does make it seem like the books are mainly ways for James to write about people he knows, rather than works of art. There's an awful lot of "character x is based on/is really person y." Most people in James's early works, apparently, are William or Henry James. Not my experience, I'll be honest.

But that really isn't all that much of a complaint, and I'm excited for volume two. It's astonishing that this book is no longer in print. Get on that, NYRB or whoever. ( )