House of Wits. An Intimate Portrait of the James Family. Author: Paul Fisher.

It is unusual for any nuclear family to produce one talented child who influences their culture. Henry James Sr. and Mary James produced three: William James is often called the Father of American Psychology and was the creator of the Pragmatic school of philosophy. Henry James Jr. was a successful novelist whose works were bestsellers in the 1800s and are classics today. Alice James was an acerbic diarist, whose repressed life and insightful writing have influenced 21^st Century feminism regarding its view of middle class women’s lives in 19^th Century America. Many individual biographies have been written about these three siblings. But Paul Fisher does something that has never been done before; he writes a biography of the entire family. This permits a reader to see the environmental influences on these three and examine what elements came together to precipitate such intellectual talent.

At the very beginning of the book, Paul Fisher makes an important blunder that throws a damp washcloth on a reader’s enthusiasm for his project: he spends more than 100 pages on Henry James Sr., the father of this clan. Henry Sr. was a follower of Emanuel Swedenborg. He was a theologian, a lecturer and a writer, who was neither successful in his lifetime, nor influential after it ended. He wrote a dozen volumes of arcane religious philosophy that were little noticed when published and are of little importance today. If it were not for his three famous offspring, it is safe to say that Henry Sr. would not be remembered at all. That a figure of such modest consequence should consume so much of a book which includes his three more influential children, is a waste of time. Surely, his importance lies in his impact on these children. A more useful beginning would have involved an abbreviated chapter on Henry Sr. and Mary that discussed their individual lives and how they came together.

Fisher writes with an ease and informality which allows his book to flow. He can be amusingly sarcastic with his subjects’ flaws. When Henry Jr. squanders family money in European spas, rationalizing that he must “get thoroughly well” so he can work, Fisher writes “Harry bled with self-sacrifice” (Fisher, p. 259). When William’s insecurity causes him to continually fail with women, Fisher comments that his “would-be liaisons struck one wet match after another” (Fisher, p. 304). It is this informality and refusal to hold his subjects as sacred, which permit him to delve into their lives in a way that holds nothing sacred.

The author exposes the worst about the Jameses, holding-up each nasty secret like an exterminator bringing a homeowner every poisoned rat: William is “living with depression” (277), has “quirky, skittish methods of human interaction” (442), and was “cut off from reacting, empathizing, and relating to others’ emotions” (Fisher, p. 439). Henry Jr. is a vain, self-involved social climber, “tipping his hat like a marionette” in high London society (Fisher, p. 432). Alice is a neurasthenic shut-in, whose fits of “hysteria” are part of a “long career as an invalid” that brings her “much attention and solicitude” (Fisher, p. 461). With such debilitating psychological problems, one wonders how they accomplished anything.

None of these revelations are new. Biographers have been analyzing this family for over 100 years and, given William James’s vocation, a number of those have been psychologists. So throughout the book Fisher is reaching for new insights that, due to the competence of his competition and the obsessive letter-burning practices of the Jameses, may simply not be available.

But because this author is examining the family as a whole, he has the benefit of everyone else’s biographies and his own research. He does spend time on the two ignored James sons Wilkie and Bob, which adds an interesting dimension to the family dynamic. Early in their lives, Henry Sr. and Mary determined that those two had little intellectual promise and were cut-out for the world of commerce. So they did not receive the privileged educations of William and Henry Jr. In addition, the two less promising Jameses both serve for the Union in the Civil War, whereas Henry Jr. and William dodge service with ailments. The war service and unhappy journeyman lives of the two unsuccessful Jameses leave the privileged sons with lifelong guilt.

Fisher does have an evolved social conscience through which he views the Jameses and their period. He spends a good deal of time on Henry Jr’s alienation due to his being a closeted gay male. Henry’s fears of discovery affect his responses to his sister’s “Boston Marriage” with Katharine Loring. A special focus on the status of women is unavoidable given Alice’s penetrating diary. But even with avoidable issues, like anti-semitism and the condition of the poor, the author makes sure to expose the era’s injustices.

Occasionally, Fisher can be a bit melodramatic in pursuit of deeper Jamesian problems. He uses the word “incest” or “incestuous” so often that one is certain he’d love to discover some. In one silly passage, the author describes seven-year-old Alice selecting colors for a new hat with a London milliner. He characterizes the resulting color clash as causing “distress and confusion” (Fisher, p. 132). The shopping trials of an over-privileged child seem hardly worth mentioning in a city where her fellow seven-year-olds were working in factories and wearing rags. Fisher also uses literary devices to create dramatic tension. Sections often end with premonitions of doom as entrees into the next section: “Quincy Street harbored a grim secret” (232), “The winds were already gathering” (422), “a more immediate drama was unfolding” (510). Such breathless, gothic style can become tiresome.

But, for all of his melodrama and faux suspense, Fisher strives with some success to pierce through the Jamesian wall of stolid Puritan/Victorian repression and self-regard. One feels a sadness pervading the book as the Jameses struggle against their common, depressive, inner darkness. Because they are not portrayed as the paragons of their earliest biographies, one sees them as human and roots for them to succeed in love and work. The author’s unique approach, to the household as a whole, reveals how the environment produced three individuals who were highly intellectual, driven and emotionally problematic. His angle has produced a compelling read.

