Book Description
London, 1931. The night before an exhibition of his artwork opens at a famed Mayfair gallery, the controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope falls to his death. The police rule it an accident, but Nicks twin sister, Georgina, a wartime journalist and a infamous figure in her own right, isnt convinced. In Messenger of Truth, Maisie once again uncovers the perilous legacy of the Great War in a society struggling to recollect itself. But to solve the mystery of Nicks death, Maisie will have to keep her head as the forces behind the artists fall come out of the shadows to silence her. Following on the bestselling Pardonable Lies, Jacqueline Winspear delivers another vivid, thrilling, and utterly unique episode in the life of Maisie Dobbs.
Customer Reviews:
A Little Off-Balance.......2007-07-26
"God, he's just a little off balance," thought Maisie Dobbs about Officer Tucker while he was questioning her. For Maisie is investigating the death of an artist who supposedly accidentally fell from a scaffold while he was preparing to mount his mysterious triptych (3-piece art work) in a museum in England. Off balance is right, and Georgina Bassington-Hope, a famous journalist in her own right, is convinced that her artist brother, Nicholas, was pushed off the scaffold to his death. Hired by Georgina, Maisie sets of to slowly, methodically investigate the Bassington-Hope family, friends and acquaintances. Her method is fascinating reading as she quietly intuits each vital step in this formidable process, punctuated by significant opposition from the police and some smugglers.
The reader through Ms. Winspear's carefully detailed presentation meets these characters and gets to share in the intimate knowledge about their finer and gauche personality aspects. A psychologist as well as Investigator, she's got the talent with which one is born and that which can't be taught! Astute and compassionately honest she is!
Depression England and the awful World War that preceded it are frankly and carefully presented, leaving no doubt how these events created suffering and incomparable struggle for all who are surviving both. Indeed these characters somehow manage to thrive out of some deeper fine qualities that slowly emerge as Daisie continues her exploration into the seamier side of men and women of both the upper and lower class British citizens.
This is a fine, fine novel that will thrill the true mystery lover who really doesn't want to figure out the puzzle on page 1 or 100 but wants to relish the truly intriguing art divided into successive canvases of a classic, wonderful mystery!
Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on July 25, 2007
Messenger of Truth: A Maisie Dobbs Novel.......2007-07-24
The book is well written, a good story line and makes for enjoyable light reading.
A Maisie Dobbs Novel .......2007-07-18
Some books you read as a main course dinner others you save for the dessert. This book could fall into either category. A top read when you
choose to read. The person of Maisie Dobbs has been building for the past three books, and has proven to be a top notch detective and a business person. Be prepaired to find that you will have a hard time putting this book down.
Maisie Dobbs #4.......2007-07-14
I love this series! A thinking woman! Looking forward to the continuation of the series.
A dry watershed.......2007-06-24
This is Jacqueline Winspear's fourth novel about Maisie Dobbs, "psychologist and investigator." Fans of the series may be slightly disappointed, but should still enjoy it. First-time readers will wonder what all the fuss is about. For, as I suspected already in the third novel, PARDONABLE LIES, the narrative span is becoming difficult to sustain over four books.
But Winspear's sense of period seldom lets her down, and there are still many interesting things here: her view of the vibrant art scene between the wars or the heady night world of jazz clubs and cocktails, contrasted with the effect of the Depression on the out-of-work poor and the lamentable state of public health. And those parts of the story which have to do with the rags-to-riches rise of the heroine (housemaid, war nurse, Canbridge graduate, private investigator) are mercifully shorter -- though Maisie's emotional problems would mean very little to those who had not read the earlier books. But Winspear seems caught on a difficult watershed: on the one hand, continuing to write about the legacy of the First War, which no longer has the resonance that it had in her first books; on the other, exploring the life of a nation moving inexorably towards the Second. There are aspects of both here, but they do not blend easily. If she is to continue, the author needs to move forward rather than back -- and also develop the inner life of her heroine so as to make her interesting for who she is now, rather than as the product of previous books in the series.
