Confidence
Confidence
Henry James's "Confidence" (1879) is a sly, elegant comedy about the art of self-presentation and the dangerous game of appearing more certain than one feels. When the impulsive artist Bernard Longueville and the level-headed scientist Gordon Wright both find themselves drawn to the enigmatic Angela Vivian, they make a peculiar pact: each will pursue her, but with the understanding that neither truly believes the other is serious. What begins as a gentlemanly experiment in romantic confidence soon becomes a labyrinth of misreading and self-deception, as both men discover that their careful performances have started to feel dangerously like the real thing. James, in his early masterwork, parses with sharp precision the thin membrane between confidence and self-delusion, between the roles we play and the feelings that emerge despite them. A sparkling comedy of manners that anticipates all his later psychological complexity.
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Judi Mason, KirkL, Jonathan Horniblow, Jim Locke +1 more
