When our daughter was a toddler, one of the other toddlers she regularly exchanged germs with at toddler social events was a boy named James, and James' dad's name was Henry. We would often run into the two of them, little snotnosed James sitting upon Henry's shoulders, and I got into the habit of referring to them as a single entity, "Henry James". Look, I'd say to my daughter — there goes Henry James! Or, you'll never guess who we saw at the playground today, I'd say to my wife — our friend Henry James!

Of course, the real Henry James is no laughing matter. Reading him is like floundering in a slow-motion Sargasso Sea of language, the main clause an elusive seahorse, forever just out of reach. It's a maddening, but strangely addictive experience, playing Henry James bingo with his wild verbs of saying — adjure, pursue, asseverate — his junctures and obtrusions, his obsessive use of the feminine suffix — conductress, protectress, instructress, interlocutress. Even his shorter sentences can be maximally disorienting: