"Henry James was such a consummate observer, and Tóibín gives us this in spades."
One of the delights of reviewing for Writers Review is that one can choose any book for adults. Although we all, as writers, wish to see our most recent novel given as much favourable publicity as possible - sales, after all, are vital - there is something very pleasing, to me at any rate, about seeing one of my earlier books being appreciated. Perhaps that is why I am so often drawn to earlier works of authors I admire.
There is much to admire about Colm Tóibín's work. I first read The Blackwater Lightship, and was immediately captivated. But I had a fine copy of The Master on my shelves for a while and neglected to pick it up. Was it the subject? The Master is about Henry James, who I read voraciously in my teens and early twenties. Had I finished with James? Was he no longer interesting to me? Did I enjoy Tóibín so much only because I liked it when he wrote of Ireland, the land of my mother? How we so casually reject gems waiting patiently for our attention!
I had not finished with James, and Tóibín had many insights about him. But The Master is a novel. So who is the master here? Both men inhabit these pages. Characters, whether real or imagined must dance to the writer’s tune. James was a man of the mind, and Tóibín inhabits that mind to stunning effect. No one can truly know what thoughts inhabit the corners of another’s brain, but Tóibín is impressive at conjuring what might have been there.
We follow the Master as he travels from London, where Oscar Wilde is having more theatrical success than he, to Italy and France. He moves through society, lauded by many who invite him to more gatherings than he can cope with. He strives to remain polite to those who irritate him but often longs for solitude. He moves from place to place, haunted by memories, as are we all. It is hard to settle. He has no wife, no home of his own, but has no wish to return to America. He is a drifter in Europe, living in his mind.
I absolutely loved this novel. I was in James’ mind, travelling with him, relieved with him when he found the perfect place in England in which to finally settle. Henry James was such a consummate observer, and Tóibín gives us this in spades. We learn about the people he meets, his dearest friends as well as those for whom he has little time. His perhaps conflicted sexuality is there, love is there, grief at the loss of those most dear to him. He is not a perfect man, but he does his best.
Running throughout the novel is his work. He is having trouble with his hands, engaging a man to take dictation, which works wonderfully well. He is writing short stories, and when not writing them, thinking about them. It is this that most impressed me about an highly impressive novel. As with all writers, James’ life informs his work, and his work informs his life. The two are bound together in a private dance which only he, and we, through reading the novel can experience.
Leonard Woolf, in I think the second volume of his autobiography, Beginning Again, describes how even when quite traumatic things happen there is a corner of his writer’s mind which observes with interest, and stores away what he has seen or heard to be perhaps used at a later date. Woolf thinks that this splitting of the mind to enable both the observer and the experiencer is common to writers, and I think he is right. Tóibín describes it beautifully in The Master. It is just one of the things that gives this novel such great depth and I commend it to you.
The Master is published by Picador.
Cindy is a regular contributor to Writers Review. Here are some of her recent choices:
