Critical Evaluation
Many critics, such as Edward Wagenknecht and Clifton Fadiman, have praised the story as a parable about a necessary retreat from the overwhelming detail of an overstuffed life. Others, such as Edel and Pelham Edgar, have found James' great good place too routine or lazy or simply uninteresting.
James himself turned coy about the story and its origins, refusing in his New York Edition preface to discuss it much at all. He spends exactly 58 words on the tale, and says little more than that it "embodies a calculated effect." He does recommend that the reader "plunge into it," and that may be the best advice anybody can offer about this intriguing fantasy.
Read more about this topic: The Great Good Place (Henry James)
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or evaluation:
“It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors and competitions of the market and the caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)