Finished: The Golden Bowl (James). Ugh, that was a very difficult read! Henry James is just so darn wordy! A book that was almost 800 pages should really have been about 200 pages for all the plot it had. I have read that in his later years Henry James wrote much more vaguely and intricately and round-aboutly and over-metaphorically, and I think I just witnessed that. I really enjoyed two of his books, The Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square...but one of his other books, The Wings of the Dove, was so atrociously ambiguous that I read only the first 20 or so pages and then returned it to the book store...the only book I have given up on in this entire reading endeavor of mine. So, anyway, I went into The Golden Bowl wondering which of the two types of writing I would get...and it was the latter. However, I stuck this one out because I was intrigued by the story. It's the story of American millionaire art dealer, Adam Verver, and his beloved daughter, Maggie, who marries an Italian penniless prince, Amerigo. Maggie falls head over heals in love with the prince, but we know right off the bat that the prince is marrying Maggie for her money, though he treats both Maggie and her father with the utmost respect and consideration. Until, that is, the former love of his life, and coincidentally Maggie's dear childhood friend, Charlotte, comes to London for their wedding. Here we find out that Amerigo and Charlotte still love each other. They couldn't marry when they were in love before because both were very poor, and how could they then have existed in life without having to :::gasp::: work for a living? Maggie and the prince go off for a year or so on their whirlwind wedding trip, and we join them two years later where already their baby son, Principino (that's all he's ever called) has joined the family. Maggie's father falls in love with his grandson and Maggie soon begins to feel that her father also needs a companion, so she convinces him to marry Charlotte! Of course, this throws Amerigo and Charlotte back into each other's orbits, so an affair ensues. When Maggie finally gets wind of the affair, she acts with grace and lets her husband know that she knows without letting her father know. By the end of the book, Maggie has convinced her father to move to America with Charlotte, where her father and Charlotte will basically start over, which will also allow the prince and Maggie to start all over again as well. Not hard doings for Amerigo or Charlotte, since they both somewhat loved their spouses and really loved the money that came with them, apparently more than they really loved each other.Throughout the book it is always clear that Maggie and her father adore each other, and would do anything for each other, including making sacrifices to keep the other from being hurt. It's just too bad that it was so hard to figure all this out most of the time due to the bizarre, rambling writing! I've only got one more James book on my list to read, and then I think I'm over and out with Henry James. :-)