Indian Summer William Dean Howells Books
Download As PDF : Indian Summer William Dean Howells Books
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Indian Summer William Dean Howells Books
In his novel Indian Summer, William Dean Howells presents a mellow but realistic story that has the complete feel of that delightful time of the year, although the plot actually spans several seasons. The Indian summer aspect applies to a sophisticated gentleman, Theodore Colville, who has just entered his middle years as he returns to a scene, Florence, Italy, that played an important part in his early manhood. It was here twenty years earlier that he first fell in love, seemingly successfully until a sudden and harsh rejection. Now, after a once profitable career as a newspaper editor has ended, he is barely ensconced in the Italian city when he meets a lady from his past, a close friend of his lost love. Lina Bowen, now a widow with a young daughter, is an attractive and charming socialite among the American and English residents of Florence. Also living with her at this time as a temporary ward is a beautiful young girl just blossoming into womanhood, Imogene Graham.Colville, although he still hides a shy nature, has become an exceedingly witty and entertaining conversationalist. He quickly becomes a favorite with young Effie Bowen and Imogene Graham. Miss Graham indicates a disdain for the shallow young men that she has met and is highly attracted to the urbane, intelligent Mr. Colville. Mrs. Bowen invites Colville to become a regular guest in her home, and for a time the little coterie is delightfully congenial, but then an emotional triangle begins to develop. Imogene seems to be too devoted to this older gentleman, and Colville does not discourage her. Mrs. Bowen, who apparently is captivated by his charm as well, begins to feel overshadowed by her lovely young ward. This is the core of the intriguing plot.
Howells' characters are totally believable in their thoughts, their motivations, their words, and their actions. The dialogue is delightful, both in the lighter conversations and in the more passionate speeches. Aided by the social milieu of expatriates in a historic city of art and culture, the story moves at first slowly and pleasantly, but begins to build inexorably toward an emotional crisis. As the whole plot unwinds before us, we can eventually see that there is really no other way that the events could realistically move. This novel is a very engrossing and satisfying tale of people that we become truly interested in.
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Indian Summer (9781143040054): William Dean Howells: Books,William Dean Howells,Indian Summer,Nabu Press,1143040058,Drama : General,DramaGeneral,General,History,History General,Literature - Classics Criticism
People also read other books :
- The madman his parables and poems Kahlil Gibran 9781176283770 Books
- A Quest for Unlabeled Reality Jack Forman 9781479394661 Books
- Power Game Macmillan Caribbean Writers Perry Henzell Books
- Risking the Rune Sword J Andrew Killian 9780692247426 Books
- Bug Out! Texas Book 2 The New Republic Robert Boren 9781520296005 Books
Indian Summer William Dean Howells Books Reviews
Good price perfect fit
Indian Summer a meditation on youth and the passing of youth; the main character, Colville, went to Florence in his early twenties to study architecture, left after a failed love affair, and has now returned to Florence after twenty years away. He’s been busy in the intervening years, but he neither pursued architecture nor got married, and there’s a sense that he feels (or fears) the life has passed him by.
Colville goes to Florence looking for direction, and meets two women Mrs. Bowen, who he knew when they were both young in Florence, and her ward, Imogene Graham.
William Dean Howells was a big fan of Jane Austen, and it shows in his novel Indian Summer. He shares with her the interest in delineating the lives and relationships of a fairly small and select set of characters. But he lacks Austen’s caustic, humorous irony and her peculiar talent of rendering social rules apparent without spelling them out - I may not always know the nuances of Austen’s characters’ motivations, but the basic outlines are always clear. With Howells, I am sometimes left puzzled because it’s not quite clear why the social rules are making his characters behave in this peculiar manner.
In Indian Summer, for instance, Colville feels that he has led Imogene Graham to believe he loves her, and somehow that means that...he must marry her? He likes her, but he doesn’t love her, and he sees that marrying is a bad idea, but he can’t actually say that because, after all, he led her on, so basically he just has to hope that she’ll realize - on her own, without any help from him - that they should break their engagement.
It’s a classically nineteenth century meditation on the conflict between selfishness, unselfishness, and the misery of badly applied unselfishness. How can things go so terribly wrong when everyone has tried so hard to do right by each other? And how can they break through their own good intentions to find truth and happiness? (Of course, as befits a novel in the tradition of Austen, they do.)
It seems as if Howells here is trespassing on the territory already staked out by Henry James, looking at Americans living and traveling n Europe. He isn't really, though; this is not a riff of James. The Florentine setting is mere background, and Howells's Anglo-American expat community there seems to have almost nothing to do with Italians, living in its own little world. However, it is a charming story about a mid-life crisis, and well worth reading for all the reasons given by other reviewers. BEWARE however of the edition; it is free (good!) but it is pirated from an unsatisfactory Gutenberg text. I have recently read the book out loud for librivox.org, and at the end sent in a long list of corrections to the Gutenberg editors. Whether they've been incorporated or not as yet, I don't know.
AS OF November 2015, the corrections had all been made to the Gutenberg text. HOWEVER, when I erased the original faulty Indian Summer from my , and once more downloaded it, the old mistakes are still there on the AMAZON text. Too bad, but there it is.
In his novel Indian Summer, William Dean Howells presents a mellow but realistic story that has the complete feel of that delightful time of the year, although the plot actually spans several seasons. The Indian summer aspect applies to a sophisticated gentleman, Theodore Colville, who has just entered his middle years as he returns to a scene, Florence, Italy, that played an important part in his early manhood. It was here twenty years earlier that he first fell in love, seemingly successfully until a sudden and harsh rejection. Now, after a once profitable career as a newspaper editor has ended, he is barely ensconced in the Italian city when he meets a lady from his past, a close friend of his lost love. Lina Bowen, now a widow with a young daughter, is an attractive and charming socialite among the American and English residents of Florence. Also living with her at this time as a temporary ward is a beautiful young girl just blossoming into womanhood, Imogene Graham.
Colville, although he still hides a shy nature, has become an exceedingly witty and entertaining conversationalist. He quickly becomes a favorite with young Effie Bowen and Imogene Graham. Miss Graham indicates a disdain for the shallow young men that she has met and is highly attracted to the urbane, intelligent Mr. Colville. Mrs. Bowen invites Colville to become a regular guest in her home, and for a time the little coterie is delightfully congenial, but then an emotional triangle begins to develop. Imogene seems to be too devoted to this older gentleman, and Colville does not discourage her. Mrs. Bowen, who apparently is captivated by his charm as well, begins to feel overshadowed by her lovely young ward. This is the core of the intriguing plot.
Howells' characters are totally believable in their thoughts, their motivations, their words, and their actions. The dialogue is delightful, both in the lighter conversations and in the more passionate speeches. Aided by the social milieu of expatriates in a historic city of art and culture, the story moves at first slowly and pleasantly, but begins to build inexorably toward an emotional crisis. As the whole plot unwinds before us, we can eventually see that there is really no other way that the events could realistically move. This novel is a very engrossing and satisfying tale of people that we become truly interested in.
0 Response to "[3IM]≫ [PDF] Indian Summer William Dean Howells Books"
Post a Comment