Robert Nathan (1)Reseñas

Beautiful and gentle, this short yet poignant story from the great Robert Nathan very much encapsulates his unique gifts and style of storytelling. We have a lovely young foreign girl and her little brother, set adrift by war. They find refuge in a scow on the beach through the kindness of Mr. Baghot. There, the beautiful yet innocent Luisa meets Mr. Smith, a teacher who has become gently restless with his life.

Everything about this story is gentle, especially the unspoken misunderstanding between Smith and the much younger and lovely Luisa; each believing the other could not possibly be romantically interested, despite their own personal feelings. Also gentle, making them more profound, are observations within the narrative about war and children, and people in general.

Only an ending vaguely suggestive of the future which lies ahead for our friends rather than clearly defined mars this wonderful story. But perhaps that speaks to Nathan’s genius that the reader aches for a longer and clearer glimpse into their future; Nathan as writer, showing us through his lovely prose that the picture is never fully painted until the final brush stroke, and life continues to unfold until we take the final breath.

Nathan was able to say more in his deceptively simple stories than any other writer I’ve ever read. His stories touch your heart and make you wistful, lingering long after the final page is turned. Above all else, Nathan wrote about love. An old-fashioned narrative style to be sure, but a unique reading experience for which you'll be all the richer.

Lonely and magical, Portrait of Jennie is often cited as a romantic fantasy masterpiece. Thanks to a classic film starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones, it is the one book title by this sadly almost forgotten author which is vaguely familiar to modern readers.

Perhaps because there is something pure and lovely in his gentle tales, his oeuvre is incompatible with the crass harshness of modern life, and much of modern literature. That makes them no less wonderful, however, and for some readers, makes them better. Like all of Robert Nathan’s stories, there is something ethereal here in Portrait of Jennie that nearly defies description.

Is it the feeling of loneliness and loss of hope with which Nathan dusts the pages?

Is it Nathan's skill at showing the thin line between desolation and inspiration which so plagues every artist?

Is it Nathan's own tender portrait of the lovely Jennie, using words rather than a brush to paint her as she moves through time and ages, finally becoming the protagonist's great love, and his inspiration?

Or is it Robert Nathan's insightful observations on life, and the living of it?

Perhaps it is all of these things, and much more. Robert Nathan imbued this story with some intangible magic that either touches our heart when it is still open to love and romance, or falls flat and shames us because our heart has been worn down and tainted by our crass modern world, and already moved into a winter too cold to embrace its romantic purity.

While it is somewhat more protracted than many of Nathan’s other wonderful stories, it is still incredibly lovely, with passages and sentiments so touching they are never forgotten by the reader. An all-time favorite book of mine, one which will certainly be enjoyed by anyone with a romantic heart.

This tender and beautiful novella from Robert Nathan almost defies description, and that, in essence, was this writer’s genius. Nearly forgotten by all but a few, his gentle stories of love embed themselves in our heart and soul, becoming a part of who we are and how we view love.

Here, as he did in his most famous work, Portrait of Jennie, Nathan takes a situation which would be scoffed at today — the world now so tarnished that it cannot allow such beauty to exist — and he makes it work. A man almost — but not yet — old enough to be a young orphan girl’s father, hires her to help out three days a week, while she stays with a family insensitive to her need for love and affection.

Set around Nathan’s beloved Cape Cod area, there is a feel of the sea and its timelessness which Nathan imbues into the story. The narrator views fourteen-year-old Johanna as nothing more than a child at first. His observations about her, and how we as human beings react to any small affection when deprived of love — or anything to call our own — are quietly profound. Johanna’s reaction to his gift of a dog is a perfect example, as she chooses to hold it tightly only when no one else is watching.

But despite Johanna's haunted simplicity, she is becoming more than a girl. She discovers a kind of emotional heaven, and haven, in a young boy’s affections and attention. But when tragedy occurs on Cape Cod, it causes her to withdraw from the world, and wait for that winter of the heart to return.

Though the reader can sense what’s coming, the narrator is still oblivious. A kindly priest, however, is not. He helps the caring bachelor rescue the girl so she can snap out of her denial and move forward. There is more, of course, because Robert Nathan always wrote about love. Though the story is about more than love, its focal point is the blossoming young Johanna's need to belong. The narrator only gradually realizes that Johanna is someone he cannot live without — no matter how long he must wait.

