Henry James' "The Aspern Papers"

The writer Henry James should never need introduction to a reader, unless you, like me, once confused him with the band leader/trumpeter of the Big Band Era, a guy named Harry James.

Henry (1842--1916) is considered one of the greatest novelists America ever produced. He spent most of his life in the salons of Europe--hobnobbing with the great literary and intellectual lights of his time--while all this musician Harry (1916-1983) ever did was play in Benny Goodman's band when it was the biggest swing orchestra in the world in the mid-thirties, then start his own big band, then have a lot of hit tunes with that band, then give the young Frank Sinatra his first big break, and then capped off his salad days by marrying the hottest GI pin-up girl of the whole Second World War, movie star Betty Grable. My dad once saw Harry and Betty together in 1947 or so on a sunny California afternoon in the stands at the Del Mar Race Track, near San Diego. (Dad was stationed at Camp Pendleton at the time, earning the benefits of the GI Bill via the Marine Corps.) He told me Betty Grable was as pretty in life as in 20th Century Fox movies.

Hum...I think I'd like to hear more about Harry James and Mrs James than this other older scribe, wouldn't you? Oh, well, I'm committed. So bear with me.

I read Harry's, I mean Henry's "The Aspern Papers" (1890) and was struck not only by his ultra-smooth literary style, the brisk pacing, and the precise calculations into the mind of the first -person narrator, but also the excellent way James evokes a great deal of suspense out of a plot that offers no real threat of violence between the three main characters. I found it some ways as provocative as his stand-out chiller novella The Turn of the Screw. That James ca ndo this without the aid of ghosts and madness in the mix is a testament to how marvelous a writer he was.

"Aspern" is the story of an American literary critic, passing through Venice, who discovers that a rather ancient and poverty-stricken old woman has some letters she keeps hidden away. These missives were written to her by her lover, a major Byron-like poet of a long gone-era. The critic, who is never named, sets about trying to get his eyes and his hooks on the letters so he can include them in a book he is writing about the celebrated poet. He worms his way intothe old woman's life and enlists the aid of her niece, a mousey and vapid woman whom he doesn't find attractive, into obtaining them. What he gets out of his deceptions and what he doesn't get make for a satisfying story. But for all Henry's gift's I'll bet he would have made a lousy trumpet player.

Most of the novella is set in a crumbling palazzo on the low end side of the lagoons of the unique city. According to the modern biographer, Louis Anchinloss, the idea for the novella was based on an anecdote James heard about a former mistress of Lord Bryon who lived in obscurity long after her lover had passed on. Of such a small bit of information a fine work worthy of the man who wrote Washington Square andso many other great works was created.

I've hope sometime to be able to try again to get into some of James' later work--it was pretty tough the last time I tried out the thick prose of The Wings of A Dove . Well, we can't all be literary critics. But, given the choice, I think be I'd happier tohave played a great trumpet in my own big band.

(above, the great author himself, no doubt wondering if he has what it takes to play In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree on kazoo.)