Henry James: A Study in the Aesthetics of the Novel (review)

Asthana, Rama Kant. Henry James: A Study In the Aesthetics of the Novel. New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1980. 130 pp. Rs. 50.00. Any volume of criticism devoted exclusively to the Jamesian aesthetic In terms of the novelist's own stray but Insightful comments on the "theory," spirit, and genius of the novel, scattered over a variety of exercises—prefaces, essays, reviews, letters, autobiographies, etc.—offers a very special kind of challenge. It's not as though the appeal of such an adventure can really be separated from the arcane appeal of James's fiction in general, for the novells-Hs criticism Is, by and large, an extension of the fictive process and rests upon the same metaphysical and aesthetic assumptions. Even Its rhetoric demands the same kind of coercive attention. However, the kind of Intellectual rigor that is needed to sift, collate, and formulate a coherent and organic vision of the novel In James does present certain problems of assimilation and understanding. To the extent that this has been done adequately, Asthana's book Is a welcome addition to the expanding James lana. In Its simple, unpretentious manner, It succeeds In catching the contours of the Master's thought, though there are few original or provocative Insights. There Is clearly no great desire to take on this high priest of fiction for an extended bout. On the whole, Asthana Is content to paraphrase James's tangled, obscure and stretched Ideas, relying heavily on collateral critical support. Thus, as a fair summary of James's position as a theorist of the novel, the volume under review has Its own rationale and Its value. But anyone dealing with the subtleties and ambiguities of Jamesian thought and expression at the higher reaches of criticism Is obliged to produce an order of Imagination that seeks no subterfuges, but, on the contrary, solicits opportunities for a strenuous critical engagement. This, t fear, does not frequently happen In Asthana's case. The book, then, has admirable surfaces, but few real depths. In his opening chapter, Asthana gives us a rapid résumé of the novel In England and America till James's advent, with a view to establishing the genre's mixed character and the poverty of Its credentials as a work of art per se. The arrival of James on the American scene, though a "historical necessity," was, in effect, the result of certain aesthetic and cultural pressures which had slowly been gathering weight elsewhere—in England and on the Continent. In his second chapter, "The Dynamics of the Creative Process," Asthana, recalling apposite quotations from the Prefaces and other essays, seeks to prove that James had no "a priori view or concept of the novel," and that he trusted his Imagination to find the redemptive form as a matter of exercise and engagement, As he rightly suggests, the Imagination was always to be anchored In experience. And this brings up the inevitable question as to what constitutes experience In the Jamesian concept and lexicon. For James, adds Asthana, Impressions are primary, and they precede experience. And though Asthana takes notice of Maxwell Gelsmar's objection to this view, he falls to raise the wider and more important question of his suspicion of the whole Jamesian eplstemology. From the idea of experience, Asthana moves on to the next level of the argument, which culminates In the evocation of the Imagination qua Imagination in the celebrated passage on the subject In the Preface to The American. Both romance and realism, then, emerge as "valid modes for seeking reality or truth." This Is quite unexceptionable, though Asthana's example—Isabel Archer's controversial return to Rome—comes a cropper. A very complex question Is reduced to a one-dlmenslonal statement. To suggest that she goes back to do her duty as mother Is to miss the possibility of a whole school of doubts, surmises and contingencies. The whole question of how perceptions get organized, how experience and the Imagination batten upon each other, how they turn into decoys and traps, and how they finally seek redemption In an economy of mutual sacrifices Is something that needs to be gone into. Asthana's next question relates...