Colm
Toibin's 2004 novel “The Master” is a well-researched,
sensitively written piece of hybrid writing, blending fact and
fiction to produce a beautiful, complex read.
It
is a fictionalized account of the people, places and events that
shaped the life of the real novelist, playwright and essayist
Henry James that will satisfy present James fans and will make new
fans out of the uninitiated.
Read
the first two pages - the mood, the literary style, and the
problematic quest for emotional maturation (one of the central themes
that will come to dominate the book) are already there: When Henry
the protagonist recounts a dream where he finds himself near his
beloved mother, in a half-familiar Italian square where she
“beseeches” him to give her “something”, (succor? pity?
consolation? a word of love?) “he cannot help her” and instead
wills himself to “wake in a cold fright”, immediately looking for
ways to “numb” or “distract” himself. Henry is failing –
the master fails...
Henry
masters the rendering of psychological states in his professional
life but he cannot, dare not examine the emotional terrain that
shapes his own being. People around him want Henry's friendship and
love but he measures these out like J. Alfred Prufrock, in “coffee
spoons”. Yes, perhaps Constance Fenimore Woolson's suicide was
precipitated by Henry's emotional negligence, but what can he do, he
asks himself? And when Henry himself seeks intimacy we watch,
cringing, as he backs away from perfect opportunities to connect with
others.
Colm
Toibin ends the novel with Henry putting his relatives on a train,
returning to his house alone, “moving around it relishing the
silence and the emptiness” and preparing to “capture” and
“hold” the world as he “observed” it in a new book. Clearly,
it cannot be otherwise for Henry...
