If you are able to withstand the near complete absence of plot, the involuted (and convoluted) sentences, and the preposterous metaphors (“she sat there in the solid chamber of her helplessness as in a bath of benevolence artfully prepared for her”)—if you’re able, in other words, to withstand Henry James, you’ll find that The Golden Bowl is a sordid little sex farce. James demands more than the usual suspension of disbelief, but his premise is original and wicked.