Wistful and ethereal, the very premise of this story would be tawdry in another writer’s hands, but guided by Nathan, it reaches a loveliness and purity seldom found in American letters. Long After Summer is a story of another time, and must be viewed as such in order to enjoy its innocence, and its message.

What Nathan had to say about love, about being human, was always told in a gentle yet profound manner, and no more so than in Long After Summer. This easily ranks among Robert Nathan’s finest works, a magical trip into the human heart, firmly rooted in a more romantic and less jaded era. A must for fans of this unique — yet sadly — almost forgotten writer.

“If you're a singer, you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.” — Mickey Spillane


That insightful quote by Mickey Spillane was never more on display than in this late-career masterpiece of romantic fantasy by Robert Nathan. For decades he had written about love as being everything. His tales were often ethereal, sometimes supernatural, and many, like Portrait of Jennie, were unforgettable. He sprinkled his stories with a tender magic which touched readers’ hearts so deeply his words remained there forever. He never seemed to care about page count; most of his finest works were short stories or novellas. Finally, near the end of his long and illustrious career, this magnificent writer turned inward, and gave us one of his most beautiful pieces of fiction.

In the novella, Nathan seems to be placing a mirror not only in front of himself, but every writer like him, writers who live and breathe their stories of love to the point where their characters become so real, they intrude on reality. Like all of Nathan’s work, Stonecliff has a gentle, otherworldly atmosphere, and is laced with great insight into the human condition. In this brief and terribly beautiful story, Nathan ponders God and the universe, and time and dimensions beyond our understanding in an intimate way, telling a love story for the ages that is both fantasy and science fiction. Or is it?

Michael Robb, an aspiring writer, has come to Stonecliff, overlooking the sea. He is there to interview the aging Edward Granville, whose entire career has been built on beautiful, ethereal stories of love, in which the message is always the same — love is everything. Michael finds Stonecliff enchanting:

“The air was cold and moist, the heavens clear and starry overhead; the sea moved in deeper darkness below us; and again, as from the window of my room, I smelled the over-sweet fragrance of jasmine.”

But Edward is enigmatic, and his wife Virginia is away at the moment. A Mexican woman who runs the house, and a breathtakingly beautiful young woman named Nina are the only two people around as Michael remains to get background from Edward about his life, his work. It doesn’t take long for him to sense that Edward’s characters are more to him than just figments of his imagination:

“I felt the loneliness of the evening, the emptiness of the land...and I thought of all the brave, sad, lonely, merry people of Granville's stories, the loving girls whose ghosts must roam those cliffs and haunt the gardens of oak and cypress in which they had lived their insubstantial lives…”

And it takes him even less time to begin falling in love with the fresh and enchanting Nina. But what is she to Edward, and where is Edward’s wife, Virginia? There seems to be something strange surrounding Edward and Nina’s relationship Michael can’t quite grasp. There is also something strange about the grounds of Stonecliff. Michael hears Edward having a conversation about his book with someone in a treehouse, only to discover no one is there. A fog-shrouded cougar and a snake which is only a rope have Michael wondering — and trying to shake off the unfathomable notion — if in some half-world of illusion, everyone, including himself, might be living in the current story Granville is writing. As Michael and Nina begin falling in love, the tale becomes more mysterious, and fraught with danger:

“It was as if powers were at war beyond the reach of my senses, beyond nature…unreal phantoms, coils of fog, primeval shadows…”

More and more Nina tries not to fall in love with Michael as he has fallen in love with her. Edward Granville’s heart seems to be in just as much turmoil as Nina’s, as he ponders his life’s work, wondering if, as he’s always espoused in his stories, love is all. Before the secret of Stonecliff is finally revealed, Robert Nathan treats the reader to so many lovely moments there isn’t enough space for them here. In essence, this is a writer nearing the end of his literary career, looking inward, showing us love through the eyes of youth, and the aged.

