This novel manages to highlight the stereotypes of both brash Americans and snooty Europeans almost 150 years after it first dropped. But this split personality actually works toward the book's themes: after all, what do Americans like more than a side of melodrama with our comedy? The American is part comedy-of-manners (think lazy rich men and scheming marriage plots) and part massive melodrama (think duels, convents, and revenge). In fact, everything that Newman does highlights his all-American status-from the way he pays for French lessons to his vengeance plot in the book's final chapters is all as American as apple pie. There's just one problem: throwing money at a problem isn't a solution in French high society. He's wealthy, brash, and ready to spend some serious cash on his quest to find a wife. Because the only real way to see how American an American is is to throw him into a situation that is decidedly not American.Īnd in 1876, life among the European gentry was just about the opposite of life among purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain. With all that awesome stuff going on, you'd think that James would write a story about presidential candidates fighting their way through the Wild West while playing baseball.īut our guy James drops a quintessentially 'American' character in Europe to see what will happen. James had plenty of material to draw from. Oh, and ever heard of a little show called Deadwood ? It chronicles the way the West was expanding (in a lawless manner) during-yep-1876. We're talking the dirtiest presidential election of all time, the founding of baseball's National League, and the patent of the telephone. Should be easy enough, right? And James was writing in a year chock-full of significant American events.

had had a hundred years to figure out a national identity.

Long before American tourists had a reputation for wearing board shorts and fanny-packs to the Vatican, Henry James was trying to get a handle on what makes Americans tick.Īfter all, by the time James dropped The Americanin 1876, the U.S.

The american by henry james