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    The Figure in the Carpet
    The Figure in the Carpet
    The Figure in the Carpet
    Ebook63 pages1 hour

    The Figure in the Carpet

    By Henry James

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1976
    Author

    Henry James

    Henry James (1843–1916) was an American writer, highly regarded as one of the key proponents of literary realism, as well as for his contributions to literary criticism. His writing centres on the clash and overlap between Europe and America, and The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as his most notable work.

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    Reviews for The Figure in the Carpet

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    • 3/5
      A man meets his hero (a writer) and is told that he has missed the very point of this writers work. The man then embarks on a quest to uncover it, obsessing over the writers books and tells his best friend (also a fan). The best friend tells his girl friend and all three start obsessing over this supposed mystery. The best friend on his travels telegrams to say he has cracked it and is going to confirm with the writer. He then telegrams to say the writer agrees with what he has found and says he will only tell his girlfriend if she marries him. Meanwhile the guy who started it all still doesn't have a clue and is getting increasingly obsessed. The best friend marries his girlfriend and tells her but on his honeymoon manages to get himself killed in a car accident. The the writer dies. Leaving the girlfriend ( now wife) the sole possessor of this information. The guy that started it all is going bonkers and the wife is refusing to tell him as she was only told in the sacred bonds of marriage and could only do the same. Time passes wife remarries and the guy now starts to obsess over the presumed fact of the new husbands knowledge. The wife then dies in childbirth with her 2nd baby. The guy finally confronts the new husband who, it turns out, never had any idea about any of it. The guy then informs the husband of the whole thing and they are in the end both obsessed.

      My thought about all this was clearly this writer wasn't very good if everyone in the world has missed whatever point he was trying to make and maybe the writer was just a pretentious twat who liked fucking with people's heads
    • 3/5
      Unfortunately this short story won't be my favourite. First of all James' complicated style with long sentences proved too hard for me. But more importantly I terribly bored it. I wasn't interested about the storyline, the characters or what's happening with them.
    • 5/5
      A volume of James short stories is always a good idea, but this is a particularly good idea: Kermode selects stories that focus on the writing, and writers, of fiction, from the early "Author of Beltraffio" to the late-ish "John Delavoy." The stories are uneven, but that's not surprising; the title piece, "The Middle Years," and "Lesson of the Master" are works of such brilliance that it would be absurd to expect a bunch of them. "Beltraffio" suffers by comparison with "Lesson of the Master," which is far more intelligent and enjoyable; similarly, "The Next Time" comes right before "Figure," and can't come close to matching up. The only real dud is "Death of the Lion," which probably could have been as short as the title (no plot spoilers needed, then) and still worked as well as it does.

      As much fun as the stories are to read, though, this volume works best on the intellectual level. They form almost as clear an aesthetics as the prefaces or the essays; each one tries to think through what it means to be a writer of serious fiction. What about a young writer of it? An old one? A successful one? An ignored one? A writer oppressed by social success? Or by its lack? A writer who wants to be serious, but can't help turning out popular books? Or vice versa? What should the family of serious writer expect, and how much suffering can they be expected to put up with?

      As we go on, the view becomes increasingly bleak (if you think the serious author should also be commercially successful), or hopeful (if you think she should ignore the public and just try to write something beautiful).

      There's also a very tempting biographical reading here: each story demands that the serious writer give up more than the previous story demanded. As James got older, did he feel himself sacrificing more and more to his work? Insert stuff about James and homosexuality here.

    Book preview

    The Figure in the Carpet - Henry James

    The Figure in the Carpet, by Henry James

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Figure in the Carpet, by Henry James

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    Title: The Figure in the Carpet

    Author: Henry James

    Release Date: September, 1996  [EBook #645]

    [This file was first posted on September 11, 1996]

    [Most recently updated: September 2, 2002]

    Edition: 10

    Language: English

    Transcribed from the 1916 Martin Secker edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

    THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET

    I had done a few things and earned a few pence - I had perhaps even had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety habit, for it’s none of the longest yet) I count my real start from the evening George Corvick, breathless and worried, came in to ask me a service.  He had done more things than I, and earned more pence, though there were chances for cleverness I thought he sometimes missed.  I could only however that evening declare to him that he never missed one for kindness.  There was almost rapture in hearing it proposed to me to prepare for The Middle, the organ of our lucubrations, so called from the position in the week of its day of appearance, an article for which he had made himself responsible and of which, tied up with a stout string, he laid on my table the subject.  I pounced upon my opportunity - that is on the first volume of it - and paid scant attention to my friend’s explanation of his appeal.  What explanation could be more to the point than my obvious fitness for the task?  I had written on Hugh Vereker, but never a word in The Middle, where my dealings were mainly with the ladies and the minor poets.  This was his new novel, an advance copy, and whatever much or little it should do for his reputation I was clear on the spot as to what it should do for mine.  Moreover if I always read him as soon as I could get hold of him I had a particular reason for wishing to read him now: I had accepted an invitation to Bridges for the following Sunday, and it had been mentioned in Lady Jane’s note that Mr. Vereker was to be there.  I was young enough for a flutter at meeting a man of his renown, and innocent enough to believe the occasion would demand the display of an acquaintance with his last.

    Corvick, who had promised a review of it, had not even had time to read it; he had gone to pieces in consequence of news requiring - as on precipitate reflexion he judged - that he should catch the night-mail to Paris.  He had had a telegram from Gwendolen Erme in answer to his letter offering to fly to her aid.  I knew already about Gwendolen Erme; I had never seen her, but I had my ideas, which were mainly to the effect that Corvick would marry her if her mother would only die.  That lady seemed now in a fair way to oblige him; after some dreadful mistake about a climate or a cure she had suddenly collapsed on the return from abroad.  Her daughter, unsupported and alarmed, desiring to make a rush for home but hesitating at the risk, had accepted our friend’s assistance, and it was my secret belief that at sight of him Mrs. Erme would pull round.  His own belief was scarcely to be called secret; it discernibly at any rate differed from mine.  He had showed me Gwendolen’s photograph with the remark that she wasn’t pretty but was awfully interesting; she had published at the age of nineteen a novel in three volumes, Deep Down, about which, in The Middle, he had been really splendid.  He appreciated my present eagerness and undertook that the periodical in question should do no less; then at the last, with his hand on the door, he said to me: Of course you’ll be all right, you know.  Seeing I was a trifle vague he added: I mean you won’t be silly.

    Silly - about Vereker!  Why what do I ever find him but awfully clever?

    "Well, what’s that but silly?  What on earth does ‘awfully clever’ mean?  For God’s sake try to get at him.  Don’t let him suffer by our arrangement.  Speak of him, you know, if you can, as I should have spoken

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