Daisy Miller

By: Henry James

Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins

Daisy Miller is a young American girl travelling Europe with her mother and younger brother. While in Vevey, Switzerland, she becomes acquainted with Frederick Winterbourne, an idle expatriate, of well-to-do Americans. Winterbourne, who observes and critiques young Daisy through their brief acquaintanceship, is infatuated with her irreverent behavior. Daisy flaunts society's rules and uncompromising standards; she is charming, spontaneous, and unpretentious, and her audacity shocks the Europeans, who consider her an uncultivated flirt. The sophisticated Winterbourne remains smitten with Daisy, but his classical values stand in his way.

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Odd story

I’m not a great fan of Henry James, and this odd story didn’t do much to change my mind. Daisy Miller is a charming young flirt who seems oblivious to the disapproval her “reckless” behavior evokes in others. To Daisy, the worst insult you can offer is that someone is “stiff.” She is definitely not stiff.

The impression she creates depends a lot on how old you think she is. James never says. Late teens, probably; but even at that age the interest taken in her by the 27-year-old Winterbourne is creepy. She thinks nothing of going off to visit a castle with Winterbourne and without a chaperone; or of visiting the Colosseum in Rome at midnight with an Italian gentleman - and without a chaperone. James is a closet prude, and so naturally she comes to a bad end.

Penelope Rawlins does a convincing American accent. But her voice for Daisy makes her sound 12 or 13, which makes the interest other men take in her even creepier. I don’t think that was the intended effect.

The story is, mercifully, a short one. I give it four stars mainly because of the elegance of James’s prose.

Unimpressive narrating

The narrator was awful. The narration ruined the experience for me. I tried to exchange the performance for another narrator, but the statute of limitations had expired.