THE WINGS OF THE DOVE

Henry James's richly layered novel, recently filmed with Helena Bonham Carter, concerns the subtle interplay among a quartet of friends and lovers and the conflicting moral tension between selfishness and compassion, America and Europe. Like other modernist authors, James focuses on introspection and the processes of perception. These challenges require the listener to adjust to the speed of Nadia May's reading. Her accelerated delivery is consistently clear, even in navigating sentences of considerable length, but one often feels that the text possesses more richness and depth than such a pace permits one to absorb. It’s satisfying to have such an important novel preserved on unabridged audio, but a more nuanced and relaxed pace would have better served this pensive book. G.H. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 00]