3.3 Lambert Strether’s Walking as Homing
3.3.4 Strether’s Belated Youth
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sociable solitude, a solitude of life or choice, of community; . . . (58) Strether’s “find[ing] himself young” (57) and his enjoyment of solitude is ignited by the “happiest of accidents” (James xxxiii), which is an exhibition of his topophilia.
On the one hand, Strether is nostalgic for the familiar landscape he had ever visited with his wife in his youth. On the other hand, his enjoyment of being alone is shown from his “cheerful sociable solitude” in the Left Bank. In fact, Paris offers a room, a wide range of “possibilities” for him to think over his life to explore his potentialities and make cheerful adventures. Strether’s walking consequently proves that the cosmopolitan Paris is the spatiality which exhibits his revision of a potential self as in youth and a chance of experiencing cultural diversities in Paris. Accordingly, James’
topophilia can be seen from both his concept of cosmopolitanism and his
characterization of Strether. Strether’s inner perspective demonstrates the difference of the spatial atmosphere between the Right Bank and the Left Bank. His spatial intimacy shows his embrace of freedom and rejuvenation from his pondering of having more possibilities in his later life. Strether’s homely intimacy is thus characterized by his sweet detachment from the Parisian landscape.
3.3.4 Strether’s Belated Youth
This chapter concludes with James’ depiction of Strether’s “Process of Vision”
(xxxvii).Strether’s acquiring a new vision, both cosmopolitan (not local-restrictive) vision and perceptions of human complexities are fully visible throughout the scenes in this novel including two walking scenes in the Luxembourg Gardens, and in the tele-office before Strether visits Madame de Vionnet’s mansion.
First, as mentioned in the last section, Strether’s longing for freedom in Luxembourg Garden may be regarded as a longing for the comfort and freedom of being at his primitive home. At the same time, his seeking for releasing from local
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constraints in Woollett is revealed. Strether’s meditation marks the great differences between his hometown Woollett and Pairs. It is Paris where his power is recharged from reconstructing his own life in the Luxembourg Gardens. Likewise, Strether’s longing for intellectual connections with Paris could be traced from James’
associating Théâtre de l'Odéon in Latin Quarter with “old imaginations” (63). It is as
“the charming open-air array of literature classic and casual” (66). Thus, all the surrounding scenes and atmosphere like the “pleasant cafes that overlapped, under an awning, to the pavement” could be read as James’ introduction of Strether’s joyful impression of Paris. All these scenes reveal his pondering of the possibilities of reconstructing his life in a more cosmopolitan location.
Strether’s values change further in Book Twelve, which forms an interesting comparison with the beginning of the novel. In comparison of the pivotal setting of finding the truth, his “belated vision” (393) after discovering Chad’s affair with Madame de Vionnet in Book Eleventh, I detect Strether’s self-revelation of his becoming in Book Twelfth.31 His becoming is shown from his epiphany that he is comfortable of being “mixed up with the typical tale of Paris” (398). The flâneur Strether’s enjoyment of walking by the telegraph-office on the boulevard remains as usual, just like the days upon his arrival of Paris. His being struck with his own ease at treating their affairs shows his changed perspectives from old moralities in Woollett to the flexible perspectives he initiates in Paris. Strether’s amusement about his own discovery of the other sides of Parisian society exposes his changed values: “he was really amused to think, on the side of the fierce, the sinister, the acute” in the “national
31 In his Preface to The Ambassadors, James identifies Strether as a “belated man of the world” who has “presented himself at the gate of that boundless menagerie primed with a moral scheme of the most approved pattern which yet framed to break down on any approach to vivid facts; that is to any at all liberal appreciation of them” (xxxvii). It suggests Paris offers Strether a fanciful landscape filled with many cultural dimensions and flexibilities, which not only reminds Strether of his belatedness but also revives his youthful spirit.
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life” in Paris when he observes the little prompt Paris women in the tele-office (398).
This setting demonstrates his reconstructed moralities as well as his understanding of the intricate facets of human relationship. Moreover, his walking along the boulevard to the telegraph-office shows his spatial infatuation with the busy daily life in Paris:
“the vibration of the vast strange life of the town” (398). After the disclosure of Chad and Madam de Vionnet’s secret, Strether does not treat their adultery as seriously as what he used to be in Woollett. On the contrary, he perceives that good and evil qualities cannot be so simply opposed like in New England.
