Colm Toibin on plot in his new novel and Henry James

I'm reading The Master. In an NPR interview, Toibin said:

"James's stories are really much better [than Toibin's Master]. They're much better organized in terms of plot and development. I had to stick to the facts, you know, and the facts of an ordinary life don't give you the great shape of one of those cathedrals of stories that James made for something like The Golden Bowl or The Wings of the Dove."