Reading Henry James Atmospherically: the Case of The American Scene

Abstract

The ontological category of the atmosphere has emerged in recent years as a potential alternative to a traditional metaphysics based in substances, properties, and relations. After briefly delineating some of the main points of this new paradigm, this article attempts to make a case for the relevance of this mode of apprehending the world in the literary work of Henry James. James’s focus on “the scenic thing,” especially following a brief period of writing for the theater, seems to indicate a shift towards an interest in an area of experience that might be better understood by thinking in terms of “atmosphere” or “ambiance” rather than in terms of psychological depth or social relations. Through a reading of James’s late collection of travel writings, The American Scene, this article hopes to draw attention to a realm of experience which is located neither within the reader’s own experience nor out there in the substance of the text, but somewhere which precedes and underlies the supposed division which allows us to speak in these terms. By reading James atmospherically, as the text of The American Scene invites us to do, we may permit a shift in attention which opens up new possibilities for reading and for experiencing “life itself,” that flickering presence which James had earlier detected in his own reading of the work of Ivan Turgenev.