The Golden Bowl

By: Henry James

Narrated by: Simon Prebble, Katherine Kellgren

Length: 21 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl is the last completed novel of Henry James. In it, the widowed American Adam Verver is in Europe with his daughter Maggie. They are rich, finely appreciative of European art and culture, and deeply attached to each other. Maggie has all the innocent charm of so many of James' young American heroines. She is engaged to Amerigo, an impoverished Italian prince; he must marry money, and as his name suggests, an American heiress is the perfect solution.

The golden bowl, first seen in a London curio shop, is used emblematically throughout the novel. Not solid gold but gilded crystal, the perfect surface conceals a flaw; it is symbolic of the relationship between the main characters and of the world in which they move.

Also in Europe is an old friend of Maggie's, Charlotte Stant, a girl of great charm and independence, and Maggie is blindly ignorant of the fact that she and the prince are lovers. Maggie and Amerigo are married and have a son, but Maggie remains dependent for real intimacy on her father, and she and Amerigo grow increasingly apart. Feeling that her father has suffered a loss through her marriage, Maggie decides to find him a wife, and her choice falls on Charlotte. Charlotte's affair with the prince continues, and Adam Verver seems to her to be a suitable and convenient match. When Maggie herself finally comes into possession of the golden bowl, the flaw is revealed to her, and, inadvertently, the truth about Amerigo and Charlotte.

Fanny Assingham (an older woman, aware of the truth from the beginning) deliberately breaks the bowl, and this marks the end of Maggie's innocence. She is no pathetic heroine-victim, however. Abstaining from outcry and outrage, she instead takes the reins and maneuvers people and events. She still wants to be with Amerigo, but he must continue to be worth having and they must all be saved further humiliations and indignities. To be a wife she must cease to be a daughter; Adam Verver and the unhappy Charlotte are banished forever to America, and the new Maggie will establish a real marriage with Amerigo.

Public Domain (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Katherine Kellgren does a miraculous job with James’s famously endless sentences. She keeps the rhythm and structure of each one clear without losing sight of its emotional content and its pace within the story—a feat something like running a hurdle course. Best of all, she creates vivid characters and makes the tensions among them truly absorbing as a sweet, rich American father and daughter find themselves in the toils of European sophisticates and in crisis everyone behaves beautifully.” ( AudioFile)

The Golden Bowl - Slow Tangle of Emotions

Story: A classic but I will say it was interesting unfolding of events and emotions. A nice exploration of marriage, adultery, and family fidelity.

Reader: Excellent.

Production: Very good.

Family intrigue and betrayal

Narration is done well. Family secrets and deception threatens harmony and must be dealt with adroitly. The writing style is wordy but otherwise is very enjoyable.

Collapses under the weight of its own brilliance

I have read several works by Henry James and usually like him very much. But something about The Golden Bowl didn't work for me. On the one hand, the mastery of the author is undeniable. On the other, I found the novel too indirect and ultimately unsatisfying. Though event do happen in the novel, James never references them directly; rather, he has the characters discuss in the vaguest possible terms their impressions of each other's musings on the reflections these events may have or would hypothetically have had on their elusive perceptions of some unspecified concepts.

What bothered me with this was not that it was hard to follow--I like difficult writing--but that, when you actually decode these infinitely intricate references you get characters that are not as deep or psychologically striking as the author seems to regard them. In other words, I felt that James had provided a brilliant analysis of characters not very convincing.

Consider this sentence, for example: "Her greatest danger, or at least her greatest motive for care, was the obsession of the thought that, if he actually did suspect [that she suspected he was unfaithful to her], the fruit of his attention to her couldn't help being a sense of the growth of her importance."

