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The Reverberator [New York edition] (1888)

von Henry James

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Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

In this lighthearted comedic novel from author Henry James, the august Proberts clan finds itself thrust into the unwelcome glare of the spotlight when tabloid newspaper The Reverberator publishes some of the family's dirty laundry. When the identity of the person who leaked the news is revealed, all hell breaks loose. Will they ever be able to overlook this grievous lapse of decorum and restore peace in the family?

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'The Reverberator' is a short novel of James' that's due for a re-examination, if there ever is time or interest to do so in our busy, crowded world. The wealthy, American Dossons are keen to be involved with high Parisian society. At least Delia is. She runs the interest of the family, steering her father and younger sister Francie where she thinks they'll have the best chance of a good match for Francie. Mr. Dosson and Francie are quite amenable to the situation. At their hotel they make the acquaintence of a young newspaperman, George Flack, who writes for an American gossip sheet, 'The Reverberator'. He quickly takes the lead in escorting the family about the city and telling them everything he thinks they should know, while also not-so-subtly angling for Francie's heart. By chance, almost, the family meet Gaston Probert, a man of American descent who has never been to the United States as his family has become so embedded in France and French society. He falls in love with the naive and sweet Francie.

The novel is short, but the point of it and why yet another story centered on old-fashioned courtship should be considered is Flack and what he represents and what he sees for the future. He sees taking 'The Reverberator' to global success by breaking down barriers of privacy, by reporting on intimate facts and, best of all, making the cream of society tell him their secrets themselves. It is precisely what has happened today and back in the1880s the popular press has already begun that shift in America. A scandal emerges in the last act of the novel when the naive Francie reports some gossip about the patrician Proberts to Flack thinking she's just making silly conversation. Flack has everything printed, which leaves the Proberts mortified and the Dossons perplexed. It's a bit crass, but after all, it's just a newspaper.

Flack has a wonderful quote that I'd love to print in full but here's the windup:

"I’m going for the inside view, the choice bits, the chronique intime, as they say here; what the people want’s just what ain’t told, and I’m going to tell it. Oh they’re bound to have the plums! That’s about played out, anyway, the idea of sticking up a sign of ‘private’ and ‘hands off’ and ‘no thoroughfare’ and thinking you can keep the place to yourself. You ain’t going to be able any longer to monopolise any fact of general interest, and it ain’t going to be right you should; it ain’t going to continue to be possible to keep out anywhere the light of the Press. Now what I’m going to do is to set up the biggest lamp yet made and make it shine all over the place. We’ll see who’s private then, and whose hands are off, and who’ll frustrate the People—the People THAT WANTS TO KNOW. That’s a sign of the American people that they DO want to know, and it’s the sign of George P. Flack,”

It's harder to find a copy nowadays, there's always Project Gutenberg, but I think this worth seeking out. At the very least this is for someone who wants to experience the flavor of a more direct and amusing Henry James without a big time commitment. ( )
  ManWithAnAgenda | Oct 29, 2022 |
“El Eco” anticipa el tráfico de intimidades que será característico de nuestra época con una novela sagaz y formalmente ligera que él mismo definió como un “jeu d´esprit”, pero donde el aire de comedia incuba disyuntivas espinosas y decisiones formidables. «No había nada que James hiciera como un inglés, ni tampoco como un norteamericano -ha escrito Gore Vidal-. Él mismo era su realidad, un nuevo mundo, una “terra incognita” cuyo mapa tardaría el resto de sus días en trazar para todos nosotros. ( )
  HavanaIRC | Jul 14, 2016 |
In our time, socialites, celebrities and people "famous for being famous" hire publicists and are content to have their private lives made fodder for the public press. Indeed, they are often complicit in the revelation of the most intimate details of their lives and seem to agree with the saying that "no publicity is bad publicity".

Henry James would be shocked. Simon Nowell-Smith points out in his introduction to my edition of this novel James' reaction to a public report of a private conversation between Julian Hawthorne and James Russell Lowell; he called it a "beastly and blackguardly betrayal". But he took an incident in which a young American who had been admitted into Venetian society wrote an account of that society for a New York newspaper, and was widely excoriated in Venice for so doing, and turned it into this charming novel.

The Dossons, father and two daughters, serious Delia and flighty Francie, are Americans in Paris. Coming over, they had made the acquaintance of George Flack, a journalist whose job is to find stories for an American 'society-paper'. He has attached himself to the Dossons, showing them Paris, while smoking Mr. Dosson's cigars, spending his money, and having a flirtation with Francie. He introduces her to the expatriate Impressionist portraitist, Charles Waterlow (possibly based on John Singer Sargent?) who begins to paint her portrait. During the sittings, she meets a young man, Gaston Probert, an American who had never been in America, having been born and raised in France, his father a "Gallomaniac", his sisters having married into French society (two into the nobility). Inevitably, Francie and Gaston fall in love, and, after her charm overcomes some familial objections of the Proberts, they become engaged.

All is going swimmingly, Francie is taken into the bosom of the Proberts, learning the ways of French society, until Gaston heads to the United States to take care of some business for his family, as well as for Mr. Dosson. While he is away, George Flack re-appears. One lesson Francie has not learned is that a young engaged woman does not go out alone with a young man who is not her betrothed. But she takes the view that Flack is an old acquaintance and what's the harm? The harm turns out to be that he, by judicious questioning and saying he merely wants to write about Waterlow's painting of her, sets her chattering about her fiancé's family, and the resultant newspaper story causes a storm. Francie still cannot quite understand the harm she has done. "I thought he would just speak about my being engaged and give a little account; so many people in America would be interested." What she doesn't grasp is that the Proberts do not want "people in America" (or France, for that matter) to be interested in their private lives.

The Reverberator was first written as a serial in early 1888, and published in book form shortly thereafter. James extensively revised it twenty years later, but my edition is that of the 1888 book. Nowell-Smith's introduction, which compares this and the later edition, shows that the revisions were not an improvement! The ease of language here, very different from James' later "tortuosity of expression", perfectly expresses the wide-eyed naïveté of Francie.
1 abstimmen lilithcat | Nov 11, 2009 |
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Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

In this lighthearted comedic novel from author Henry James, the august Proberts clan finds itself thrust into the unwelcome glare of the spotlight when tabloid newspaper The Reverberator publishes some of the family's dirty laundry. When the identity of the person who leaked the news is revealed, all hell breaks loose. Will they ever be able to overlook this grievous lapse of decorum and restore peace in the family?

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