The Golden Bowl
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The Golden Bowl
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Narrated by:
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Simon Prebble
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Katherine Kellgren
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By:
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Henry James
About this listen
Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl is the last completed novel of Henry James. In it, the widowed American Adam Verver is in Europe with his daughter Maggie. They are rich, finely appreciative of European art and culture, and deeply attached to each other. Maggie has all the innocent charm of so many of James' young American heroines. She is engaged to Amerigo, an impoverished Italian prince; he must marry money, and as his name suggests, an American heiress is the perfect solution.
The golden bowl, first seen in a London curio shop, is used emblematically throughout the novel. Not solid gold but gilded crystal, the perfect surface conceals a flaw; it is symbolic of the relationship between the main characters and of the world in which they move.
Also in Europe is an old friend of Maggie's, Charlotte Stant, a girl of great charm and independence, and Maggie is blindly ignorant of the fact that she and the prince are lovers. Maggie and Amerigo are married and have a son, but Maggie remains dependent for real intimacy on her father, and she and Amerigo grow increasingly apart. Feeling that her father has suffered a loss through her marriage, Maggie decides to find him a wife, and her choice falls on Charlotte. Charlotte's affair with the prince continues, and Adam Verver seems to her to be a suitable and convenient match. When Maggie herself finally comes into possession of the golden bowl, the flaw is revealed to her, and, inadvertently, the truth about Amerigo and Charlotte.
Fanny Assingham (an older woman, aware of the truth from the beginning) deliberately breaks the bowl, and this marks the end of Maggie's innocence. She is no pathetic heroine-victim, however. Abstaining from outcry and outrage, she instead takes the reins and maneuvers people and events. She still wants to be with Amerigo, but he must continue to be worth having and they must all be saved further humiliations and indignities. To be a wife she must cease to be a daughter; Adam Verver and the unhappy Charlotte are banished forever to America, and the new Maggie will establish a real marriage with Amerigo.
Public Domain (P)2011 Audible, Inc.Editorial reviews
Henry James' fascination with Americans abroad began with masterworks Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady and continued with 1904's The Golden Bowl. The truth-challenged and financially strapped American, Charlotte Stant, has fallen in love with the unscrupulous Italian Prince Amerigo, who is engaged to Charlotte's life-long friend, the fabulously wealthy Maggie Verver. Maggie's widowed father, Adam, is a financier and art collector, who travels around Europe buying up treasures for a museum he plans to build. Maggie marries her prince then convinces her father, whom she worries will be lonely, to marry Charlotte, but the bizarre tangle of relationships - and Charlotte's and Amerigo's affair - sets the quartet on the road to heartbreak.
While Katherine Kellgren is the principal narrator, the listener is treated to 50 minutes of the imitable Simon Prebble, who reads Henry James' preface in his strong, authoritative voice that sets the mood for the tale that follows. Kellgren - American born, but British trained - narrates in a rich, aristocratic voice that suits the intense drama. For Maggie, Kellgren softens her voice into a sweeter innocent tone, and an affable, slightly gruff one for her father. James' ornate language and mannered style never trips Kellgren up, and she reads with great forward momentum, easily navigating the talky and complex inner dialogue of the characters that dominate the novel.
Part of James' brilliance was creating flawed characters and challenging the reader to choose the hero or heroine to root for, but, as usual, it's hard to choose an allegiance in The Golden Bowl. While Charlotte and Amerigo's adultery is morally wrong, it's easy to see how their relationship intensifies as Maggie and her father's almost incestuous self-absorption leaves no room for their spouses. Kellgren's interpretation of Maggie becomes the heart of the story, and as the character sheds her naivete and moves to save her marriage, a new maturity and self-awareness emerges to avert tragedy. Collin Kelley