What Maisie Knew

I don’t have that much personal experience of divorce.  No-one in my family’s really done it- aside from one second cousin (or similarly obscure relative).  And Steph’s divorce dissolved into a sitcom like farce of not letting my great grandmother find out.  It was fun when I was ten, but I’ve never quite figured out why it was necessary.  I’ve since found out that my great grandmother was divorced herself, and at a time when it was actually a bit scandalous.  Anyway, the point is that my main frame of reference for the effects of divorce on the children is anecdotes from friends and Jacqueline Wilson books.  And Jaqueline Wilson wrote about it far better than Henry James.

What Maisie Knew is the story of Maisie Farange and her family.  Her parents wage war over who gets to keep her in the divorce as though she were the good china.  Neither parent is particularly interested in her for reasons beyond cheap point scoring and one-upmanship.  The end result is a (clearly super-responsible) judge decreeing she be shipped back and forth between the two every six months.  Or, at least that’s the idea.  Both her mother and father are chronically incapable of sustaining a monogamous relationship and soon enough they’re off cheating on their new spouses.  Maisie then passes into the care of her cuckholded stepfather and her governess Mrs Wix.  It sounds like a good story, but it’s kind of… completely unengaging. 

I’m not sure if it’s a problem that I have with the way James writes.  I love gothic horror, but The Turn of the Screw bored me half to tears.  I had the same issue with What Maisie Knew- it’s difficult to write about a book that I couldn’t connect with in any meaningful way.  There are bits in it that I know, objectively, are funny but they didn’t hit the mark.  For example, Maisie’s stepmother describes her father as a man who changes in everything every three days, but is completely consistent in the amount he hates her mother.  Usually, I love people being pithy and scathing.  It’s one of my favourite things.  And I don’t know why I don’t love it when James does it.  It’s infuriating.  Maybe I just overtaxed myself with the recent travelling and reading binge I went on.  Fingers crossed that I can get back into the groove for my next read…

I’ve just started Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds.  I’m not quite sure yet why it needs so many hyphens.