Review: Washington Square

Washington Square by Henry James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have only just discovered the writing of Henry James. I simply could not put this book down. There are only a handful of writers who can so successfully travel through a man or a woman's unspoken thoughts ..... thoughts of propriety, impropriety, foolish hopes, devious schemes, love and detestation. It is a book about what is never said as much as it is a book about what is said which should never be said. It describes the many little deaths we will experience as others trifle with us and as we deny ourselves moments of heroic change. It is almost miraculous to me that someone has captured the infinite inscrutability of those who live a life of the mind, rather than a life of more concrete stuffs.
I loved this book.

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