Daisy Miller

I only recently started reading Henry James. I could not stand him in graduate school, when I was in my 20's, and never finished him when he was assigned, but twenty years on, I find much to enjoy in his work. I suspect he may be someone you have to grow into; I don't think he has much to say to the young; one needs more life experience before he can be appreciated. But why shouldn't living long come with a few rewards? Daisy Miller may be a good case in point. The main character, Mr. Winterbourne, meets young Miss Miller on one of those protracted vacations wealthy people in 19th century novels so often take. Mr. Winterbourne is at once taken in by Daisy's beauty and by her vivacity; she has a great lust for life and no self-conscienceness to hinder her. Daisy unknowingly breaks all the rules of her society in her search for experience. She does not know what she is doing, but she does not seem to mind. The two separate and then meet up again in Rome where Mr. Winterbourne finds Daisy engaged in an affair of sorts with a gold-digging Italian man. Daisy has so offended society by this time that none of the other Americans abroad will have anything to do with her or her family. Mr. Winterbourne tries to get her to change her ways, to convince her that she should drop the Italian and rejoin the more proper society of her peers, but she refuses. She will have her way whether or not society approves. A friend of mine once told me that Henry James ends his stories with an almost throw-away line or two that seems to put everything that went on up to then in a completely new light. That is the case with Daisy Miller, so though I really want to talk about the ending, I won't spoil it. I will say that I think it also supports my belief that one should wait before reading Henry James. Had I read this "throwaway" ending when I was 20, I would have been outraged at the hypocrasy Mr. Winterbourne displays. Now, I understand why he would do what he does, though it goes against what he has said up to then. My favorite character in Daisy Miller, my favorite in Henry James so far, is Mr. Winterbourne's aunt, Mrs. Costello. Here is her opinion of the Miller family: "They are hopelessly vulgar," said Mrs. Costello. "Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians. They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life that is quite enough." I think if I had read a line like that when I was 20 I would have come to at least dislike Mrs. Costello and possibly Henry James. Now, even though I realize she would certainly have nothing to do with me, I find her very funny. I've certainly moved away from Daisy's age towards Mrs. Costello's age and that has added to my understanding and appreciation of Henry James. Though I spend much of my time reading Young Adult fiction, I'm pleased to find something written with an older audience in mind. If you are under 35 and haven't read Henry James yet, I recommend waitin

I recommend Daisy Miller for anyone who's grown tired of American arrogance and exceptionalism, particularly for Americans who have lost sight of what's reasonably lovable in our own culture. This brash and irreverent naif, vacationing in Europe, and her affair with the stodgy and non-committal Winterbourne embodies the best of American innocence and idealism. Daisy remains James' best-loved character, perhaps because we need her so much, to remind us that our uninhibited lack of sophistication is at the heart of our American identity.

This book is a masterpiece. Every sentence is rich, deep and wonderful. It bears a lifetime of repeated reading, and every reading reveals new insights. It is a sad, short, tale of a love that should have been. James's heroines are underestimated and misjudged, and Daisy is perhaps the clearest example; she is blatantly misunderstood by everyone else in the story, including the narrator, Winterbourne, her non-suitor. Not that she is easy to understand - she is a subtly crafted feminine enigma, full of contradictions and surprises. All of proper society judges her at face value to be airheaded and crass, and she gives them plenty of ammunition. Her tragedy is that all but Winterbourne miss her depth and her insight, and yet Winterbourne can never bring himself to commit to the relationship they should have had.

I hadn't read James for about eight years or so when I came across a copy of Daisy Miller in a pile of discarded books at a local university. It sat on my shelf for a while longer, as I knew full well that James writes in thick sentences, making up for the lack of volume by quite a bit.What I found was what I have come to expect from James, even in his early works. This book does a great deal in terms of pulling together many levels of interpretaion: Old World versus New World, common versus exclusive, and also the chaser and the chased.This last viewpoint in particular is what stuck with me. We have a young girl, and a young man. They meet once for a few days, and the young man becomes utterly fixated on her, if for any other reason that she is playing, in his view, hard to get. When she turns her attention elsewhere, the ante is doubled and tripled when, for a variety of reasons most likely centered around our young hero Winterbourne, the American society in Rome starts to give our heroin the "cold shoulder". Given that James writes most often to examine the person most in focus in the novel, I tend to atribute most of the troubles of this young girl to both herself and Winterbourne, not just the society of the time. This is far from a safe academic interpretation, however.The notes included in the book are helpful for getting into the mindset of the typical reader of James' day, but are not distracting. Overall, this would probably be suitible for an ambitios middle school student, and just right for most high school students.

Read heading a collection of James short stories, 'Daisy' is a delight, with a classically clear narrative, beautifully direct prose (especially if you've come from the late novels!), a charming heroine, and a sublime balancing act between unexpected comedy (the great Randolph C. Miller!) and the most horrifying tragedy.Puffed up as a 'novella', however, with an introduction (Geoffrey Moore) almost as long, and copious notes (Patricia Crick), and the poor girl is left a little exposed. Maybe my feeling of relative disappointment, having fallen in love over ten years ago, was due to this infuriating critical apparatus, the introduction patronising James, the notes condescending to the reader.What strikes me now as the work's brilliance is not the concise treatment of the America/Europe, man/woman, appearance/reality, Geneva/Rome dialectic that so obsessed James; or even the astonishing achievement of the narration, somehow distancing and conflating the narrator and his silly hero. What is especially striking is the visual quality, the minutely composed tableaux - now Gothic, now impressionistic, now sharply lucid - as an abortive love affair is played out on the placid shores of Lake Geneva, the rondelay of the Pincio Gardens, or the ruins of ancient Rome, malaria poisoning the air on its way to Venice and Thomas Mann.