The Aspern Papers

Description

Henry James’ complex and beautifully written stories are a psychological gold mine as valuable as the literary treasure that his unnamed character was searching for in The Aspern Papers. Often using his own friends and acquaintances as inspiration for his books, James seemed to never really care much for keeping personal matters from prying eyes, aside from his own.

The story in The Aspern Papers seem to parallel James’ own controversial – and in some cases contradictory – ideas about privacy. In his book, a mysterious scholar that goes unnamed is fervently searching for a trove left behind by a famous poet. The trove allegedly contained many invaluable literary artifacts, such as sketches, drafts, letters and journals left behind by the poet.

However, Old Miss Bordeaux – the poet’s onetime beloved muse – together with her younger and significantly more naive niece, constantly seem to stand in his way, and the psychological battle between the scholar and the conniving old lady becomes somewhat like an intriguing and complicated chess game; and you never really know how it will end until the surprising, final move…

James’ story is quite characteristic to his work, aside perhaps of the surprisingly limited amount of information we gain regarding the lead male character. Nevertheless, what James misses (by some accounts, purposely) through direct characterization, he more than makes up for through an indirect form of revealing his characters’ traits and personalities, mainly through the main plot line.

The story is also remarkably beautiful through its poetic descriptions of Venice, and anyone who is a fan of James’ delightful, almost artistic style will likely not take long to fall in love with this book.


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