from this sunday's ny times book review of Sheldon Novick's Henry James biography -- everywhere "James" is mentioned, mentally replace it with "Morrissey".
"'Henry James: The Mature Master' strives to supplant the common view of James as "a passive, fearful man, a detached observer of the life around him” with one of the writer as a gregarious, sometimes heroic, often troubled citizen of the world. Far from a sniffy celibate living comfortably on independent means or a “little boy with his nose pressed against the glass of a shop window,” Novick’s James was an authentic cosmopolite who led a life as emotionally, sexually and financially complex as those of the characters in his fiction."
"'Henry James: The Mature Master' strives to supplant the common view of James as "a passive, fearful man, a detached observer of the life around him” with one of the writer as a gregarious, sometimes heroic, often troubled citizen of the world. Far from a sniffy celibate living comfortably on independent means or a “little boy with his nose pressed against the glass of a shop window,” Novick’s James was an authentic cosmopolite who led a life as emotionally, sexually and financially complex as those of the characters in his fiction."
