Oxford World's Classics What Maisie Knew, (Paperback)

from markbstephenson

A tough but very rewarding read. Maisie has the unenviable lot of being born to a handsome but worldly couple unready for either marriage or parenthood and is used by both parents as fodder for their contentious divorce and subsequent perpetual warfare. One might think this would be a very dark b...

from richardderus

Book Circle Reads 43 Rating: 3.75* of five The Book Description: What Maisie Knew (1897) represents one of James's finest reflections on the rites of passage from wonder to knowledge, and the question of their finality. The child of violently divorced parents, Maisie Farange opens her eyes on a d...

from ffortsa

Henry James heard about a divorce case in which a young child had become a pawn and decided to write about it from the child's point of view. Thus we see the story through Maisie's experience (not first person, but from her perspective and limited knowledge). The courts have awarded her to each p...

from pieterpad

Perhaps the pivotal work in the evolution of James's style and the first of the "difficult" ones, the book considers a young girl tossed among separated parents and their lovers and spouses. The story is told from her point of view, so there are elements that never do become understood. Wonderful...

from stillatim

I didn't expect this to be so funny- like a drawing room comedy. Then you think, wait, is it still funny when one of the main characters is a young girl? And then you think, wait, is she clueless or just completely and utterly starving for love? And I'm not sure that was ever resolved. Would you ...