Readers who want to read more about the role of artists in the first War -- an important element in this book -- might be interested in REGENERATION by Pat Barker. Although Barker's novel deals with poets (Sassoon and Owen among them) rather than painters, it tackles head-on the conflict between war's brutality and artistic sensitivity, which has been a persistent theme in Winspear's books, and a moving one.
Book Description
Hailed by NPR's Fresh Air as part Testament of Youth, part Dorothy Sayers, and part Upstairs, Downstairs, this astonishing debut has already won fans from coast to coast and is poised to add Maisie Dobbs to the ranks of literature's favorite sleuths.
Maisie Dobbs isn't just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her very first assignment, seemingly an ordinary infidelity case, soon reveals a much deeper, darker web of secrets, which will force Maisie to revisit the horrors of the Great War and the love she left behind.
Customer Reviews:
An Extraordinary Woman.......2007-09-13
MAISIE DOBBS was recommended in a book blog that I had read; I do not recall which one, which is a pity because I owe the author thanks. I was not forty pages into the book when I decided I must have all three sequels, and by the time I was halfway through the fourth I was sad that I would soon be finished with this portion of Maisie's life. I have rarely been so attracted to a character so quickly. The stories are complex narratives with surprising insights; for some reason they remind me of Dorothy Sayers (probably the World War I connection existent in each story). The descriptions of the battlefields bring the horror of that war alive, and Maisie's 1930s world is beautifully brought to life. Full of memorable characters such as Maisie's assistant Billy, but none of them is as memorable as Maisie herself. I can't wait for the fifth book and will buy the next one in hardcover.
Hokey.......2007-07-15
Hokey, cliched, loaded with predictable plot twists (see Enid's fate and the final chapter), and a lot of stomach churning psycho babble from Maisie's teacher Maurice Blanche. There is even an utterly pointless character named, of all things, Khan. He's a blind Ceylonese mystic (OH BROTHER!) He's supposed to be a mysterious guru, but his main purpose seems to be to teach Maisie how to breathe properly. The final scene where Maisie solves the mystery is absolutely ridiculous.
Still I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is "unreadable." A "nice" book, but not compelling enough to recommend it.
beautifully evocative.......2007-07-08
Maisie Dobbs is a delicious book, if for nothing other than the way it evokes the between-the-wars era in England. You really feel the damage WWI had caused England's spirit. Maisie's young life is well drawn along with her time in the VAD in France. The only part that really didn't go down well with me was the way Maisie's use of psychology is wrapped in a coating of psychic/supernatural/mystical ability. I found it hokey. I'm also not so sure that class barriers were quite as easy to bridge as Maisie appears to have found it. Overall I found "Maisie Dobbs" a charming read, the mystery pulls the story along, but the atmosphere and flavor make it stand out.
Here's what I want..........2007-07-08
I could echo the sentiments of everyone else here... I "shant."
I loved Maisie... One little thing, tho. I am a sucker for a terrific story with lots of history woven in... I would have liked to have seen more World War I, real-life London in this era... Sort of like The Alienist...
But, I already bought the second book, Birds of a Feather, and I was hooked immediately.
Maisie, I'm with you!
If you are just now finding Maisie Dobbs, how I envy you!.......2007-06-26
And you may as well order the next three now, because no way will you not want to read them! My husband and I have all four (so far published; we eagerly await the next one), and have shared them with numerous friends. Maisie is a wonderful heroine, and the books are so evocative of the time and place, and the characters so well drawn, that the mystery story itself is almost secondary. However, the stories are good, too. Maisie is a great find, and we hope she goes on for a very long time. Enjoy!
