It's one thing to read Henry James' dizzying writing style in a piece of fiction—you work at it because you trust he's leading you somewhere. It's another thing when he's speaking as himself, reflecting on his own work, the sentence structures splintering into a winding, sprawling train consisting of his own lightly tethered thoughts. Don't get me wrong: he's brilliant. And unlike most accomplished writers, he's not coy. In fact, he's very generous about the process of creating and crafting fiction. But he's also an overthinker. And reading this book has been difficult for me because the result is akin to one person directly injecting their craziness into my brain. (Strangely, though, you leave the book with the impression "American literature's biggest snob" might actually have been, deep down, a really nice guy.) Two stars.