What Maisie knew
by Henry James
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With an Introduction by Pat Righelato, University of Reading The child of parents who divorce, remarry and then embark on adulterous affairs, Maisie Farange survives by her intelligence and spirit. For all its sombre theme of childhood innocence exposed to a corrupted adult world, this novel is one of James's comic masterpieces. The outrageous behaviour of the characters on the seedy fringes of the English upper class is conveyed with wit and relish. The dual perspective of a sophisticated narrator richly appreciative of the absurdities of the adult sexual merry-go-round and the candid vision of Maisie, 'rebounding' from one parent to another like a 'shuttlecock', together create an 'associational magic'. Strangely, unexpectedly, from so much that is tawdry, comes a tale of moral energy and subtlety. James's foresight was in understanding the modernity of his subject, which is even more relevant today in the twenty-first century.
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Fiction, Girls, Remarried people, Children of divorced parents, Governesses, Classic Literature, Family life, fiction, Fiction, general, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Large type books, Divorce, Married people, fiction, Fiction, coming of age, Fiction, family life, general, Divorced people, fiction, American literature, Long Now Manual for Civilization, FICTION / Classics, FICTION / Family Life, FICTION / LiteraryPeople
Henry James (1843-1916)Showing 10 featured editions. View all 163 editions?
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What Maisie Knew (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics)
October 5, 2000, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Paperback
in English
- New Ed edition
1840224126 9781840224122
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What Maisie Knew (Oxford World's Classics)
May 29, 1998, Oxford University Press, USA
in English
0192835912 9780192835918
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Bibliography: p. 267-274.
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In the aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, young Maisie Farange finds herself shuttled back and forth between her father and mother, both of them amoral and monstrously self-involved. After her parents find new spouses -- and after the new spouses find themselves drawn to each other, as much for Maisie's sake as their own -- Maisie feels even more misplaced. As she observes the world of adults and their adulteries, and finds herself in the position to decide her own fate, Henry James's rendering of her child's-eye view -- his depiction of what precisely Maisie knows -- draws the reader into this scathing satire of social mores and insightful meditation on familial dependence.
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