Book Description
In the third novel of this bestselling series, London investigator Maisie Dobbs faces grave danger as she returns to the site of her most painful WWI memories to resolve the mystery of a pilot's deathnbsp;Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone. Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe. Every once in a while, a detective bursts on the scene who captures readers' hearts-and imaginations-and doesn't let go. And so it was with Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs, who made her debut just two years ago in the eponymously titled first book of the series, and is already on her way to becoming a household name. nbsp;A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world. nbsp;In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission also brings her together once again with her college friend Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to the war-one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the missing Ralph Lawton.nbsp;Following on the heels of the triumphant Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies is the most compelling installment yet in the chronicles of Maisie Dobbs, "a heroine to cherish" (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review).
Customer Reviews:
Pardonable Lies.......2007-09-05
When things happen, they happen in threes. So Maisie Dobbs finds out when she takes on a case to help a child accused of murder, a sort of double case dealing with soldiers killed in the war, and trying to find out who was trying to kill her. The child accused of murder is a girl barely thirteen forced into street walking, of the two soldiers, one was the brother of Maisie's best friend and the other the son of an MP who had promised to settle the question of whether the boy still lived or not. Lastly, the killer had surfaced as she began her investigations Was is someone connected to a case? Talented Jacqueline Winspear has written a story that will keep you reading, beginning to end. You will thoroughly enjoy meeting Maisie and the other characters while stepping back in time. A series of subplots woven into the fabric of the whole make for a satisfying and pleasant read. A touch of the paranormal added to the mix of mystery and romance give it a flavor to set it apart from the rodinary mystery. Any reader will find this deserves the title, cozy, even though it doesn't follow all the rules. You'll be looking for other books by this very able author. I know I will.
Powerful Anti war Message.......2007-06-08
All of the Maisie Dobbs books are wonderfully written historical novels as well as mysteries. They take place between the wars, and speak of the horrors of the War to End All Wars. What the brave Brits don't know is that there is much worse to come.
I re-read the series often, and purchase it for gifts.
Much to like--but in slo-mo.......2007-05-17
There is much to like in the mystery novels featuring Maisie Dobbs, private investigator in London, ex-nurse from World War I. First, there is Ms. Dobbs herself, an interesting mixture of liberated feminism and vulnerability. Memories of the war's blood and horrors are never far in the back of her memory. Everything she does is affected by this.
Then there is the time, a dozen years after the war, in the midst of the so-called Great Depression that hit Europe well before the United States, with an even bigger war looming in the guise of nazism and fascism. The reader recognizes this, but of course Maisie has no way to know what Mein Kampf will lead to in less than a decade.
Unfortunately the plot is just too slow, stopped cold from time to time as the author insists, for example, upon telling us the color and texture of every garment that a character is wearing, even though the raiment has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Moreover, the happenings are just a wee bit vague at times--too many times. This curious mixture of vagueness and too much information should have been edited out during the first read at the publishers.
Still, Maisie and her times merit at least three stars.
Reviewed by Sarra Borne.......2007-02-10
The third in the Maisie Dobbs series, Pardonable Lies, maintains the high quality of writing evident in her first two mysteries. Author Jacqueline Winspear transports us back to the 1930's, when the Great War (WW1) was still fresh in the mind. Maisie Dobbs served as a nurse in France during that engagement, after the war, with help from mentor Maurice Blance, she attended college and became a psychologist and detective.
In this book, Maisie is asked to lend her expert assistance on three cases. The first, to prove an impoverished young girl innocent of a crime that might send her to the gallows. The second, to discover the fate of the brother of her closest friend and confidante, reported dead by the military. Her third case is to discover whether a young aviator shot down over France is dead or alive. His father, Sir Cecil Lawton, doesn't really care one way or the other but feels he must fulfill the deathbed promise made to his wife.
As she investigates, she learns that there are a few intertwining threads among these three seemingly unrelated stories. Probing deeper, she discovers shadowy figures following her and an attempt is made on her life. But which case is the one that inspires such passion?
In order to get to the heart of the matter, Maisie forces herself to return to France where she is still haunted by her memories of nursing wounded soldiers. She must confront her demons and put her past behind her - or suffer the consequences.
