Book shines light on close siblings

I always feel a bit inadequate when I think about the James brothers.

I studied English and philosophy back in college, lo these many years ago, and Henry is an incalculably important figure in the first arena and William is just as essential in the other. But over the years I have paid scant attention to the writings of either.

Nevertheless, I was pleased to pick up J.C. Hallman's “Wm & H'ry: Literature, Love, and the Letters between William & Henry James” (University of Iowa Press, 142 pages, $21), as I was hopeful that the book would serve as a solid primer and perhaps encourage me to delve more deeply into the James' body of work.

A case could be made that the book succeeds on both those levels. Its brevity and Hallman's often wry approach make the book an accessible entry point, and it reminds us at every turn of the brothers' prodigious impact on literature and philosophy.

On the other hand, I often felt that by not bringing a thorough knowledge of, say, “The Turn of the Screw” or “The Varieties of Religious Experience” to the exercise, I was ill-prepared to harvest the riches of Hallman's study.

Regardless of what the reader brings to the book, Hallman has concentrated an expansive correspondence into some key themes that shed light on the brothers' individual work and worldviews as well as the ways in which they influenced one another. He often finds significance in small details that others might not notice or find significant:

“Of the many attempts that have been made to distill the brothers' essential differences, none works quite so simply or succinctly as the snipping away of ‘gig' from ‘whirligig.'…Wm clearly preferred the former … In preferring the latter, H'ry proposed a different method for a different purpose.”

Perhaps that level of close reading isn't terribly revealing to those who have yet to make Henry and Williams' acquaintance. Even so, “Wm & H'ry” provides a glimpse into the connection between two unusually influential siblings.