There isn’t much that Robert Nathan wrote which isn’t worth reading, yet in modern times his stories are too seldom mentioned, and even less seldom read. It is sadly ironic that in this beautiful piece of fiction, he has Edward ruminate on a writer’s legacy; how some are remembered and live on, while others sleep unremembered for eternity. Some of Nathan’s stories, such as Portrait of Jennie, are masterpieces. Stonecliff is just as memorable. It might take modern readers a few pages to get into Nathan’s older style of storytelling, but they’ll find the read richly rewarding. Stonecliff is one of those stories which no reader with a romantic heart will ever forget.

One More Spring ranks in the top tier of Robert Nathan’s body of work. No one ever forgets a Robert Nathan story after it's read, because whether they are lovely fantasies dusted with ethereal magic, such as Portrait of Jennie, or graced with tender charm and humanity, such as One More Spring, they become more than words on paper, but a part of each reader.

One More Spring is set in the period right before the Great Depression and the Crash, and during and after it. On the surface it is a gentle story of three people struggling to survive during hard times: an antique shop owner who has gone under (Otkar); a musician who can’t find work (Rosenberg); and a tender-hearted prostitute (Elizabeth). But underneath it is a charming and moving tale with much to show us about compassion, kindness, and the ridiculousness of class divisions among society. Even more importantly, One More Spring puts forth the notion that the root of true happiness is not money, but love.

At first, it is just the violinist and the former shop owner. With only a bed that Otkar has managed to keep when all else he owned is lost, the two unlikely companions find shelter in a tool shed in the park, a situation brought about by the groundsman’s (Mr. Sweeny) desire to learn the violin. When Elizabeth comes into their lives and begins living with them in the tool shed, there is some friction between she and the temperamental Rosenberg, but not enough to prevent the older man, Otkar, from developing tender feelings for her.

Adding depth to this magically constructed story is a banker hiding out so he won’t be blamed for its failure, a festive Christmas dinner with Mr. Sweeny and his wife, and a moment when the life of one of this make-shift family is in grave doubt.

The story comes to an end — or perhaps a beginning — in a way which says so much about what is really important in life. Written in a much older narrative style than today's books and stories, it may not be for everyone. But for those who can embrace it, it's a wonderful experience refreshingly different and touching. It will linger in the heart of the reader long afterward.

I do not know why this book has always gripped me. I first read it when I was rather young and had a more romantic view, but even as an older person there is something that holds me to the story. Nathan wastes no words...every scene and every syllable count.

Hard to classify. This is a short and sweet love story with supernatural aspects. Worth the read.

Really more of a 3.5, a book I'm sure I'll actually remember and think about in the future. Right after reading this I read this essay in the NY Times, about not remembering books: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html

This one I'll remember, for the story and writing as well as the circumstances of its reading. I read it in one sitting on (probably) the last sunny day of this year, on a hill overlooking a lake, with mosquitoes, gnats, and other winged irritants attacking.

The Bishop’s Wife by Robert Nathan is best known as being the source material for the 1947 film of the same name. I was looking forward to reading this Christmas tale of how an angel comes to the Bishop and assists him in both his personal life and in his desire to raise the money to build a new Cathedral for his parish.

Julia, the Bishop’s wife, has a large capacity for love and unfortunately her remote husband doesn’t have much time for family life. Julia therefore has learned to put all her affection into her young daughter. Henry, the Bishop, actually cares very much for his wife, but has never learned how to express affection and believes that his wife is quite satisfied with how things are. He does however pray for assistance in building his longed for cathedral. His prayers are answered and the angel Michael comes to assist him. Michael also has an unlimited capacity for love and he and Julia form a friendship that totters on the edge of romance.

While most of the book is very much like the film, I was surprised that there were large differences as well. The book is far more serious and the author seems to feel that duty, both marital and religious, is far more important that actually enjoying life which gives the book a dark and gloomy feeling. Personally, I prefer the film’s lighter, romantic touch and more sympathetic characters.

Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan is a novella that was originally published in 1940. This story combines romance, fantasy, mystery and the supernatural as it tells about struggling artist Eben Adams and his encounters with a young girl. They first meet in a park when she is very young and he is feeling particularly lost and sad. She inspires him to draw sketches of her that cause others to admire. At each encounter, Jennie appears to be a little older and when he tries to question her she simply says she is hurrying to catch up with him. He eventually gets her to sit for a portrait that becomes known as his masterpiece.

