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The American Audio Book
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The American
Author:
Henry James
Reader: Robin Lawson
This American in Paris, searching for a wife, doesn't find the hunt as easy as he expects. Not everyone adores Americans. James brilliantly combines elements of comedy, tragedy, romance, and melodrama in this tale of thwarted desire that vividly contrasts 19th-century American and European manners.
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Available Audio Book Editions:
| F9B895 |
UNABRIDGED |
Audio Cassettes ( 10 ) |
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| Price: |
$69.95 |
Special Price:
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Publish Date: 11/01/2000
ISBN: 9780786102099
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Synopsis:
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In THE AMERICAN, a brash and wealthy American named Christopher Newman, a veteran of the Civil War, goes to Paris in search of an aristocratic wife. He falls in love with the widowed Claire de Cintré (née Bellegarde), whose ruthless, snobbish mother and older brother refuse to allow them to marry. Another family member tells Newman a family secret that he can use to force the Bellegardes to agree to the marriage, but he is too upright to do so. This early novel (1877) is one of Henry James's more accessible works, and his detailed, analytical, and always engaging view of American innocence as if succumbs to the jaded and cynical sophistication of the Old World makes for a highly enjoyable story.
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Author Bio:
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Henry James was born into a wealthy Irish-American family who settled mainly in New York City's Greenwich Village and in Albany, New York, but lived and traveled extensively in Europe while Henry was growing up. Educated at a variety of schools in the U.S. and abroad, Henry spent a year at Harvard Law School, which he loathed, and used his time haunting the library and attending James Russell Lowell's lectures at Harvard College. Soon after, he began publishing short stories and reviews. When he was in his late teens, he spent much of his time on his own in Europe--chiefly England, France, and (his favorite) Italy--and, as he approached his 30s he became a virtual resident of Europe, returning to the U.S. only for brief periods. James became increasingly successful, wealthy, and respected as a writer of fiction and as a critic; his brilliantly insightful prefaces to his novels have influenced many writers. His attempts to write plays were all sad failures: To be a successful dramatist was a lifelong dream for James, but he seemed to lack the ability to dramatize action anywhere but on the printed page. In 1896 he settled at Lamb House, in Sussex, where he lived until his death in 1916. Reactions to James's work range from scorn and impatience (H. G. Wells called him "a hippopotamus resolved at any cost...upon picking up a pea") to reverence. Despite his increasing mannered and challenging style, James's work endures as great literature because of his humane sensibility, his insight into American and European culture, his moral clarity, his delicate wit, and the lucid subtlety of his language.
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