A joint review of two long Henry James tales, The Siege of London and Lady Barberina? Who wouldn't want to write such a thing?

The two tales both date from the Portrait of a Lady era; they're classic James pieces about the love of an American and a European. They're also very interesting to read back to back, as I did, most obviously because the American in LB is a man chasing the eponymous Lady; whereas in SL the American is a woman chasing a Lord. Lady Barberina is not at all an interesting character; Mrs. Headway, however, is fabulous.

SL features some pale-imitation Trollopian names, as "Mrs Headway" suggests (other names: Littlemore, Demesne, Dolphin), but is otherwise excellent James, full of moral and psychological tension and problems. The structure is fairly tight, and the James ficelles are wonderfully done, emerging as proper human beings in their own right at the end. LB, on the other hand, is more formally ambitious. The ficelles aren't particularly helpful, but there are good reasons for that--the tale starts with an unusually visual scene (for James), a description of Hyde Park that, I half suspect, might owe something to actual paintings of those promenading. While SL more or less ends with (spoiler alert, but really, it's Henry James) a marriage, the marriage in LB occurs half way through. James seems to have wanted to think through not only the difficulties in setting up trans-Atlantic matches, as in SL, but the problems that might beset such relationships after the great comedic climax.

Unfortunately, LB doesn't do a very good job of that, and the tale is far weaker than SL because of it. The last, post-wedding sections feel rushed. Did James just get bored? Did he prefer to work on Portrait? Or was he, in fact, not able to depict (the reasons for) an unhappy marriage convincingly? All questions I would like to know the answer to. ( )