Jamesian links
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This page is devoted to my 'full-time' occupation, which is, in short, Henry James. I'm currently in the second year of my PhD, but since the first year was spent studying part-time (i.e. hardly ever) and working for a grasping and vicious high street bank, I'm only technically one-and-a-half years through it. Confused? You should be. Luckily, I got a grant in the autumn of 1997 which enabled me to return to full-time study, and since then I've been a 'real' student again. The title of my thesis is 'Endings and closure in Henry James's writing' and will hopefully cover seven of eight of his novels, glancing at the others and also using his other works, especially his travel writings, to support my argument. It was inspired by tha fact that so many people complain about the endings of James's novels being unsatisfactory, unresolved, or just nonexistent. My thesis examines James's ideas of what makes a novel, and the characters within that novel,'complete', and how his approach to ending fictions reveals an attitude towards completenessas an unattainable goal. I'm aiming to finish it in the autumn of the year 2000, and if I'm lucky then you guys will get to read it when the book comes out. In the meantime, I lay chunks of it at the feet of my supervisor, Ralph Pite (a top bloke; see my Supervisor quiz page for guidance on how to judge these things) every so often. Just to make sure I appreciate James enough, I take breaks from studying him to present conference papers on various other subjects, ranging from Danielle Steele to Danny Boyle. My CV is now available (there's a link on the left) for you to see them all - or at least the titles; give me time to get my head round HTML before you expect the lot! I'm aware that Henry James is not common currency in late- twentieth century culture in the way that some of my other interests (The Simpsons, Eighties music, restaurant reviews) are, so the major forthcoming attraction, which I'll link up here, will be my beginner'sguide to Henry James, for anyone who's unwittingly stumbled in here when they really wanted to read about Henry's cat. For anyone who wants a current update, right now I'm working on James's travel writings and their portrayals of what makes a scene 'complete', and James's thoughts generally on what makes things aesthetically 'complete'. If anyone has any thoughts on this or would like to talk about it, please mail me - I'd love to hear from you! Finally, there's one of my favourite quotations from James: this will a regular (and hopefully, regularly updated) feature of the page, so I hope you enjoy them. Suggestions for others are very welcome. Then there we are!
In this section I'll be supplying my favourite bit of the moment from a James novel, story, travel essay or whatever. It may be one I think is funny, an accurate observation, or just appealing for no particular reason. This fortnight's one rings true from my own visits to museums and other centres of high culture where you're shepherded around unwillingly. In this bit, Daisy Miller, a young American tourist judged by her fellow countrymen to be rather vulgar, is telling her holiday acquaintance Winterbourne about how she's found Rome: 'We are going to stay all winter - if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal nicer than I thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I was sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going round all the time with one of those dreadful old men that explain about the pictures and things. But we only had about a week of that, and now I'm enjoying myself.' From 'Daisy Miller' (1878)
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