Nobody speaks in the concrete and the here and now as most human beings normally do. The second is that most of the characters talk to each other in a manner which is almost a continuation of James’s own style as narrator. Nothing concrete or specific can be discussed openly, and all conversations are shrouded in mists of subtle inference, hints, allusions, and guesswork. The first is that almost all social intercourse is constrained by an elaborate set of protocols whereby everybody is forced to be extremely polite in their dealings with others. These topics remain obscure for a number of reasons. And the conversations consist almost entirely of the interlocutors trying to interpret or second-guess the psychological motivation and intentions of other characters in the plot.

It consists of a series of conversations Strether has with other characters, punctuated by evocations of location (Chester, London, Paris). In fact there is very little action in the novel at all. The sequence of events is then re-traced retrospectively, with Strether reflecting endlessly on various possible nuances of behaviour. The novel also follows a structural pattern, in keeping with its first publication as a serial, of taking each section (‘Book Tenth’) up to a point immediately preceding a dramatic climax, then beginning the next section after the dramatic event has taken place. Just occasionally, James lapses into first person (plural) mode, speaking of Strether as ‘our friend’. The Ambassadors is narrated in third person omniscient mode, almost entirely from Lambert Strether’s point of view. Henry James – portrait by John Singer Sargeant He wants to do the right thing, but finds himself somewhat out of his depth when he visits Paris – which Walter Benjamin called ‘the capital of the nineteenth century’. Lambert Strether is a morally upright, middle-aged American who feels that life has passed him by. Much of the interest in the narrative is centred on the limitations of the principal character, from whose point of view the story is told. There is very little ‘plot’ here in the conventional sense. The writing is mannered, baroque, complex, and focused intently on the psychological relationships between his characters. The novel comes from what is called James’s ‘late period’.

Its first appearance as a single novel was in the autumn of 1903 by Methuen in London and Harpers in New York. The Ambassadors was written between October 1900 and July 1901, and initially appeared as a serial running in the North American Review. Tutorial, commentary study resources, commentary, criticism

The Ambassadors by Henry James