By putting together the scant information he learns about her, he comes to realize that she is from another time. It is never quite explained in the book whether she is time travelling or if she is an apparition from another time. But this really isn’t important as we the reader, must simply accept what is happening and accompany Eden and Jennie on their emotional journey.

Portrait of Jennie has become one of this author’s best known works due to the 1948 film starring Joseph Cotton and Jennifer Jones. Another of his books, The Bishop’s Wife, was also made into a successful film and deals with many of the same themes.

A good short story.½

I read this log ago, and all I can recall is that it is supposed to be funny but I found it depressing. Sir Henry is just an average guy kind of knight fighting dragons and wizards and rescuing ladies,but somehow he gets stuck wiyh two ladies.

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Well, to a science-fiction reader, this is totally unsatisfying. I have no idea what was behind the time-travel or between the characters. Maybe somebody who reads *L*iterature, with the allusions, symbols, etc., would get more out of it. Or maybe somebody with an artist's soul would empathize more with Adams.

Poor Miss Spinney, though. She and the other secondary characters - Gus, Arne, Jekes, Moore, Mathews... - were much more interesting than the main ones, imo.

The ending was a less-subtle literary metaphor, with the storm, and that was good.

And there were some interesting ideas & language, for example about the business and the spirit of Art. For example, Adams' friend Arne does bold abstracts in vivid colors, and his persona is similarly exuberant. His mind was a cave of winds, color, he was like a Viking gone berserk in a rainbow.""

I decided to read this novella because I remembered watching (and enjoying) the 1948 film starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones which was based on the story.

So which is better, the novella or the film? The novella, of course! I liked Nathan's writing so much that I'm going to make a point of looking up his other works. In a short period of time, Robert Nathan delineated some memorable characters. Besides Eben himself, I particularly enjoyed the gallery owner Henry Matthews and his assistant Miss Spinney.

Portrait of Jennie comes to life when Eben talks about art, and the scenes describing a hurricane are so vivid that I felt as though I were there. There is a paranormal aspect to the story because Jennie is actually a spirit, but those scenes are so fleeting that I scarcely noticed them. For me, it was all about Eben, and Eben makes it a very good story indeed.

Alternated between being annoyed by the somewhat (to us in our time) cloyingly romantic elegiac tone of it, and being impressed with the writing which is very good, occasionally excellent, but has a compelling quality to it also, a flow, you might say. I can see why, in his time, Nathan was a very popular author, very successful. It's dated though and the plot is unthinkable now. Our protag. is a painter, struggling, of course. He meets a very young girl on a winter's day and they make friends (unthinkable, as I said). During an unspecified time which I assume is not even a whole year for Adam, they meet about five or six times, during which he sketches or paints her. The "catch" is that every time he sees her she is significantly older. By spring she is a young woman. Most of the story takes place in NY, the final part in Truro. (As someone who lived on the Cape and loves it dearly, I can only say he describes it so well it is almost painful to read.) There are sexist/dated irritations, amazing how unacceptable it is now for anyone to refer to "artists" as "he". You just can't do that anymore. Nor can you make this kind of fatuous generalization: There ought to be something timeless about a woman. Not about a man--we've always been present-minded. The person speaking then goes on and on about how women in portraits seem more 'alive' than portraits of men, which is utter nonsense! On the weather on the Cape: Sometimes in late summer or in early fall there is a day lovelier than all the others, a day of such pure weather that the heart is entranced, lost in a sort of dream, caught in an enchantment between time and change.. Apparently the old Cape Codders call that kind of weather a "weather-breeder" a wonderful expression that makes perfect sense! That might be a characteristic of New England, in fact. There are, at the end of summer, a handful of days like that which make it hard to believe that it could ever be other than the way it is, except you know that winter is not far off and will come. The time travel piece of it is more a suggestion and a window into musing about the ironclad fact that only the present exists, past and future, both unreachable and basically unknowable therefore. Kind of a long review, but it is interesting to read a book like this, from another time, which is likely why I picked it up, wherever and whenever I did! ***1/2½

Mia by Robert Nathan; (4*)