Jacqueline Winspear has written a highly complex and masterful story. Readers will gain a real feel for the time between the two World Wars from all the exquisite detail Winspear has painstakingly included. Maisie herself is an appealing, imperfect heroine, who is more than ready to admit her faults, showing a character that is all that much more authentic.
Maisie Dobbs.......2007-02-06
Jacqueline Winspear provides us with a fresh breath in mystery writing. The author's vivid descriptions take one back to the time period of World War I. The main character, Maiser Dobbs, is a cross between Nancy Drew and Alexandra Cooper of the Linda Fairstein novels. It is difficult to put the book down, because you want to find out what happens next. In the end, you have not only been thoroughly entertained by Ms. Winspear's writing, but you are left with a feeling of peacefullness.
Book Description
Jacqueline Winspear's marvelous and inspired debut, Maisie Dobbs, won her fans from coast to coast and raised her intuitive, intelligent, and resourceful heroine to the ranks of literature's favorite sleuths. Birds of a Feather finds Maisie Dobbs on another dangerously intriguing adventure in London “between the wars.” It is the spring of 1930, and Maisie has been hired to find a runaway heiress. But what seems a simple case at the outset soon becomes increasingly complicated when three of the heiress's old friends are found dead. Is there a connection between the woman's mysterious disappearance and the murders? Who would want to kill three seemingly respectable young women? As Maisie investigates, she discovers that the answers lie in the unforgettable agony of the Great War.
Customer Reviews:
Better Than A Finger In The Eye, I suppose........2007-07-17
Slightly better than the first book. Not quite as hokey, but the new agey "aura sensing" involved in the investigating is pretty lame. The characters are rather dull and lack any depth or heart (Billy Beale and his phony accent are too much.) There is still too much pseudo-intellectual psycho-babble and a pretty thin subplot featuring Billy Beale drags the story down a little.
However, the main story is better in structure and content. (Although I figured out who the murderer was well before the fianle so it can't be that great.
And thank God the ridiculous Khan the "Blind Ceylonese Mystic" character is only mentioned briefly.
I'm willing to give Maisie one more shot though.
review.......2007-05-25
Some books you save for the appetizer others for the main course, other for dessert. This book is the main course.
Maisie, my friend !!.......2007-05-14
Maisie Dobbs is a strong, interesting woman in the post-WW I era that we know little about - until we meet Maisie. She's a former nurse during the war, she's now a private investigator and psychic who doesn't just solve crimes but tries to assure that's all right with the people involved when it's over. It's a little slow in places but then picks up again as life in the early 1930s entices us to read on. Thank you, Ms Winspear, for creating a unique new series.
good series.......2007-05-11
I like this series. The attention to period detail is a bit nice. I think this is one of the better books of this series.
Different reading, for me..........2007-03-07
I don't ordinarily read mysteries, but because the Maisie Dobbs series has a heroine with a background in the Great War, I was intrigued enough to pick up the first two books (Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather). I found many romance-novel-type elements about these books (not exactly in a good way either) -- many descriptions of what Maisie and other women characters are wearing, for instance, and the potential relationship with Inspector Stratton which is gently hinted at the end of this book. Even her rise from maid to private investigator has a kind of romance-gloss about it.
Although the historical background and research in these books is pretty near faultless, it almost seems as if there's too much of it, somehow. Something doesn't ring true. This book is set in 1930 but modernity creeps in somewhere. I can't quite put my finger on it -- it's like it's written through a historical filter, yet not all the 21st century is held back.
Well, whatever. I found the mystery somewhat bland. I wasn't really caring about any of the characters, and I wanted to be more intrigued by the book; to have a harder time (and for the author to give Maisie a harder time) solving the mystery. It was a good, not a great, read.
Perhaps a habitual mystery reader would rate this higher, but having read the first two Maisie Dobbs books, they don't succeed in leaving me with an appetite for more.
