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The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
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Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Author: Henry James
Publisher: Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $2.50
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Author: Henry James
Publisher: Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:
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The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.4
EAN: 9780486275529
ISBN: 0486275523
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 112
Publication Date: 1993-04-23
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.4
EAN: 9780486275529
ISBN: 0486275523
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 112
Publication Date: 1993-04-23
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications
Editorial Review of The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
Regarded by many as James's greatest achievement in short fiction, "The Beast in the Jungle" is a portrait of a man alienated from life and love. "The Jolly Corner" and "The Altar of the Dead" are two tales that explore the complex interlacings of loss, love and the ever-present past in the lives of their protagonists. Note.
Customer Reviews of The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Excellent story & character depictions
Review: This is a very sensitively written and complex story about two people - written in stellar prose.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: All things come to those who wait...or do they?
Review: In this basically two person novella, John Marcher, believes that something, not necessarily wonderful, maybe even terrible-but something-would eventually spring on him unawares, like a beast in the jungle, and ultimately determine his fate. May Bartram, his friend throughout these many years, agrees to wait with Marcher to observe his destiny.
_The Beast in the Jungle_, in its quiet, psychologically incisive, and intimate way, is the tragedy of a man who is too passive, too timid, too self-absorbed and self-centered to attempt even in the slightest manner to take life in his own hands to shape his future. Marcher is certain that May Bartram can provide him with all the answers to the impending great event, but he only succeeds in slowly draining the life from her. May Bartram, patient and wise, is the true hero of the piece. It is only at the end that the truth is revealed to Marcher. The jungle finally becomes empty, and poor pitiful, ineffectual John Marcher never even witnessed it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Studies of Obsession, Subtle Nuances, Intellectually Haunting
Review: This Dover edition - titled The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories - provides three short stories that are among the finest of their genre, although defining the genre itself is not without difficulty. Only The Jolly Corner might be classed a ghost story. These superb studies of obsession might be best described as nuanced, subtle, and intellectually haunting, and are among the best short works of Henry James.
The Alter of the Dead (1895): George Stransom "had perhaps not more losses than most men, but he counted his losses more: he hadn't seen death more closely, but had in a manner felt it more deeply."
The Beast in the Jungle (1903): John Marcher had from his earliest time, deep within him, "the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen" and he had in his bones the foreboding and conviction that it might overwhelm him. Despite its suspense and deep sense of despair, this classic tale has been described as sluggish and overly ornate. Be that as it may, this foreboding tale is memorable.
The Jolly Corner (1908): Returning after decades in Europe to his vacant, empty home in New York, Spencer Brydon would in the gathering dusk "wander and wait, linger and listen, feel his fine attention, never in his life so fine, on the pulse of the great vague place: he preferred the lampless hour and only wished he might have prolonged each day the deep crepuscular spell."
I have read this collection on three, perhaps four occasions. The works of Henry James, like that of William Faulkner, continue to improve with subsequent readings, undoubtedly the mark of great literature. For the reader unfamiliar with the writings of Henry James, this little collection would be an excellent introduction to his challenging prose. I highly recommend this Dover edition.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An engrossing tale
Review: Henry James' Beast in the Jungle is surely not for everyone, there is little action in the novella (I suppose that is the point actually) and the title could give readers the wrong idea. John Marcher, the protagonist, is re-aquainted with May Bartram, a woman he knew ten years earlier, who remembers his odd secret- Marcher is seized with the belief that his life is to be defined by some catastrophic or spectacular event, lying in wait for him like a "beast in the jungle."
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: This Beast Is The Best
Review: I have never read Henry James before because I have always been told that he is not worth reading. My own teachers have told me that, but they obviously didn't read like I do because I found this story nothing but delightful. Henry James faintly resembles the writing of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. I see the resemblance in James' use of detail, not only in physical descriptions but also in the portrayals of capturing what is happening in the minds of his characters. This can be tedious if a reader is looking for plot, but my own conviction is that good fiction is driven by character, and anything that happens within a plot happens consequently to how characters act and/or think. "The Beast in the Jungle" revolves around only two characters and how their relationship and convictions affect each other's lives. The beauty in this story is the reality within it-a realization of time and how and what it should be spent on. James focuses on human relationships and shows the flaws that can occur within those relationships. John Marcher's selfishness, for instance, keeps him at a distance from May Bartram and her love for him: "Marcher had been visited by one of his occasional warnings against egotism. He had kept up, he felt . . . his consciousness of the importance of not being selfish". This selfishness, which Marcher believes he suppresses fairly well, is what turns out to be part of the Beast he is seeking; the selfishness is what keeps him from loving Mary Bartram simply because he wants her only for what she can do for him: ". . . he had never felt before, the growth of a dread of losing her by some catastrophe . . . that yet wouldn't at all be the catastrophe: partly because she had almost of a sudden begun to strike him as more useful to him than ever yet". I enjoyed "The Beast in the Jungle" so much because it took me into the mind of a person who grows throughout the story and learns something that perhaps every human being needs to learn throughout the course of his/her life. I don't find Henry James tiresome or dull at all; in fact, to myself of course, his writing is quite the contrary. I look forward to reading more of him.
Review Summary: Excellent story & character depictions
Review: This is a very sensitively written and complex story about two people - written in stellar prose.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: All things come to those who wait...or do they?
