How we know what Maisie knows

At the very end of Henry James's novel Maisie is very clear about what it is she knows.  Unlike the rest of the novel, where one is quite unsure as to how much she might understand, the final words of our protagonist leave us with no doubt; 'Oh I know!' (275).  In a novel about education, the fact that Maisie and the reader reach this point of undisputed knowledge is important.  Her previous state of unknowing - and the uncertainty the reader has as to what exactly the little girl comprehends - is elusive, both within the novel and stemming from it.  That is, what she knows is unclear to both the audience and when contained in the context of the narrative.


James creates this uncertainty possible at the level of language, specifically the words Maisie chooses to use herself.  As she reads the environment around her, her responses are ambiguous.  She uses language which should be foreign to a little girl as she comments on adult circumstance with disturbing loquaciousness.  Take the scene in Chapter 10 where Maisie tells Sir Claude that she might bring he and her mother together.  Maisie is merely repeating what Sir Claude and Mrs Beale said previously in her presence, but exactly what Maisie means by this repetition is disturbingly unclear.  Does she mean that she might bring Sir Claude and her mother together romantically - and also sexually - as she has he and Mrs Beale?  Is she actually aware of what it is says and what that then means?  Such a mature awareness would be perverse for a child of that age, and certainly a perversion is persistent throughout the book.  Not only is she physically over-touched, but when the adults insist in treating her like a grown up she responds with seemingly inappropriate language:


                   Well you have it too, "that sort of thing"- you've got the fatal gift:
                   you both have really!' (107)


In a similar way the audience can never clearly grasp if Maisie understands all the different men with her mother are Mrs Farange's lovers.  She makes comments about them and realises that there are a confusing number of them, but their precise role she is never clear about.  What James has done is throw her in an overtly sexual world in which she is too young to belong and then deny his audience privy to her assessment of the situation.  We wonder if Maisie knows what is going on, if she understands the things that are said because for if she does not she is threatened or worse, exploited if she does.


When Maisie defends her adulterous friends to Mrs Wix in Chapter 24 it is  with the language of economy; one cannot help but think she mimics the adults in her life.  'We're just taking it as we find it' and 'We're just seeing what we can afford' are both mature claims (198).  Such responses are so benign that they can be used in almost any situation and easily echoed by a child, yet more disturbing than her echo is the possibility that she actually understands the implication of her words.  Maisie is either a little girl using the words to falsely purchase admittance into a world where she does not yet belong or she has been irresponsibly permitted entry by the adults who serve as its gatekeepers.  We wonder at what Maisie means, at what she knows and if she plans to acts as she talks.  Maisie is threatened by language, specifically her own, and you very much want to save her though you can't find her in the plethora of meanings.


Now to look at this sense that language is the exploiter of Maisie and the way it makes you fear for her physical well being.  Pierre Bayard would have us skimming the novel, or perhaps looking it up on Wikipedia.  Indeed, you can learn the crude plot this way and perhaps locate it place along side and near other novels of similar content and impact.  In some cases this is the perfect way to 'read' a book; once a lecturer told me that Woody Allen's film Match Point was a retelling of The Golden Bowl and Crime and Punishment and indeed he was right.  Having read neither but wanting to find his assessment true I searched the internet for the information I required about the books, though I have now read the Dostoevsky.  Where Bayard's technique is rendered most inadequate is with something like What Maisie Knew which resists understanding even the reading of it.  If you don't read the book you can't understand how Maisie's knowledge, both lack and excess, threatens her.   Of course someone could explain to to you, but that would never really amount to the same affect of the reading; the uneasiness which follows you throughout the novel, a sense which you cannot quite put your finger on that makes you want to pull Maisie from the pages and give her to someone who will actually treat her like a child.  Bayard's theory has its place, but unlike the librarian from The Man Without Qualities it probably should not be the only way to 'read' a book.    


James creates wonder and fear in the novel through ambiguous language.  We wonder if the language is understood as it is spoken and when it is heard.  The title echoes through the narrative as we struggle with, grasp at, misconstrue and marvel at Maisie and her knowledge.