Average customer rating:
- Intended for an extended shelf life
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Henry James: Novels 1896-1899: The Other House / The Spoils of Poynton / What Maisie Knew / The Awkward Age (Library of America)
Henry James
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1931082308
Release Date: 2003-03-10 |
Book Description
This fourth volume in the Library of America edition of the complete novels of Henry James contains the four novels he wrote after a failed attempt to forge a career as a playwright on the London stage. Together they mark the beginning of the brilliant period in the novelist's career known as the late phase.
The Other House (1896) shows James incorporating an act of murder into the heart of his narrative. Long neglected, the novel is a fascinating glimpse into a very different side of Henry James, as he explores the violent implications of jealousy and possessiveness. In The Spoils of Poynton (1897), the artworks conserved in the manor house of the title become the object of a protracted power struggle between the mother and the fiancée of the heir to the house. The struggle, in this most tightly constructed of James's late novels, hinges ultimately on the sensitivities of a third woman.
What Maisie Knew (1897) recounts the aftermath of a divorce through the eyes of the couple's daughter. James adopts what he described as "the consciousness, the dim, sweet, scared, wondering, clinging perception of the child." Similarly experimental, The Awkward Age (1899) maps the interrelations of a large cast of characters, a group of old friends and their children, almost entirely through dialogue. The ambiguity of childhood innocence is central to both of these novels.
Customer Reviews:
Intended for an extended shelf life.......2003-04-08
Compiled and edited by Myra Jehlen (Board of Governors Chair of Literatures at Rutgers University), Henry James: Novels 1896-1899 is the fourth volume in The Library of America edition of the complete novels of Henry James and contains the four novels written after James failed in his attempt to create a professional career as a playwright on the London stage. The novels include "The Other House" (1896); "The Spoils of Poynton" (1897); "What Maise Knew" (1897); and "The Awkward Age" (1899). Like all more than 150 titles published by The Library of America, Henry James: Novels 1896-1899 is printed on high quality paper, intended for an extended shelf life, and is a mandatory addition to University and College library collections.
Book Description
What Maisie Knew (1897) represents one of James's finest reflections on the rites of passage from wonder to knowledge, and the question of their finality. Neglected and exploited by everyone around her, Maisie inspired James to dwell with extraordinary acuteness on the things that may pass
between adult and child. In addition to a new Introduction, this edition of the novel offers particularly detailed notes, bibliography, and a list of additional readings.
Download Description
There was visibly, however, an influence that made Ida consider; she glanced at the gentleman she had left, who, having strolled with his hands in his pockets to some distance, stood there with unembarrassed vagueness. She directed to him the face that was like an illuminated garden, turnstile and all, for the frequentation of which he had his season-ticket; then she looked again at Sir Claude. "I've given her up to her father to KEEP-- not to get rid of by sending about the town either with you or with any one else.
Customer Reviews:
Maisie, light of my life, fire of my loins.......2007-06-16
Doh! I meant Lolita. Well, I think that Maisie is a protyope for Lolita. She adapts to being shifted around by her parents and their various lovers by becoming something of a nymphette herself with Daddy Claude. This is a must read for all of us Nabakov fans. I'm quite sure he read it too.
The Corruption of Maisie.......2006-08-15
WHAT MAISIE KNEW is probably the weirdest novel by Henry James. He had already written of seamy themes before this, but now he writes a variation of one of his favorite themes--that of the corruption of the innocent. Maisie is a young female child, perhaps six years old whose parents are getting divorced. In the best of situations divorce hits hard, and this was far from the best. Maisie's parents, Beale and Ida Farange are morally depraved and care not a whit for the welfare of their daughter. Maisie is a good-natured child who wants only to be loved by the parents she loves. Maisie is the prototypical Jamesian innocent about to be plunged into a maelstrom of decay.
