PORTRAIT OF A LADY

With amazing vividness, Nina Foch essays Henry James's earliest (1881) and perhaps most accessible masterpiece. A penniless American girl is brought to Europe where her beauty, ingenuousness, and naïveté attract a variety of suitors. In spite of wanting to do everything right, everything comes out wrong in this perceptive, subtle, and multilayered psychological novel, which Foch plays like a musical instrument. A rather loud one -- she hits all the notes correctly but coarsely. The effect is like a bordello pianist--albeit one with nimble fingers--playing Chopin on an old upright. A maladroit abridgment causes occasional confusion. Lackadaisical engineering adds stridency and calls attention to edits. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 02]