Library of Babel
10358 Gli amici degli amici
Henry James. Edited and with an introduction by Jorge Luis Borges
1980 I ed. .
Language: Italian
The four short stories by James selected for this book differ widely: the first three gravitate towards the imaginary, albeit with different nuances, the fourth is the chronicle of a patient revenge, even more heinous because we ignore its ultimate outcome.
Starting, perhaps unknowingly, with the 18th century epistolary novel, James discovers the point of view, the fact that a tale is told through an observer, who can be and usually is fallible. This observer defines others, but, without realising it, is defining himself. James’s readers are forced into a continuous and lucid sense of diffidence, which is sometimes source of delight and sometimes of despair. A text may distort the facts or misunderstand them, or simply be untrue. In The Private Life the fantastic narrative combines with satire, the oft-recreated theme of the double and the mockery of the splendid nobodies that move across the visible stages of the world. Owen Wingrave may initially seem like a pacifist pamphlet, but later the gravitation of the ancient and the spectral does not exclude the epic. The Friends of the Friends is imbued with a deep melancholy, and is at the same time an exaltation of love elaborated in the most secret mystery. The fourth, The Abasement of the Northmores, is perhaps James’s short-story masterpiece.