The terms of the divorce allow Maisie to live with each parent at six month intervals, and this she does. It is what she sees and happens to her that begin to cloud Maisie's moral universe. To begin with when she stays with her father, his friends paw her in ways that smack of sexual abuse. Maisie's mother, Ida, hires a governess, Miss Overmore, to care for Maisie. Soon enough Miss Overmore begins an affair with Maisie's father, Beale, ultimately marrying him. Ida follows suit by marrying her lover, Sir Claude. So now Maisie must adjust to a set of step parents. Claude's interest in his step-daughter verges on the incestuous--indeed later on when Maisie is thirteen, she outright propositions him. Ida hires a new governess, Mrs. Wix, to take the place of the erstwhile Miss Overmore. Mrs. Wix is a decent elderly woman who truly loves Maisie and tries to inculcate in her a moral center of goodness. This sense of goodness is put to the test immediately, when Maisie's remarried parents begin a new dance of musical lovers.
As Maisie ages toward young girlhood, she shows signs that she has well learned the lessons of moral depravity that abound. She has no problem adjusting to a series of new adults zipping in and out of her life as parents, step parents, and lovers of parents. Maisie even makes it easy for these newcomers to pull the wool over the eyes of their cuckolded partners by making suggestions to facilitate what is by now a familiar routine or illicit romances. By the end of the novel, a thirteen year old Maisie desires Sir Claude as her own lover. Mrs. Wix, when she hears of this, angrily demands of Maisie what has happened to the sense of moral decorum that she thought was by now firmly instilled in Maisie. The answer, of course, is that the sense of propriety was doomed from the start since Maisie early on learned the difference between words of decorum and deeds of decorum. The Maisie at the end of WHAT MAZIE KNEW suggests that children--or adults for that matter--need a ongoing foundation of goodness to show that the ugliness they may see unfolding around them need not envelop them.
Developing Moral Sense.......2006-07-23
Henry James' 1907 WHAT MAISIE KNEW provides deep psychological insight into a young girl's predicament, as a result of her parents' bitter divorce in Edwardian England. Inspired by a friend's comments on the "shuttlecock" lifestyle of a divorced child in the vicious game of spousal revenge, this novel studies the harmful existence of an innocent victim of a joint custody dispute. Even at the tender age of seven, Maisie realizes the wisdom of playing dumb. Although she reports little back to the opposing sides, Maisie keenly observes and thoughtfully listens to all that occurs in both her uncomfortable biospheres. Eventually she adopts the simple policy of not telling--thus refusing to provide more fuel for animosity on either side.
As in THE GOLDEN BOWL--a lengthy novel dealing with the marital and emotional battles among a very limited cast of characters--this shorter work could easily be adapted for the stage, as the chapters fall naturally into Scenes. James' protracted dialogues between Maisie and the impassioned adults who dispute her parenting rights would be delicious to dramatize, although readers would lose the private psychological depth as Maisie copes with increasingly new information. She reconciles her maturing lucid udnerstanding to the empowered adults in her universe with private schemes to protect one or the other parent and later, step-parent.
These intense colloquies are designed both to elicit information re events which have occurred offstage, and to stir Maisie to the brink of definitive action--which will directly effect the five adults whom we assume are most interested in her welfare: Beale Farange, Ida Farange, Sir Claude, Miss Overton, and Mrs. Wix. Little Maisie unwittingly serves as a catalyst for adult passion, while she secretly exults in bringing her favorite people together. One of the great literary ironies of this novel springs from the unexpected separations which her warm-hearted meddling precipitates. To her childlike logic, being Free is the most desirable status for formerly married persons--free to love and marry whom they choose--free to make a cherished home for her and to ease their own heartache.