Review: In this basically two person novella, John Marcher, believes that something, not necessarily wonderful, maybe even terrible-but something-would eventually spring on him unawares, like a beast in the jungle, and ultimately determine his fate. May Bartram, his friend throughout these many years, agrees to wait with Marcher to observe his destiny.
_The Beast in the Jungle_, in its quiet, psychologically incisive, and intimate way, is the tragedy of a man who is too passive, too timid, too self-absorbed and self-centered to attempt even in the slightest manner to take life in his own hands to shape his future. Marcher is certain that May Bartram can provide him with all the answers to the impending great event, but he only succeeds in slowly draining the life from her. May Bartram, patient and wise, is the true hero of the piece. It is only at the end that the truth is revealed to Marcher. The jungle finally becomes empty, and poor pitiful, ineffectual John Marcher never even witnessed it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Studies of Obsession, Subtle Nuances, Intellectually Haunting
Review: This Dover edition - titled The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories - provides three short stories that are among the finest of their genre, although defining the genre itself is not without difficulty. Only The Jolly Corner might be classed a ghost story. These superb studies of obsession might be best described as nuanced, subtle, and intellectually haunting, and are among the best short works of Henry James.
The Alter of the Dead (1895): George Stransom "had perhaps not more losses than most men, but he counted his losses more: he hadn't seen death more closely, but had in a manner felt it more deeply."
The Beast in the Jungle (1903): John Marcher had from his earliest time, deep within him, "the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen" and he had in his bones the foreboding and conviction that it might overwhelm him. Despite its suspense and deep sense of despair, this classic tale has been described as sluggish and overly ornate. Be that as it may, this foreboding tale is memorable.
The Jolly Corner (1908): Returning after decades in Europe to his vacant, empty home in New York, Spencer Brydon would in the gathering dusk "wander and wait, linger and listen, feel his fine attention, never in his life so fine, on the pulse of the great vague place: he preferred the lampless hour and only wished he might have prolonged each day the deep crepuscular spell."
I have read this collection on three, perhaps four occasions. The works of Henry James, like that of William Faulkner, continue to improve with subsequent readings, undoubtedly the mark of great literature. For the reader unfamiliar with the writings of Henry James, this little collection would be an excellent introduction to his challenging prose. I highly recommend this Dover edition.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An engrossing tale
Review: Henry James' Beast in the Jungle is surely not for everyone, there is little action in the novella (I suppose that is the point actually) and the title could give readers the wrong idea. John Marcher, the protagonist, is re-aquainted with May Bartram, a woman he knew ten years earlier, who remembers his odd secret- Marcher is seized with the belief that his life is to be defined by some catastrophic or spectacular event, lying in wait for him like a "beast in the jungle."
May decides to take a flat nearby in London, and to spend her days with Marcher curiously awaiting what fate has in stall for John. Of course Marcher is a self-centered egoist, believing that he is precluded from marrying so that he does not subject his wife to his "spectacular fate". So he takes May to the theatre and invites her to an occasional dinner, while not allowing her to really get close to him for her own sake. As he sits idly by and allows the best years of his life to pass, he takes May down as well, until the denouement wherein he learns that the great misfortune of his life was to throw it away, and to ignore the love of a good woman, based upon his preposterous sense of foreboding.
James' language can be a bit stilted at times, and some of the dialogue may strike modern readers as out-dated. However James was a master of the novella format, and with The Beast in the Jungle he has written an engrossing psychological drama, which left me speechless at the very end. Pick up a collection that also includes The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller if you haven't already read them, they are accessible (more so than some of James' full length novels) and great examples of the format's potential.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: This Beast Is The Best
Review: I have never read Henry James before because I have always been told that he is not worth reading. My own teachers have told me that, but they obviously didn't read like I do because I found this story nothing but delightful. Henry James faintly resembles the writing of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. I see the resemblance in James' use of detail, not only in physical descriptions but also in the portrayals of capturing what is happening in the minds of his characters. This can be tedious if a reader is looking for plot, but my own conviction is that good fiction is driven by character, and anything that happens within a plot happens consequently to how characters act and/or think. "The Beast in the Jungle" revolves around only two characters and how their relationship and convictions affect each other's lives. The beauty in this story is the reality within it-a realization of time and how and what it should be spent on. James focuses on human relationships and shows the flaws that can occur within those relationships. John Marcher's selfishness, for instance, keeps him at a distance from May Bartram and her love for him: "Marcher had been visited by one of his occasional warnings against egotism. He had kept up, he felt . . . his consciousness of the importance of not being selfish". This selfishness, which Marcher believes he suppresses fairly well, is what turns out to be part of the Beast he is seeking; the selfishness is what keeps him from loving Mary Bartram simply because he wants her only for what she can do for him: ". . . he had never felt before, the growth of a dread of losing her by some catastrophe . . . that yet wouldn't at all be the catastrophe: partly because she had almost of a sudden begun to strike him as more useful to him than ever yet". I enjoyed "The Beast in the Jungle" so much because it took me into the mind of a person who grows throughout the story and learns something that perhaps every human being needs to learn throughout the course of his/her life. I don't find Henry James tiresome or dull at all; in fact, to myself of course, his writing is quite the contrary. I look forward to reading more of him.