Portrait of a Lady (Henry James, 1881)

This is considered one of James' best novels. A young American lady (Isabel Archer) is brought to England after her parents die; she meets various upper crust types and receives a large inheritance from her uncle (at the request of her cousin, who was in love with her and thought the money would make her independent). She turns down marriage proposals from an American businessman and an English lord - supposedly wants to be free, explore Europe and beyond, etc. Ends up heavily influenced by an American expatriate (Madame Merle) that she meets in England, and marries another American expatriate (Gilbert Osmond) mostly through Merle's influence. She was used, in large part for the money that was supposed to help her remain free.

The book was pretty long, but very little action - lots of conversation, the heroine thinks about things etc. Lots of James' usual portrayals comparing and contrasting American and European ways (he lived on both sides of the Atlantic). In the end, I'm not a huge fan of his.

But this book was quite good. They made it into a movie in 1996, but it was criticized as too "talky." Small wonder, it's hard to see how this would transfer well to the screen.

After the Victorians (A.N. Wilson, 2005)

Third book by Wilson within the last year or so, and I have really enjoyed each. This one starts around the time of Queen Victoria's death (1901) and traces U.K. history into the 1950s. I really can't tell the strategy for this book. Wilson seems to know quite a bit about almost everything, and throws it all in. So there are portions that lose me - discussions of plays, architecture, design, science - but in the end it all works just fine as far as I'm concerned.

I like the guy's writing because he endlessly puts opinions out there - whether or not you agree, it's interesting and makes you think. It was fairly long, 500 pages, and good material for reading at the gym.

The story goes through World War I; celebrations of empire at a time when its demise was pretty much inevitable; disturbances in Ireland; World War II; lots about Churchill (who is more amazing every time you read about him); loss of empire (India in particular); etc. He walks through the thesis that England quite possibly could have made peace with Hitler after the fall of France; Hitler did seem to have a reluctance to attack England and an affinity for things English; it was believed he may have been content to dominate Europe/Western Asia and let England continue to run its empire at the margins. That quite probably is fantasy, but what is true is that England watched itself become irrelevant while behaving quite heroically throughout WWII.

It's interesting to hear him discuss the English schools and the administrative class that rose to prominence in the latter days of the Empire. I'm reading a book by Graham Greene right now, he's described as coming from that world.

Wilson's bio of Tolstoy is summed here.