As autumn approaches winter, Thomas Baggot, a Cape Cod resident sets out to write his autobiography. The moderately successful author is in an introspective mood. He feels his life and the time for personal relationships have all passed for him. By chance he meets Emmeline, a neighbor lady who lives just over the little hill from him. She is an introvert spinster with not much self confidence who also seems regretful about her past But Thomas sees something within her, a kindred spirit.
As the two begin to spend time together, Thomas also meets a young, peculiar girl, Mia, who possesses an eerie quality about her. Unlike most girls her age, full of life and excited about the adventures to come she, much like Emmeline, is quite melancholy and regretful. Everything ties together when Thomas is invited to Emmeline’s house for dinner and comes across an old school album. As he skims through the book he thinks he’s seen a ghost when he discovers a photograph of a young girl identified as Emmeline and yet baring a remarkable resemblance to Mia. In the end, Thomas discovers that Mia is Emmeline’s 'younger sel'” and is there to warn him of things yet to come in his life.
In his trademark style, Robert Nathan conjures up a story of the mysterious essence of youth, of years past, and of time held in its flight by the sudden astonishment of love.
Robert Nathan never fails to take me out of myself and I love him and his writing for giving me that gift.

Like a Joseph C. Lincoln but not quite as memorable.

Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan

Reading anything by Robert Nathan is like reading poetry. His words are so beautifully scripted on the page. It is unfortunate that his work goes so unappreciated in our time and that so many of his works are no longer in print.

This lovely short novella was written in 1939 and is an odd & haunting story. I found it to be beautiful & moving. It is about a young struggling & starving artist, Eben, who meets a mysterious little girl, Jennie, playing alone in the park on a misty, foggy late afternoon. They befriend one another and when they part she asks him to wait for her telling him that she will hurry. As they walk away from each other Eben turns for a last glimpse at this remarkable child, he finds that she has vanished in the mist.
Over the years Jennie returns to Eben and always it seems to him that she has grown so & each time she seems much older than when he last saw her. Jennie seems rather disconnected from time and tells him of living in a place that Eben knows is no longer there. She is so eager to finish growing up so that she can be with Eben always. He is fascinated and perhaps obsessed with her.
Eben sketches her over these years and these works are practically the only paintings/sketches that he can sell. They allow him to continue & to improve his painting.
Jennie has become Eben's muse. One time when she comes to him he begins painting her. This Portrait of Jennie takes a very long time to complete as her visits are sparse & short. I was enthralled by each appearance of Jennie and so eager for the next meeting between Eben and Jennie, the mysterious girl/woman.
The author has created wonderful minor characters in the gentleman & lady who own the gallery where he sells & attempts to sell his work. Also the character of Gus, the taxi driver, the owner of the cafe, & Eben's painter friend are marvelous characters.

When I reached the end of the book I wanted to take it up and read it again. It is a book in my collection that I am certain I will be reading again and again as time passes. This is truly a timeless classic, a lovely story.

This Christmas novella is more famous for the film adaptation starring David Niven as the bishop struggling to raise funds to repair his cathedral and Cary Grant as the angel who comes down to earth to support him. While that film is heart-warming and humorous, this book is both rather more earnest and more passionate, with theological discussions between Bishop Henry and the Angel Michael (who is appointed his archdeacon) and between the Bishop and his wife Julia, who feels trapped in a passionless marriage and is tempted into adultery with Michael. I was sorry to see some scenes from the film were not here, such as the ice-skating and the bit where Henry gets stuck in the millionairess's chair and the Angel softens her miserly heart by playing a harp tune that reminds her of a youthful romance. So a bit disappointing a read. 3/5

Enjoyed this tongue in cheek look at the US from the perspective of Kenyan archeologists excavating a lost civilization in the very far distant future. This would be a useful social studies book - a view from outside. Preconceptions, etc.½

After more than 40 years, this remains a delightful parody. Kenyan archaeologists try to make sense of artifacts left by a unknown people (the "We'ans," inhabitants of "Us") in sites such as M'lwawki, Bosstin, Cha'ago, and n.Yok.

A delicate and subtle story that seems not quite real. First found in high school, and loved ever since. The story of an artist and his muse - a little girl he meets at twilight, who is more than she seems.

Great fun!