Reading this first novel by James soon after reading one of Wharton's latest novels has been somewhat fortuitous, but I was amused that if in The Reef the two main female characters could be understood as two possible selves for Edith Wharton, opposed, opposing and complementary, so it is the case in James's work.Rowland Mallet and Roderick Hudson, the two "Ro-Ro" poles in the novel, invite the idea of James exploring a more complete being. The constant, altruistic and rational Ro-wland versus t...

Roderick Hudson is Henry James' first novel and as for the debut it’s exceptionally successful. It is said that this novel is more accessible and easier to follow than his later works but I wish other authors in their bloom to have skill comparable to early Henry James. The novel is not only a record of culture and personalities clash, picture of the innocents abroad, puritan Americans in juxtaposition with corrupted Europeans- motives being his showpiece and hallmark, but also a history of conf...

The Object of My ObsessionCertainly, among the young men of genius who, for so many ages, have gone up to Rome to test their powers, none ever made a fairer beginning than Roderick. He rode his two horses at once with extraordinary good fortune; he established the happiest modus vivendi betwixt work and play. He wrestled all day with a mountain of clay in his studio, and chattered half the night away in Roman drawing rooms. It all seemed part of a kind of divine facility. He was passionately int...

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.From BBc Radio 4:Love Henry James: Roderick Hudson adapted by Lavinia MurrayRowland Mallet - a wealthy Bostonian bachelor becomes patron to a young sculptor, Roderick Hudson, and takes him from the US to Rome to study and develop his art. Their conflicting and complex relationship is heightened in the 'old world' as Rowland falls in love with Mary Garland, Roderick's fiance, and Roderick becomes involved in a destructive relationship with the beautifu...

J'ai lu ce roman et il m'a paru surprenant. I have read this novel and it has left me speechless , without proferring words except words of interjection of surprise due to the author's evident artistic quality of his domain. For in the course of my reading I was struck by this artistic quality which pervades one's life. Nevertheless I feel reluctant to say something as there are some excellent reviews, such as Kaliope's and Anieshka's and one exceptional, that one by Fionnuala. which have arrive...

This is the first American book written between 1850 and 1950 which I decidedly did not like. It does not succumb to a typically "American" style of writing, and is instead more European (which maybe makes sense because it's set in Italy). The narrator is highly observational, and describes his observations in great detail. But, rather than showing us what they look like, he tells us -- and this quickly got tiresome. I just really did not enjoy reading it. It's similar to The Picture of Dorian G...

At a certain point I couldn’t help wondering if Henry James hadn’t used the two main characters in this novel to have a detailed and protracted argument with himself. Rowland might be seen as HJ in his social guise and Roderick a mischievous projection of his precocious genius. You could describe both characters as half baked. Roderick, somewhat of a romantic cliché, has the talent but no money; Rowland has the money but no talent. An alliance is formed. Rowland offers to become the young provin...

The main character of this book is not called Roderick. No, the main character is called Rowland, and he is introduced to the reader in the very first line of the book. When I read that first line, I immediately thought of the eight century knight of Charlemagne's court who is the hero of the epic poem, 'Le Chanson de Roland'. However, since the early chapters of this book are set in Northampton, Massachusetts in the late nineteenth century, I quickly forgot that thought. When I reached page 188...

While Roderick Hudson was Henry James's second published novel (Watch and Ward being the first and serialized in The Atlantic Monthly in 1871), he always considered Roderick Hudson his "first novel". James also freely admitted that Roderick Hudson was his take on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun (1860). I went into this book with my eyes wide open and ended up loving it. This is early James and is completely accessible to any and all readers. It is, in my humble opinion, a bit of a Byronic-...

Putting this one aside after 95 pages to return to some other time. The story seems a little insipid and unmarvellous.

Roderick Hudson, egotistical, beautiful, hot, and an exceptionally gifted sculptor,but poor, is taken up by Rowland Mallet, a rich man of "fine appreciative sensibilities", who is kind of totally in love with him and it's so kind of gay but cute, you know, and he gives him $$$ and takes him to Italy.Like you do!!!!!He wants Rod to develop his talent - I think we all know what THAT means.Together Rowland & Rod they seem like twins or lovers, opposing halves of what should have been an ideal whole...

Not my favorite novel by James, but a great choice for those who have yet to read him. It is a bit more accessible (and more allegorical?) than his later work and it sets the stage for his international theme (American innocence vs. European experience). Roderick Hudson is a young American sculptor who has no money. Rowland Mallet decides to take him under his wing and brings him to Rome to kickstart his career. It turns out, however, that Roderick is quite fickle and immature, which causes Rowl...

Max Beerbohm on James : "To read Henry James is like taking a long walk uphill with almost of a mind to turn back, until, when you look back and down, the country is magically expanded beneath your gaze, as you never saw it."This, his 2d novel (1875), explores the double image of Rowland and Roderick - the first a rich connoisseur of art and whatnots (New England-based) who discovers a possibly talented artist, a beautiful, sensuous youth that he must mentor at all cost. R1 takes R2 to Europe --...

I think I may have picked up Henry James from the wrong end. Apart from The Portrait of a Lady (1881), most of what I have read or attempted of James (The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors) was written at the very end of his novel-writing career, in the first years of the twentieth century. Although I know these works have often been considered James’s finest, they have always left me rather cold, partly because of an aversion to his self-consciously hyperrefined (or hyperconvo...

I thought it fitting that James commenced his 1909 preface to this novel, his first, with a disquisition on the difficulty of representationthe difficulty of establishing a selective system of observation that will enable an author “to give the image and the sense of certain things while keeping them subordinate to his plan, keeping them in relation to matters more immediate and apparent, to give all the sense, in a word, without all the substance or all the surface, and so to summarise and fore...

3.5Serendipitously, my recent read of Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun seems to have been the perfect lead-in to this novel. I have no idea if the former inspired the latter, though I do know James was a reader of Hawthorne. (As I just checked something about James on Wikipedia, I, serendipitously, saw this: During this early period in his career he was influenced by Hawthorne.)From the beginning with the eponymous character (Roderick) in opposition to his benefactor Rowland, I was reminded of the tw...

"That's very true," said Roderick, serenely. "If I had not come to Rome, I wouldn't have risen, and if I had not risen, I shouldn't have fallen." For anyone who hasn't read James before this is a good place to start: he hasn't yet settled into his later, denser style of writing with its long, Latinate sentences full of sub-clauses. Instead this is accessible, looking back to nineteenth-century novels, rather than forward to modernism - though there are intimations of future developments. Whil

If you have had trouble navigating the winding sentences of Henry James, try this, his first novel. It's normal! An excellent character study of the most rational of men and the most passionate, and the three women who loved one of them.

3.5 stars (but only in relation to his other work). I prefer James from the other end - The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl. Still, this 2nd novel is essential for the James completist, introducing many ideas and themes he’ll pursue throughout his long career. I’d even argue it’s essential for serious readers of LGBTQ literature - the obvious homoeroticism on display here both compelling and unusual for a 19th century American novel. All others, I say jump ahead to the charmi...

Very indirect plot spoilers here. This is not-quite-James. It's slow to get started - not slow the way his other novels are slow, but sloooooooooow - with long descriptions of peoples' appearances that are neither interesting nor insightful etc etc... Chapter III through the first half of XI is great, but someone has seemingly replaced a Jamesian ending with one straight out of a gothic horror novel. The final few chapters are somehow both completely superfluous (page after page of 'the alps sto...