Furthermore, Strether’s sharpened insight of his appreciation of life than ever before in his middle-age attests to his belated maturity. For instance, in one of the beginning walking scenes, his wonderment at the Parisian spaces is apparent from his walking with the company of Miss Gostrey and John Little Bilham on the Boulevard Malesherbes. They are “strolling in a state of detachment practically luxurious for them, . . . that day with the sharp spell of Paris. . . They walked, wandered, wondered and, a little, lost themselves; Streather hadn’t had for years so rich a consciousness of time—” (78). Comparing the beginning walk with the final few scenes in Book Twelfth of this novel, in the summer’s end, we see how Strether becomes much more perceptive to the Parisian landscape. At the end of this novel, his cheerful walks with Miss Gostrey in one afternoon of the boulevard Champs-É lysées shows his emotional ties with Paris, as indicated in his description of “something of the innocent pleasure of handling rounded ivory” (414). Strether’s understanding of “the quiet lapse of life”
after seeing the scene of “so melancholy a charm” exhibits his “sweetness of vain delay” (414). Strether’s self-reconfiguration is shown clearly: he is there “to see” his belated sweet youth:
They [Strether and Miss Gostrey] now took on to his fancy, Miss Gostrey
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and he, the image of the Babes in the Woods; they could trust the merciful elements to let them continue at peace. He had been great already, as he knew, at postponements; but he had only to get afresh into the rhythm of one to feel its attraction. It amused him to say to himself that he might for all the world have been going to die — die resignedly; the scene was filled for him with so deep a death-bed hush, so melancholy a charm. That meant the postponement of everything else — which made so far the quiet lapse of life; . . . he was to see, at the best, what Woollett would be with everything there changed for him. . . Well, the summer’s end would show; his suspense had meanwhile exactly the sweetness of vain delay. (414)
At the same time, the nearby arcade (shop) near Odéon, with which Strether is quite infatuated, offers a deeper disclosure of his affective tie with the things imbued with the dual qualities of history and novelty, which suggests his pursuit of prolonged youthful spirit:
He wasn’t there to dip, to consume—he was there to reconstruct. He wasn’t there on some chance of feeling the brush of the wing of the stray spirit of youth. He felt it in fact, he had it beside him; the old arcade indeed, as his inner sense listened, gave out the faint sound, as from far off, of the wild waving of wings. (66-67)
The “old arcade” ignites Strether’s “inner sense” with the “far-off” “faint sound” of the “wild waving of wings” of his youthful spirit (66-67). On the streets of Latin Quarter, Strether’s existential thirst for something wild and free could be seen in his diction of “wild waving of wings” (66-67). His wish to be out of a regular life at his middle age is revived through the revelations of old arcade as well as other scenes in Paris. This “inner sense” connecting to one’s deeper mind could be seen as a kind of
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spatial intimacy. Provided with his walking experiences in Latin Quarter, Strether may release his mind and start to listen to his inner voice, embracing his free spirit of youth, which he had not tried for years.
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Chapter Four
The Collectors, the Interior and Intermediate Space
The discussion in this chapter falls into two major dimensions, containing an investigation on the interconnectedness between the collector’s spatial nearness and the interior, and a scrutiny into how intermediate space serves as a transitional space providing rooms for Strether’s finding of a renewed self in The Ambassadors. On the one hand, by using Benjamin’s notion of the collector in connection to the interior, I explore how Strether’s intimate nearness is ignited through a number of significant interiors. On the other hand, through exploring the intermediate space including gardens, balconies, and some rural sites near Paris, this chapter thereby unveils Strether’s process of changed perspectives. In The Arcades Project, Benjamin shows how a collector’s intoxication with a constellation of things provides one with a dream world by an act of collecting. In order to explicate how collecting is a way of homing, this chapter firstly examines Benjamin’s childhood experiences in relation to his concepts of home and the world in his One Way Street and Berlin Childhood around 1900, and his insight of the collector in The Arcades Project. Through one’s collections, the collector embraces homely comfort and a sense of freedom in a cosmopolitan house. Then, it brings forth further discussions on Strether’s spatial nearness with the collector in the second section: Madame Marie de Vionnet and Miss Maria Gostrey in this novel. The third section analyzes Strether’s observations of the interior decorations in the places of Chad Newsome and John Little Bilham. His intimate nearness with these interior spaces unveils his longing for the revival of his free youthful spirit. In the fourth section, I exhibit how Strether’s emotional tie with
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intermediate spaces in this novel demonstrates a process of his changed perspectives and his becoming. Strether’s inner harmony in the French rural scenes is in line with the intimate nearness he finds in the French landscape painter Lambinet’s pictures.