Posted by Rizwan on 27/9/2009, 1:35:26, in reply to "Re: All the information required on the book cover"
72.165.85.63
Hey Joffre,
I'm not sure the footnote I remembered really sheds more light on the matter. In my Norton edition (n.3, p.63) it simply reads "French fiction was customarily published in yellow paperbacked editions." I had thought it was more detailed than that.
I think I actually reached the same conclusion as Lale based on what James himself had written. Reading the paragraph in the text following the first mention of the lemon-colored volumes, Strether remembers "back in the 60s" buying these books and bringing them home to his wife, something he regards as evidence of "finer taste." Would Strether, who in the 60s hadn't yet had his epiphany about living life to its fullest, have been so bold as to buy "audacious" books for his wife? I don't know. Moreover, would such books have been considered evidence of finer taste? I may be wrong, but it seems like these lemon-colored volumes refer more to the likes of Balzac and Stendhal than to the books of sex mentioned in "Henry James Goes to Paris" (which itself sounds like an interesting book).
--Previous Message--
:
: Hey Rizwan,
:
: I hope you can reproduce that note for us. I'd like to
: see what it says. I do feel, though, that I may
: disagree with it. I found this online: "the
: yellow French novel is in James often an emblem for
: French fiction of an audacity (particularly in matters
: of sex) denied to the English...." That's from a
: book called Henry James Goes to Paris , not the most
: scholarly sounding title, I admit.
:
: It is, of course, possible and perhaps probable that
: French fiction in general was considered more
: audatious, but the next line from that book is about
: books with pink covers which were considered proper
: for young girls.
:
:
