Teaching the Short Fiction by Henry James: Critical and Pedagogical Essays ed. by Kathleen McDonald and Anne S. Jung (review)

Reviewed by: Teaching the Short Fiction by Henry James: Critical and Pedagogical Essays ed. by Kathleen McDonald and Anne S. Jung Beata Williamson Kathleen McDonald and Anne S. Jung, editors. Teaching the Short Fiction by Henry James: Critical and Pedagogical Essays. McFarland, 2022, Viii + 162 pp. , 55 (e-Book). Henry James anticipated many of the tensions and dilemmas that still plague today's world, and Teaching the Short Fiction by Henry James helps to make his works relevant to the youngest generation of readers. Thus, in Jason Baker's "Reading Daisy Miller and Teaching Inclusive Excellence" (7-24), Daisy stands for numerous modern rebels. Her image fits First Wave Feminism (10) —students recognize the story's feminist potential. Yet there is more: Daisy's "freedom intersects race and class" (22). Giovanelli, Daisy's handsome but somewhat swarthy Italian companion, is out of place among the upper-class American ex-pats. Hence, Daisy transgresses in style, and the text appears as inclusive as can be—today's students, "natives of 'woke' culture" are ripe to see the story in context of injustices "experienced by people of color, members of LGBTQ communities, ethnic and religious minority groups, immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and the undocumented" (21). Baker provides sufficient evidence that Daisy Miller rebels not only in her century; the girl is an insurrectionist today. "A Landscape Painter, " though taught less often than "Daisy, " can create some of the same pedagogical issues, and Katherine Shloznikova's "Gold-Digger with a Purpose" (25-40) challenges the story's overly obvious interpretations. The impoverished heroine who pretends not to know the status of her lover in order to marry well is not "crudely materialistic"; she is a pragmatic realist (38). The former idea, present even in twenty-first-century criticism (39), misses the point, showing "how easily the reader takes in everything that Locksley says. " Yet the hero's diary has "layers of meaning" and is his author's "early attempt … at speculation on the art of fiction" (29). Shloznikova explains James's subtle narrative ways through the analysis of an accessible example. Moreover, she approaches the story through a class perspective, traditionally dear to youthful readers. The chapter prompts further analysis, as of The Tragic Muse (1890), where the "outcast" protagonist storms herself into the "caste" of artists. Esther of 1866 and Miriam of 1890 achieve their goals, yet it is the later heroine whom James allows to live on and enjoy her gains. (Perhaps he learned that a woman who transgresses does not have to be killed off at the end. ) Nevena Stojanovic's "Painting a 'Picture out of Her Setting'" (41-61) deals with the short novel The Europeans and attempts to situate it within the ongoing conversation about racial issues as they are engaged by nineteenth-century fiction. The chapter's concept is that James presents his characters through the "Claude mirror, " an optical device used by painters of his time. Stojanovic rightly brings to focus Azarina, an African-American character, whose figure "only serves as a scaffold in Eugenia's learning process" (58) —merely a "catalyst, " Azarina disappears from the text when her role is done. Racial issues fit today's classroom. Yet the Claude mirror End Page E-12 concept used in this chapter appears overbearing—the mirror's technical details distract from the text analysis—though it does provide an interesting angle on James. Anne S. Jung's "Providing Contexts and Contextualization: Prosper Mérimée's 'La Venus d'Ille, ' James' 'The Last of the Valerii, ' and The Portrait of a Lady" (62-82) serves a portion of optimism to an attentive reader. Jung proves indeed that James used Mérimée's tale (1837), which he translated as a young man, as a model for his own 1874 story; most visibly, "both stories feature motifs of pre-Christian pagan practices. " There is evidence of James's faith in the strength of women: "James' story allows a self-confident modern female figure to explain and solve the crisis, as opposed to the bride in Mérimée's story who ends up in a state of collapse" (67). Later, when Jung starts to trace the earlier texts. . .