Abstract
The aim of this paper is to make a reading of the novel The Master by Colm Toibin, whose fictional time covers four decisive years in the life of Henry James, from 1895 to 1899. I will argue that, for once, it is James who is being watched from the perspective of a high window, the leit motif of the novel, only that instead of following James’ gaze on the outside world, Toibin enters the Master’s consciousness. Hence, through the use of a central intelligence (The Master’s acclaimed use of point of view) Toibin turns James into the main character of his fiction in order to recreate those themes that most haunted him in his middle years: his frustrating experience in the theater with his play Guy Domville; the death of his parents and his sister, Alice; the suicide of his friend Constance Woolson Fenimore; his homosexuality; his not having participated in the American Civil War; being from a family of intellectuals, his having preferred fiction over history and philosophy.
Highlights
Colm Tóibín’s novel on the life of Henry James, The Master (2004), is a blending of elegance and daring
Turning Henry James into the object of his fiction, Tóibín masterfully knits the threads of his narrative through the use of a central consciousness (James’acclaimed style) that denotes a witty observation of the life of “the Master”
The fictional time of the narrative focuses on a period that covers four years of James’ life, from 1895 to 1899 when this seasoned cosmopolitan had already made of England his permanent residence
Summary
Colm Tóibín’s novel on the life of Henry James, The Master (2004), is a blending of elegance and daring. Lamb House would give him that and a sense that he belonged among the English as he felt very well accepted by his new neighbours, fact he displayed with pride in front of his American friends This period of his life has been called by the writer’s most famous biographer, Leon Edel (1963) “the treacherous years”, due to James’ failure in the theater with his. One might think that James was trying to make sense of his own life or, after the disappointment of Guy Domville, trying to give up, but his own alter ego, the one he was always in communion with, helped him go on It is at this critical moment, that he meets his own dead, in the figure of his aunt Kate and his mother, his two most beloved persons, who seem to both warm him against some evil and ask for help, fact that leaves him helpless. Tóibín selects some events out of the Master’s life that help him create different narrative personas through which he tries to portray some of the most conflictive facets of James’ identity: his desire to become a writer; the relationship with his brother William; his literary ambitions and frustrations; his sexual identity
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