Fisher, Paul. House of Wits. An Intimate Portrait of the James Family. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008.

Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements. Editors: Clifton Ross & Marcy Rein.

Until the Rulers Obey is a selection of interviews with South American social activists from organizations that are not affiliated with any government or party. Occasionally, their concerns and resulting popularity have resulted in their becoming an opposition party, but that is a rare occurrence. This is an extensive project involving 400 pages of interviews with individuals and groups of courageous activists. Their differing issues cover a broad range which includes indigenous rights, women’s rights, environmentalism, LGBTQIA rights, and poor people’s movements. Almost all of the interviewees have faced violence from governments, paramilitaries, or thugs hired by multinational corporations. Without these interviews, their concerns, persistence and contribution would have remained unknown outside of their own nations. Some remain anonymous so that their activities cannot be tracked by the state. The interviewers themselves faced significant danger in their efforts to gather some of these stories.

Each chapter represents a different South American country. After a brief overview of the social issues facing the populace of that nation, a series of interviews with activists working on those issues follows. Their approaches are creative, and as wide ranging as their topics: opposition newspapers, underground abortion services, protest, sabotage of mining equipment, occupations of land, public anti-homophobia education, creation of worker cooperatives; these are just a few of their differing responses to oppression.  

Though their issues and approaches differ, there are some commonalities among them. Aside from the aforementioned autonomy from government, these groups are, almost uniformly, opposed to multinational corporate interference in their national economies. This opposition was expressed by interviewees whose issues were not necessarily economic. LGBTQIA and feminist organizers also expressed that international capitalism was harming their nation. The authors employ the term “neoliberalism,” a re-emergence of 19^th century classical liberalism which embraced free market capitalism and, in its South American iteration, included a component of colonialism. It is understandable that activists with compassion for the local people would oppose multinationals regardless of their area of work, given the pervasive damage caused by these companies. These giants, with the assistance of local oligarchs, have displaced indigenous populations from their homes, extracted minerals or agribusiness products and polluted the environment.

But be aware that the selection of anti-corporate interview subjects was a conscious choice on the part of the editors. They avoided interviewing organizations and individuals who lacked such a critique, and even subtlely derided activists who did not include anti-multinational ideas in their program. For example, Adrienne Pine, who wrote and performed most of the interviews for the Honduras chapter, stated “groups dealing with gender and sexuality issues organized primarily around a nonprofit model in the 2000s, and often found themselves limited by the priorities of their funders. Much feminist work focused on documentation of and service to women victims of domestic violence, ‘empowerment,’ sexuality trainings, and other narrowly defined women’s issues: LGBTQ organizations found themselves working primarily  on antihomophobia and HIV/AIDS prevention educational outreach work. (Ross & Rein, pp. 62-3). Pine’s statement is condescending towards South American activists, indicating that these people were not sincerely interested in correcting social problems like domestic violence and homophobia; but were “limited by the priorities of their funders.” One is lead to presume that, if not for their funders, these individuals would have been working on economic, anti-capitalist issues. The author gives no credit to the organizers themselves for having independent wills and perhaps choosing to fight domestic violence or homophobia because they or their populations were harmed by these problems. Pine’s statement also demeans the importance of LGBTQIA and women’s issues. Though the author may think of these concerns as “narrow,” or imported from above by white western funders, many women and LGBTQIA people feel that their rights and survival depend on solving these problems.

There is nothing wrong with having a book that primarily examines economic issues and takes a stand against the damage done by multinationals. In addition, the editors are to be complimented on their open-minded inclusion of women’s and LGBTQIA concerns. However, intersecting with other movements requires respect for, and sensitivity towards, their issues. At times, it appears as if some human rights concerns are drawn into the narrative as a way to entice readers for whom those issues are a priority. In another situation, editor Clifton Ross interviews Paraguayan feminist Liz Becker. Becker opens with a two page criticism of government and neoliberalism before even beginning to discuss women’s rights. She then gives women’s issues slightly less than a page of analysis (Ross & Rein, pp. 351-4). Again, this is a book intended to combat international capitalist abuses. But there is a strong flavor to this discussion reminiscent of a doctrinaire 1970s Russian Communist Party technique: they would send-out female comrades to women’s organizations, allegedly to discuss feminism, but with talking points about how capitalism enslaves women, whereas the Party’s program would make women free. It is propagandistic, co-optive and disrespectful.

The pictures of these mostly tiny, non-violent, autonomous organizations, (struggling against worldwide capitalist money, wealthy oligarchs, colluding governments; who employ violent paramilitaries and armies), is compelling. Occasionally, we see victories: The retaking of land by indigenous communities, the defeat of a mining or hydroelectric project, an autonomous movement fielding an independent parliamentary candidate who wins. But, if there is an eventual victory against this array of powers, it’s a long way off and a long shot. This overview of South American anti-multinational struggles is a window on a set of movements rarely seen outside of their localities. It broadens our world, opens our eyes, and provides perspectives from individuals working in small, sometimes anonymous ways, to carve-out a little justice.

Ross, Clifton & Rein, Marcy (eds.). Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements. Oakland: PM Press, 2014.