A fascinating tale
The 62-page story is about a very smart and articulate boy Morgan who is eleven-years-old at the start of the tale and 15 at its end, his parents, especially his mother, who lie and cheat, and the penniless young tutor Pemberton, a graduate of Oxford University. Morgan has a heart condition and cannot attend school, so the live-in tutor is necessary. No information is given about the lessons Pemberton teaches other than that Morgan should act properly. At times, it appears that young Morgan is smarter than his college-graduate teacher.
Morgan’s parents feign to be aristocrats. Yet, although Morgan’s mother repeatedly promises to pay Pemberton, she gives him only a nominal amount of money on only a couple of occasions, and even attempts once to borrow money from the penniless tutor, which makes him laugh. The family moves from country to country, from one kind of dwelling to another, quite frequently. Morgan’s father and mother do not seem to have jobs.
Morgan becomes very attached to Pemberton and he to Morgan. Morgan wants to escape from the deceitfulness of his family with Pemberton, but the two cannot do so without any money.
The famed author Jorge Luis Borges wrote “Despite the scruples and delicate complexities of James, his work suffers from a major defect: the absence of life.” This is true about this tale. We are only given some information about each character, with any depth. We know that Pemberton, for example, is attached to Morgan and the reverse, a key element in the tale, but do not know why.
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