John Brenkman is distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature and English at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Baruch College, where he also directed the US-Europe Seminar. He is the author of four previous books, most recently, Mood and Trope: The Rhetoric and Poetics of Affect. He lives in Livingston, Montana. More information at johnbrenkman.com.

• Essay on the Late NovelsNaked AnachronismPlots and EndingsOrphans, Widows, Widowers, Half-OrphansGo-BetweensRivals“Between Them”Couples (1)Couples (2)Voice, Form, LifeworldNotes Theoretical and CriticalMoralityConsciousnessMelodramaRealismAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

“Brenkman knows James’s last three novels inside and out, the fields of force that connect them, their stark ambiguities, their continual metamorphoses of vision. His book stands as a fine example of a kind of literary criticism that’s at once rigorous and free, given unapologetically to the play and pleasure of thought, a readiness to take chances, to pursue an individual way of seeing. The maximalist as minimalist! Brenkman makes it true.”

John Brenkman is distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature and English at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Baruch College, where he also directed the US-Europe Seminar. He is the author of four previous books, most recently, Mood and Trope: The Rhetoric and Poetics of Affect. He lives in Livingston, Montana. More information at johnbrenkman.com.

• Essay on the Late NovelsNaked AnachronismPlots and EndingsOrphans, Widows, Widowers, Half-OrphansGo-BetweensRivals“Between Them”Couples (1)Couples (2)Voice, Form, LifeworldNotes Theoretical and CriticalMoralityConsciousnessMelodramaRealismAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

“Brenkman knows James’s last three novels inside and out, the fields of force that connect them, their stark ambiguities, their continual metamorphoses of vision. His book stands as a fine example of a kind of literary criticism that’s at once rigorous and free, given unapologetically to the play and pleasure of thought, a readiness to take chances, to pursue an individual way of seeing. The maximalist as minimalist! Brenkman makes it true.”

John Brenkman is distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature and English at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Baruch College, where he also directed the US-Europe Seminar. He is the author of four previous books, most recently, Mood and Trope: The Rhetoric and Poetics of Affect. He lives in Livingston, Montana. More information at johnbrenkman.com.

• Essay on the Late NovelsNaked AnachronismPlots and EndingsOrphans, Widows, Widowers, Half-OrphansGo-BetweensRivals“Between Them”Couples (1)Couples (2)Voice, Form, LifeworldNotes Theoretical and CriticalMoralityConsciousnessMelodramaRealismAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

“Brenkman knows James’s last three novels inside and out, the fields of force that connect them, their stark ambiguities, their continual metamorphoses of vision. His book stands as a fine example of a kind of literary criticism that’s at once rigorous and free, given unapologetically to the play and pleasure of thought, a readiness to take chances, to pursue an individual way of seeing. The maximalist as minimalist! Brenkman makes it true.”