At the little town of Vevay, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels; for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travellers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake-a lake that it behooves every tourist to visit. (...) In this region, in the month of June, American travellers are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that Vevay assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an American watering-place. ...
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At the little town of Vevay, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels; for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travellers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake-a lake that it behooves every tourist to visit. (...) In this region, in the month of June, American travellers are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that Vevay assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an American watering-place. There are sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and thither of "stylish" young girls, a rustling of muslin ounces, a rattle of dance-music in the morning hours, a sound of high-pitched voices at all times. (...) It was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young American looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming. He had come from Geneva the day before by the little steamer, to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel- Geneva having been for a long time his place of residence. - Taken from "Daisy Miller" written by Henry James
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I had to read this in college and was quite open to all kinds of Victorian and Edwardian literature, having been a long-time fan of the ever-depressing Thomas Hardy. However the character of Daisy was so annoying and falsely capricious (I mean forced to be so by the author) that I couldn't sympathize with her at all.
The other characters and settings were seen through her eyes, unfortunately, as boring and worthless. So there was no redeeming reason to pay close attention to much in this book. It put me off reading anything else by Henry James for a long time. Luckily, I got over it, but this still rates as one of his least impressive works, in my estimation.
What I found ironically funny was that the film version, with California girl, Cybil Shepherd, really captured Daisy's vapidity so well, though I'm sure that was not their intention. It was probably why it received such bad reviews.* That this was so speaks for the book as well, since most of James' novels have translated so well into film ("The Europeans", "the Bostonians", "The Golden Bowl", "Portrait of a Lady" and so on).
* "Miscast" is Emmanuel Levy's view of Shepherd and he is not alone.
"Painfully boring, the acting is wooden and unappealing, a misguided mess." - James Higgins
Still others wonder what director Peter Bogdanovich was thinking, after a string of three major hits. Maybe it was the material!
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