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Aran Kumar. International Theme in the Novels of Henry James. Meerut, India: Ami Books, 1985. 128 pp. $10.00. The author's claim in the preface that "an exhaustive exploration of his [James's] subtle and multifaceted treatment of the international theme is yet to be undertaken in India" might justify arranging well-known facts about James's treatment of the international theme into eight chapters for publication in India. However, grammatical, syntactical and stylistic mistakes compounded by problems in poor editing make the value of the book questionable at best. Substantive errors in the first paragraph of chapter one are enough to deter a serious Jamesian from further reading. The opening sentence, perhaps aimed at emphasizing the internationalism in James, claims that James—bom an American—died an Englishman, reducing James's complex gesture in adopting British citizenship toward the end of his life into an absolute identification with England and rejection of America. The confusing definition of the international theme (2) and Kumar's claim that the senior Henry became a "religious professor" further exemplify the inaccuracies in the book. A persistent reader would find a tendency toward reduction, gross misreadings of texts, inadequate support for observations made, irrelevant quotations, lack of transitions between sentences and paragraphs, and a general incompetence to handle the English language most disturbing. In the chapter on "Ethics and Aesthetics," Kumar's description of The Golden Bowl as "a novel which deals with an irregular sex relationship" is reductive and comical. Comments on "The Story of a Year," Daisy Miller and Roderick Hudson evidence gross misreadings of the texts. He calls Daisy Miller a "tale of the independent little American girl who is destroyed by the antiquity of Europe" (14-15)! While introducing Roderick Hudson in the chapter on "Democrats and Aristocrats," Kumar reduces the Cavaliere's complex relationship with Christina and her mother to the pronouncement that the novel "once again portrays the shallowness of the Europeans in the form of a character named Cavalière Giacosa who obsequiously serves the Americans for money" (50). Kumar exhibits a tendency for irrelevant quotations. Furthermore, he often quotes without comments and quotes when reporting would have been more effective. In the chapter on "Democrats and Aristocrats," after quoting from The American to show Lord Deepmere's unattractive, even repulsive appearance, and Urbain's approval of him because of his immense wealth, Kumar comments, "This makes us believe that the BeUegardes care more for money than for morals," thus equating morals with appearance (46). The first chapter, little more than a haphazard summary of assorted events in James's life with a list of his travels abroad and little commentary on their significance, is symptomatic of the weaknesses of the book. The conclusion to a chapter supposedly dealing with James's "formative years" presents a hodgepodge of information about the last days of James's life, leaving an overall impression of strangeness and perplexity. The concluding chapter, "The Summing Up," reinforces the weaknesses of the opening chapter. In this chapter, what starts out as a study of James's international legacy in later novelists lapses into irrelevant commentary on the Volume 8 153 Number 2 The Henry James Review Winter, 1987 treatment of the intemational theme by Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, with no comments on James's influence or lack of it on them. The conclusion to this chapter and the book contains a long quotation from Edel which sums up James's position in American Uterature, without any reference to an intemational perspective. In the middle chapters (the titles indicating a dialectical structure are inviting ), the occasionally good observations, as in the case of the concluding paragraph of the chapter on "Innocence and Experience," the opening pages of "The Symbolic Significance of International Theme" (85-87) and the concluding paragraph of that chapter, are overwhelmed by the more frequent bad ones. A tendency toward wordiness, choice of wrong words, and grammatical and syntactical errors further weaken the effectiveness of the book. AU in aU, International Theme in the Novels of Henry James should not be on the reading lists of expert Jamesians or even of novice Jamesians. Mary Joseph Southern...

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