The narrator did an excellent job. Her characterizations are subtle but clear, and she uses a "Mid-Atlantic" accent which I think perfect for Henry James.

rad audio experience

dont believe the haters just get this audiobook and read the book along with it and just chill out with some henry james for a while!! i promise its like a warm bath w wine esp if u just also have a warm bath + wine

Half of a Good Book

Henry James's "The Golden Bowl" manages a difficult feat -- being simultaneously brilliant and unsatisfying. This novel of adulterous intrigue examines a young woman, her rich father, her husband (a penurious prince), and her father's wife (who is also her husband's lover). It is divided into two parts. The first, entitled "The Prince," is excellent. Whether due to, or in spite of (depending on your feelings about late Henry James) James's exploration of the mental processes of the various characters, we develop a feeling for each of the characters, and care for their predicament. The second, entitled "The Princess," takes place largely within the mind of the prince's wife, as she tries to disentangle her husband from his lover, while protecting her father. The problem is that the mind of the princess is, frankly, a boring place to be for over 200 pages. It isn't that she's unlikeable -- though she *is* unlikeable -- but rather that the reader never develops a sense of empathy with her plight. The plot, such as it is, becomes predictable, yet the reader gets to a point where the main hope is for the story to reach its inevitable conclusion.

The narration is excellent. The detached tone suits the text, and while following the convolutions of James's sentences is never easy (even when *reading* the text), the narrator does yeoman's work making it understandable.

Ultimately, "The Golden Bowl" is worth the struggle, but it doesn't clear the bar by much.

Dated?

Story told by Nuance and innuendo appropriate to age and class of Henry James. Meant to be psycological study but seems fuddy-duddy and endless in the 21st century. For Henry James fans.

One of my top five novels

Update: I am listening to Kellgren’s reading of The Golden Bowl again and it is peerless. This book is coming alive for me like it didn’t before thanks to her reading. She brings out every James subtlety so you don’t miss a thing in this dramatic story of deceit and so much else. It’s a tragedy Kellgren passed away so young.

When I first experienced The Golden Bowl I read the first part - The Prince - then I purchased this audiobook. So now listening to the first part for the first time I am getting so much more. I am savoring it. I think this is my favorite novel. I think it’s brilliant and could be discussed endlessly.

I loved being part of The Wall Street Journal discussion of this book several years ago, led by Colm Toibin.

Listening to this audiobook is a wonderful escape.


Would you listen to The Golden Bowl again? Why?
Yes! There is so much in every detail... I mean, it's James!

What other book might you compare The Golden Bowl to and why?
Only James can be compared to James. And only later James can be compared to the Golden Bowl. He is in a class on his own. However, George Eliot's Middlemarch was as inspiring, and Middlemarch's Dorothea is a heroine to me just as The Golden Bowl's Maggie is one. Maybe I could add Anne from Jane Austen's Persuasion as another classic heroine, but really Dorothea and Maggie are most inspiring.

Oh, maybe Balzac is sort of a French Henry James. Lost Illusions was also very thick and dense in it's writing, but not quite as perfect.

Have you listened to any of Katherine Kellgren and Simon Prebble ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Katherine Kellgren was excellent! I wish she would read some more classic novels!

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
I don't know but I always think of the line that Maggie had "done all" when she rises above her situation and Charlotte's behavior. I read this with the Wall Street Journal Book Club and it was a joy to share with everyone.

Perfect-Complete-Henry James at it's Best!

I loved narrator and story from beginning to end. It is the first Henry James novel to keep me wanting more and then delivering. Katherine Kellgren's reading is as multi-layered as the characters' personality in time and place, each given with respect and understanding the long long long sentence structure of James, the constant conversation of characters and their thoughts and struggles.
It is a dense novel, practically action less, so readers who enjoy discovering the person through the art of conversation, listening to thought, 'The Golden Bowl' is for them. The period of the time with it's restrictive social atmosphere, the vast separation of culture between the new world and the old and the living, breathing, warm blooded cast of characters finding love, discovering it's many meanings, plays lust against honour, dealing directly through their thinking minds and words.

Comprehension

Would you try another book from Henry James and/or Katherine Kellgren and Simon Prebble ?

This is only the second book by Henry James that I have read.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

I did not finish the book because it was hard for me to comprehend the book.

Did The Golden Bowl inspire you to do anything?

Could not comprehend.

Any additional comments?

I can usually understand books pretty well, but this one was not one of them. I did not finish this book. The first one was Daisy Miller by Henry James, and I did comprehend that one pretty well. In fact, I talk to other people about it.

painfully boring

like pulling teeth, painful boring tedious, couldnt get to the end no matter how hard I tried