680 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 2

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After spending decades in Europe, the American Henry James felt haunted by the idea that he'd given up something essential. Inspired by a trip home to New York City, the place of his birth, he wrote an astonishing story about a man who creeps through his childhood home late at night, searching for ghosts, and one in particular he's desperate to see: the American version of himself that didn't ever get a chance to live. In this episode, Jacke reads and analyzes the middle of Henry James's "The Jolly Corner." Additional listening: 679 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 1 340 Constance Fenimore Woolson 341 Constance and Henry - The Story of "Miss Grief" The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.
0:10.1	Race the rudder. Raise the sails. Raise the sails.
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0:52.1	usana.com. Hello, today on the podcast, part two of our look at Asana.com.
0:59.7	Hello, today on the podcast, part two of our look at the Jolly Corner by Henry James.
1:04.0	That's coming up today on The History of Literature. Uh, Hello, hello, hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for joining,
1:19.9	sorry, joining me today. This might be a good time to go and listen to part one of The Jolly Corner, our previous episode, if you haven't done that already.
1:30.2	But if you'd rather just stick with us, or if it's been a while, don't worry, I will give you a summary of where we are in the story.
1:40.0	There's a not me in all of us, isn't there?
1:43.0	We reach a fork in the road. We go down one path
1:46.2	instead of another, and then later in life we wonder just who we'd have been. Had we stayed
1:53.3	instead of gone or gone instead of stayed. Henry James felt that way. He went to Europe for 33
1:59.8	years, came back to America, saw a thriving New York, and thought, what would I have been had I been here for 33 years?
2:08.5	Knowing no land other than America. My current state, he told a friend in his early 60s, this hybrid of America and Europe has been disastrous.
2:22.2	Spencer Briden, the protagonist in The Jolly Corner, certainly thinks that too.
	...

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