Needing a break from modern writers like Hemingway and Salinger, I thought I'd try someone from the 1800s. Henry James is one of those authors I never encountered in my schooling. I think perhaps I read part of an essay of his in an anthology, but it may have been someone else. I have, however, had a book with four of his short fiction stories for many years without cracking it open. I found I had mistakenly shelved it with my British authors, when in reality he was an American living in Europe - an early expatriate.

I have always liked the idea of being an expatriate. Not that I don't like America, and not that a European country would be perfect or even better in general. But the architecture, histories, art, languages, and culture of various European countries is intriguing and far older and richer than our young country could have. I think most people who write can imagine the romance of lounging in an Italian piazza or a French cafe or near the ruins of an English castle, drinking coffee, smoking, and penning fantastically inspired verse.

James' writing is romantic in that way, but it is not too sentimental - which is good for me. The first two stories in this little collection were Daisy Miller and The Aspern papers. After Daisy Miller I was ho-hum about starting another story, but I was pleasantly surprised by The Aspern Papers.

Daisy Miller is the story of an American young women in Switzerland and Rome who is not well-bred and doesn't try to understand or follow the decorum expected in these foreign lands. An American man who has lived in Geneva most of his life tries to keep her from ruining herself because he has a crush on her, but she will not be saved. I won't give away the ending, but I'll say that it was supposed to be emotional and I just found it hackneyed. There is a 1974 movie of Daisy Miller starring Cybill Shepherd which is on my Netflix queue, but at the rate we're watching movies these days, it may be some time before I actually see it.

I went on to The Aspern Papers with no expectation that I would be thrilled with it. After the first chapter of this novella, I was hooked. Based on the true story of a scholar who tried to insinuate himself in the home of Claire Clairmont (half-sister of Mary Shelley and mother of Lord Byron's daughter) in order to gain access to private papers, The Aspern Papers is the story of a biographer who is looking for letters from fictional poet Jeffrey Aspern to the last living person who had known and perhaps loved him. The man begins lodging at the Venice home of the ancient Juliana Bordereau in hopes that he can see the papers, only to be met with formidable resistance.

Oddly, James himself was fiercely private and destroyed many of his own personal papers and even allegedly asked friends to burn letters that he sent them. Yet he presents his protagonist in a sympathetic light while he portrays Juliana as greedy and unreasonable. James keeps up the suspense until the very end of the story - will he get the precious papers or will Juliana burn them because her age and failing health makes her sense the end is near? Can he trust her niece Tina (earlier editions have her named Tita) to help him? Or is she an agent sent from Juliana to find out his intentions?

James also does a really nice job of setting this story. I can't imagine it happening anywhere but Venice. Reading The Aspern Papers, I don't just want to visit Venice; I want to live there. The descriptions of the city and the canals are loving yet not overwrought. You feel as if you're floating around at sunset in a gondola or lounging in a verdant walled garden in the balmy, starry night.

I really do appreciate an author who truly puts you in a setting. And they don't need to describe every detail of every building and every character and every piece of clothing to do it. In fact, that sort of over-descriptive writing keeps me out of a story, like I'm a bystander. It's far better to take one or two elements and let those set the mood while leaving your reader to fill in the rest.

Here's an example of what I find to be good descriptive writing because at the same time you are learning about the surroundings, the story is moving forward:

The temperature was very high; it was such a night as one would gladly have spent in the open air, and I was in no hurry to go to bed. I had floated home in my gondola, listening to the slow splash of the oar in the dark narrow canals, and now the only thought that occupied me was that it would be good to recline at one's length in the fragrant darkness on a garden bench.

Even never having been to Venice, I know exactly what sort of night James is describing, those hot, humid summer nights where you wouldn't want to be inside if you didn't have air conditioning, if the slight night breezes were your only hope for real comfort. It's humid enough in Michigan, surrounded as we are by great lakes and wetlands. Now imagine if the very streets were water!

James puts me right there in Venice but at the same time the story moves from the canal to the garden. I don't know what's growing in the garden or what the protagonist is wearing, because that doesn't matter. What matters is that I know what sort of night it is because that's what brings our protagonist into close contact and intimate conversation with Juliana's niece. She is outside in the garden because of the heat.

The exact color of Tina's hair or eyes is unimportant. The style of her dress is unimportant. Even the expressions on their faces are unimportant. Yet many writers spend paragraphs describing these very things. Why? They have no bearing on the story - ever. They are a waste of words, more often than not. Little things like this are what separates writers whose work will endure from those whose work floods bookstores today and is remaindered tomorrow.

All in all, I would recommend The Aspern Papers to those who enjoy a bit of mystery with European flavor. I don't think I would recommend Daisy Miller as strongly, but if you like stories about manners and customs, it is a somewhat interesting treatment of the differences between American custom and European. It might explain how some Europeans view Americans even today.