Maisie is further isolated from children, even girls her own age; thus she is left to puzzle out the world using only her keen observation of adult interactions. But how can the lonely girl truly develop a sense of morality--at least by Edwardian standards? Is she herself Free to choose her new and permanent step-parents? Does she have the right to demand that the adults who love her make extreme sacrifices--just to retain her presence and loyalty? Does Maisie at 12 know what is best for herself? Which path will she ultimately choose? Her final decision will impact the lives of three far-from-blameless but well-meaning adults. Maise at 12 is too worldy-wise to indulge in Child's Play. This absorbing work is truly Vintage James.
Several Turns of the Screw.......2006-04-07
What hubris to review a work by such a major novelist as Henry James, even though WHAT MAISIE KNEW may not be one of his major novels! All the same, a review can perhaps be useful in two regards: by commenting on this particular edition, and by suggesting how the novel might appeal to those familiar with other James works but not this one.
The Penguin Classics paperback is crisply printed, comfortable in the hand, and well annotated. There is also an excellent essay by Paul Theroux. It gives too much away, I think, to be read as an introduction, but it does make a helpful afterword. If you do read the essay first, which is how it is printed, it may seem that Theroux has revealed virtually the entire plot, but in fact this is not so. James's narrative exposition is unusually swift in this book, and a lot happens very quickly, but his main interest lies in exploring the psychological depths of the situation that he has established; there is a distinct change of gear at roughly the halfway point of the book.
As Theroux points out, the novel is generally considered a transitional work between James's earlier style and his later one. Theroux also locates this gear-change at the point where James ceased writing in longhand and started dictating his novels to a stenographer -- a crisis described so well by Colm Toibin in his biographical novel, THE MASTER. The first half of the book shows a leanness of style and also a great sense of humor not often associated with the author. But the book's premise is intrinsically comic: Maisie, a five-year-old girl, observes the doings of the adults around her as she is shipped from household to household in consequence of her parents' divorce, as the parents take lovers and remarry, and then as virtually everybody else in the story take other lovers. The humor comes from the fact that while Maisie understands so little at first, the adult reader quickly picks up what is going on. The spider symmetries of the expanding web of sex make a formal pattern as clear and intricate as a dance, illuminated by James's dry wit and his beautiful ability to see through childish eyes.
Several things change at the half-way point. Maisie becomes old enough to understand a little more. The adults whom she had previously observed from below now become more conscious of her as a potential ally and start using her unscrupulously to further their own ends. Twists of the plot which had at first seemed only amusing now appear as quite nasty turns of the screw, as Maisie's affections and loyalties are forced into the vise. Questions of morality come to the fore, and eventually dominate the action. The narrative tone also changes; although Maisie's knowledge and moral awareness develops considerably, James is forced into using his own voice to describe it, as though Maisie herself has lost the words to follow her own farewell to childhood.
The reference above to THE TURN OF THE SCREW is deliberate, for WHAT MAISIE KNEW (1897) seems almost like a preliminary draft for the more famous story, published in the following year. Yes, there are differences: this is comic rather than tragic, complicit rather than mysterious, and much less hermetic. The child heroine appears to come through with more wisdom and less trauma than the situation might have caused. But the final scene is astonishingly close to the ending of the later story: a struggle for control of a once-innocent child waged between a humble governess and two charismatic figures who exert a powerful hold both on the child and on each other. Only the ending is different, though no less worth waiting for.
What Maisie Knew.....Do I Really Care?.......2005-02-03
I am not a Henry James fanatic, as a matter of fact, this is the first work of his that I have read, and with that I must say that this novel is horribly written and completely unrealistic in it's portrayal of the child, Maisie and especially her dialogue. I have been assigned to read this for an english class as an undergrad and I have tolerated many a badly executed idea...but never like this. Boring, boring, and more boring. And as a result, I am comnpletely turned off to James other works. I hear his other works are great.....read those first, you may fair better.
Product Description
'...an exclusive QBP 2-in-1 edition, are two of best-selling author Jacqueline Winspear's critically acclaimed World War I-era novels, featuring our new favorite female sleuth, Maisie Dobbs.'
