American author Henry James often grappled with weighty topics in his work, and the story ""The Madonna of the Future"" -- longer than a typical short story, but shorter than a novella -- is no exception. Framed as an anecdote related among a group...
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American author Henry James often grappled with weighty topics in his work, and the story ""The Madonna of the Future"" -- longer than a typical short story, but shorter than a novella -- is no exception. Framed as an anecdote related among a group of men engaged in post-dinner chitchat, the story deals with an artist whose outsize ambitions and perfectionism have frozen him in a kind of creative paralysis. It's a profoundly thought-provoking tale that prompts important questions about
