Very clunky and unnecessarily wordy (especially the first chapter, which is a chore to get through), but overall, a decent story about man's self-absorption, love, and regret. Read for a college literature course.

**** SPOILER ALERT **** (But please, before reading this review, invest the time in reading James's short story. You will be glad you did, regardless of whether you return to read the following)

In one of the best reviews I've ever read of a piece of fiction (Note: any review, not just a Goodreads review), friend Aubrey pens in her opening thoughts on Infinite Jest: "Real life is a pain. Real life is a bitch." Note the double use of the word "real", for it isn't just life that is a pain and a bitch, it's life that is real.

Forget the Socratic maxim that the unexamined life is not worth living, it is the unexperienced life, Real Life, that isn't worth living. If you are reading this review, you didn't get to Goodreads by accident, and you certainly didn't click on this review of a Henry James novella for kicks. You are a lover of the written word, of literature, story writ of conflict that exists as a telling of the human condition. And how do we approach these tales of conflict, stories often with unhappy endings, of humans suffering? Why do we keep coming back for more, sifting these stories through our own filters of pain? Because this is all we have. Let's face it, as lovers of literature, poetry, biographies and plays we are invested in exploring, experiencing and living the human condition. Without our own daily commitment to living the personal story we find ourselves in, these written words would be meaningless. Real life is a pain. Real life is a bitch. Yes.

This masterful short piece by James, a literay exposition of the importance of engaging in Real Life, is presented in a manner both very accessible and opaque. After reading this story twice in succession, I fully understand how GR friend Proustitute claims to find new ways of approaching the text after a dozen readings. Here is the opening sentence of the story. Friendly reader, do me a kindness and read it three or four times as I did before continuing with this review:

"What determined the speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken by himself without intention - spoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after their renewal of acquaintance."

If you've read this story at least once, I hope that this opening sentence resounds with hidden meaning and is as haunting to you as it was to me. "What determined the speech that startled him ... scarcely matters" - that is a falsehood. It does matter. The protagnoist Marcher needs more meaning, more self examination into those compass points in his life that go uncharted. For what truly is the Beast that awaits us in the Jungle? For Marcher it is some unknown, unspeakable rare and strange terror that will happen to him, and presumably ruin his life. But by creating the traps in his life to snare the tiger, he neglected the asp. You see, Marcher, the Beast isn't the tragic event. It's the loss of a life not lived, of not investing in the You, even with full knowledge that it could yield real pain while living alongside the potential of bearing the fruit of real joy. James deftly shows us that the unexperienced life has the capacity to give us the pain without ever experiencing the joy.

It is clear where James's feelings lie on the answer to Hamlet's existential question. Yes, it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Give us a healthy does of that fortune so outrageous. We are ready to take our chances. Fire when ready.

While I understand why James is an important literary figure, this story was not a favorite. The overly wordy sentences and the mystical "beast" were at first hard to understand and then became increasingly annoying. Some of the sentences were so long, a single sentence would take up an entire page on my Kindle. Honestly, had I not been assigned this for a literature course to read, I would have stopped about a dozen pages in. With that said, after reading through and analyzing the story, I appreciate the "moral" of the story.

Henry James... Our relationship is almost as complex as this book. I appreciate the magnitude of his work, the tense waiting, but... It was the hardest story to read of all his stories. It was better than The Turn of the Screw, since the ending had a much bigger impact and it made me actually feel something, even though this kind of story has been told over and over again. Ego is blinding, yeah yeah. But he made me see it with new eyes on the last few pages, which was definitely unexpected. He remains a master of psychological tension. I appreciate all of the above, but I just didn't enjoy reading it. It hurt to read it. So sorry. I'm just not a mature enough reader to see the joy in painfully rigid writing.

DNF'd this one since it was such a struggle to get through... I ended up on page 18 after doing homework all day and I couldn't make myself finish it. We did, however, talked it over thoroughly in class and I liked the idea behind it, but couldn't say I enjoyed reading Henry James. Maybe I'll try again in the future, who knows.

this novella was kinda ass and the whole middle part should’ve been cut out, but i really enjoyed the class discussion