Touch Him, Taste Him

The Golden Bowl has a reputation as the novel of a sexless marriage: a husband acquired like a piece of the collection, a wife somewhere between a nun and a doll. Garth Greenwell has never believed it, and in these chapters he finds his proof, a single sentence he calls James at his most passionate, five verbs long. First, though, a quieter astonishment: with Charlotte packing for America, Maggie imagines one last service, carrying Charlotte's message to the Prince herself, and then sees why the kindest thing left is to refuse. Greenwell reads the refusal, the sentence, and the terror that follows Maggie into her own happy ending.