The Europeans, by Henry James

I’ve never been a big fan of Henry James. I liked “The Turn of the Screw,” of course, but that’s so far removed from his other works that it hardly counts, and I found “Daily Miller” and “The Bostonians” completely insufferable—the prose turgid, the characters dull, and the narrative voice sententious. I’ve always felt a little guilty about this distaste of mine for one of the masters of modern literature, so I’m highly pleased to say, then, that I liked “The Europeans.” Perhaps this indicates a whole new beginning for me and James; perhaps it just means I have shallow tastes and only like his frivolous fare. (The introduction of my copy called this work “subtle” but also “light-hearted.” I guess that’s me to a tee.)

“The Europeans” is about, well, a pair of Europeans, Felix and Eugenia, come to Boston to seek their fortune, as well as the company of their American cousins. James then takes the opportunity to contrast their European natures with the staid, Puritanical disposition of their American relations, with, of course, no flattery towards the Americans: they’re Puritans, all of them, charmed but somewhat befuddled by the francophone sophistication of the newcomers.

And, of course, Felix and Eugenia are by far and away the most interesting characters in the book. The American are all reduced to types—the Boston matron, the Boston patriarch, the Boston virgin—but Felix and Eugenia live and breathe, trying for adventure and home at once, for happiness and comfort and amusement. Felix, in particular, is one of the more amusing literary characters I’ve encountered for a while; his deliberate lighthearted flippantness makes him a delight on every page, almost something out of Oscar Wilde, only with a genuinely good heart, a real naif, in his way, as he tosses off one-liners like, “To begin with, I have never entertained an idea. Ideas often entertain me; but I am afraid I have never seriously made a plan” and “she reminds me of an old-fashioned silver sugar tongs; you know I am very fond of sugar.” Eugenia, while far more serious, is equally interesting: her plight as the morganitic wife of a minor European prince, and her quest for a new husband, drives much of the action of the book, and in her brilliant charm, as well as her intense and sincere desires for happiness, her own and her brothers, she is a highly sympathetic character, the real nexus of the novel.

It all proceeds with the writerly insight James is famous for, made, due to his characters, less preachy than usual, and it all ends happily, or as happily as you can expect it. Though short, “The Europeans” exposes several critical facets of human nature and, what’s more, the relationship of that nature to its own culture, whether European or American. It certainly deserves its “minor classic” status, and encourages me to give James another chance. Thank you, Felix and Eugenia.