Customer Reviews:
Winspear Writes Enchanting Mysteries.......2006-09-11
I just discovered Jacqueline Winspear recently and was
completely enchanted by her Masie Dobbs mysteries. The
mysteries take place during WW1. Winspear writes so
vividly and factually of this era that one might think she
actually lived through this time herself. Her mysteries
take me back to the 1800's and early 1900's when, in my
estimation the very best mysteries were written.
Maisie became a detective back during the "great war" when
women weren't exactly welcomed in such an occupation.
She solves mysteries as well suffers through her own
heartbreaking losses during the time we called, "the war to end all wars". Once you read a Maisie Dobbs book, you want
more and more.
Average customer rating:
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Shares and Other Securities in the Conflict of Laws (Oxford Monographs in Private International Law)
Maisie Ooi
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Corporate Finance
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ASIN: 0199256136 |
Book Description
This book examines the problems of choice of law relating to shares and other securities. It is a subject that occupied a fairly obscure corner of conflict of laws until the impetus given to it by Macmillan v Bishopsgate Investment Trust (No 3) and recent interest generated by fears within the international financial community that the conflicts problems arising from the modern system of securities holding through intermediaries threatens the system's viability. At both European and international levels, efforts have been made to legislate for certainty in an area of the greatest practical importance to the major players in the capital markets, as the value of cross-border transactions in such securities runs into billions of pounds daily. Shares and Other Securities in the Conflict of Laws is divided into two parts. Part I determines the present state of English law with respect to choice of law treatment of dealings in shares, and examines the basic rules involved. It considers the context in which the rules have evolved, the situations in which they are said to apply and have been applied, and the place of the rules in the conflicts treatment of securities transactions today. The main focus is on dealings with shares in the traditional direct holding system from which the basic rules developed. Part II considers the difficulties associated with the application and extension of the basic rules to the choice of law issues that arise in the indirect holding system, the various theories and legislative reforms (of the EU and at the Hague) that have been suggested in respect to their resolution, and the extent to which they provide a viable solution. Comparison is also made with the related law reform initiatives in the US of Revised Articles 8 and 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The book concludes with an examination of special choice of law concerns in insolvency and arising from collateralization (such as perfection and recharacterization), the impact of dematerialization and immobilization on shares, and the choice of law problems posed by them.
Product Description
Ten internationally known scholars present reflections on the encyclical Veritatis Splendor.
Customer Reviews:
A Splendid Guide to Veritatis Splendor.......2000-11-27
This book is one of the few positive reflections on the Papal encyclical "Veritatis Splendor". Most of the books about the encyclical are slanted to the left, written by the same theologians and moralists that the Holy Father is warning the Bishops to reign in. Not so with this book. The contributors, who include Frs. Avery Dulles SJ, Romanus Cessario OP, J. A. DeNoia OP, Servais Pinckaers OP and Mr. Alasdair MacIntyre, are faithful Catholic theologians who write from a viewpoint of appreciation for the Holy Father's teaching.
The book is divided into three parts: Perspectives on the encyclical, Issues raised within the encyclical, and the Reception of the encyclical. The Perspectives section is aimed at helping the reader to unpack the structure and meaning of the encyclical itself. The Issues section discusses in-depth the different questions that the Holy Father has addressed, from Natural Law to the true meaning of freedom to the concept of moral absolutes within a relativistic society. The third section has two essays that examine the press and the academic commentaries that were published within the first five years of the encyclical's publication. Finally, Pio Cardinal Laghi, the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, provides a reflection on how Veritatis Splendor can be used within the educational environment to teach moral theology.
This is a superb book to read alongside the encyclical, especially when the technical language begins to weary. The subtitle, "Studies by Ten Outstanding Scholars", is quite an apt description of the contents of the book. As Fr. Servais Pinckaers explains in his essay, Veritatis Splendor is truly an "Encyclical for the future". This book will help mine the riches present in the Holy Father's teaching.
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