The Europeans

This companion to THE AMERICAN, though half as long and complex, pleases from first to last. Reading with an easy grace and cosmopolitan assurance, Eleanor Bron perfectly matches James's polished prose and urbane protagonists. Coming to Boston from Europe, Felix and his elder sister, the Baroness Eugenia, appear to mystify and dazzle their modest relations but really are perplexed by them. Bron's reading is alert with nuance. She alternates between energy and ennui as character or occasion dictates, voicing the characters lightly, in keeping with James's strong narrative control. In so doing, she mirrors perfectly both James's tense and ambiguous world, as well as his masterful control of that world. P.E.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


In Henry James's typical style, the characters of The Europeans, none of whom has much substance, and the details of their surroundings, which are the picture of bland, are exhaustively examined, while the plot, which could be handled in a single paragraph, receives about that much consideration. Lloyd James presents the story with exactly the same air of self-satisfied cleverness imparted by the text. His dramatic pauses, where the author can't get over his own powers of perception, parade the wit and wisdom of the wealthy about as accurately as they deserve. Lloyd James differentiates little among the characters, save for the one European cousin who appears to have a slight amount of depth. Dialogue from the others is presented in the same narrative style as the rest of the text. R.P.L. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine