What Maisie Knew: AND The Pupil (Vintage Classics)

by HenryJames (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $4.70

  Caught in the crossfire of her parents' acrimonious divorce, witness to their battles, intrigues and affairs, neglected and exploited, Maisie is a child who knows too much about the world of adults. James' portrait of a little girl who maintains her goodness and dignity in the face of the bitterness and profligacy of her warring parents is both thought-provoking and inspiring.

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.25

  With an Introduction by Pat Righelato, University of Reading. The child of parents who divorce, remarry and then embark on adulterous affairs, Maisie Farange survives by her intelligence and spirit. For all its sombre theme of childhood innocence exposed to a corrupted adult world, this novel is one of James's comic masterpieces. The outrageous behaviour of the characters on the seedy fringes of the English upper class is conveyed with wit and relish. The dual perspective of a sophisticated narrator richly appreciative of the absurdities of the adult sexual merry-go-round and the candid vision of Maisie, 'rebounding' from one parent to another like a 'shuttlecock', together create an 'associational magic'. Strangely, unexpectedly, from so much that is tawdry, comes a tale of moral energy and subtlety. James's foresight was in understanding the modernity of his subject, which is even more relevant today in the twenty-first century.