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The Age of InnocenceEdith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is set in upper class New York society in the 1870's. Newland Archer is engaged to May Welland and when May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska arrives to escape from an unhappy marriage in Europe, Archer agrees to help with to introduce her to the ways of New York society. But he soon sees her as much more than May's cousin. Now for other men the consequences would be simple, a respectable marriage to May and a clandestine affair with Ellen. Archer doesn't want that - but what exactly does he want? The book illustrates well the struggles to come to terms with life in a claustrophobic society. Archer often considers starting a new life with Ellen, but in the end cannot bring himself to go through with it. Wharton does have a disconcerting tendency to skip a few months, and it is during these months that the reader might expect a significant part of the plot to occur - but it doesn't. You might think that you would be screaming at Archer to make up his mind, but I didn't find that - part of Wharton's skill is in creating a scenario where his behaviour seems rational. In the end one sees that it isn't a sign of indecisiveness, rather it represents the only way that he can be true to himself. You can read The Age of Innocence at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/541
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Mass Market Paperback
352 pages
ISBN: 1593080743
Salesrank: 47742
Weight:0.45 lbs | | Published: 2004 Barnes & Noble Classics | | Amazon price $4.95 | | Marketplace:New from $1.99:Used from $0.57 |
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Paperback
384 pages
ISBN: 0140622055
Salesrank: 25482
Weight:0.49 lbs | | Published: 2007 Penguin Classics | | Amazon price £2.00 | | Marketplace:New from £0.01:Used from £0.01 |
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Hardcover
368 pages
ISBN: 1857152026
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| Product Description
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Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.” This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it. Maureen Howard is a critic, teacher, and writer of fiction. Her seven novels include Bridgeport Bus, Natural History, and A Lover’s Almanac. Her memoir, Facts of Life, won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. She has taught at Yale and Columbia University. |
| a perfectly-written classic ***** |
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It is easy to see why The Age of Innocence has achieved the ranks of a classic -- the writing is perfect and probes the themes of love, loyalty, passion and tradition with timeless clarity. The story is set in upper-class Old New York, with its strict codes of conduct concerning even the most minute actions, ceaseless preoccupation with giving and attending dinner parties, and endless gossip about the doings of all the other members of its small, self-absorbed society. It is a world so far-removed from the 21st century that it is impossible to relate to, and seems ridiculous. Indeed, Wharton often seems to be poking subtle fun at this world in which she lived.
Against this backdrop she tells the story of a man and woman who, against all conventions, fall in love with each other and must make the choice between their desires and the rules of the society in which they live. Wharton probes and reveals their feelings, and those of the other main characters, with a deft and skillful touch.
The Age of Innocence has what I consider one of the best endings in literature. Wharton gives her book a conclusion that is truly bittersweet (quite a bit more bitter than sweet, actually). And because she does not explicitly explain her characters' motives, it leaves the reader wondering, with plenty of room for speculation as to why her characters behaved the way they did. It is hard to imagine a conclusion more masterful than that.
The narration of this audio version was very good. Although the narrator was a bit weak on some of the female voices (such as Mrs. Welland's lisp which I found a bit much), he did a particularly good job with Ellen Olenska's voice and overall it is an excellent performance. |
| Jane Austen with an edge **** |
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An unblinking examination of characters forced to choose between propriety and love, and a time when people still had to choose between the two. What I liked about the novel is that it makes you question both - is propriety worth the price you pay for it? Is love? What constitutes "happiness" - is it passion, or contentment? Can personal happiness ever be achieved if its cost is the happiness of others about whom you care?
Wharton does an excellent job of depicting ~1880s New York society, a construct so brittle that the mere expression of individuality, ambition or temperament threatens to shatter it. Then she creates two fairly empathetic characters, the "restless young man" Newland Archer and the simultaneously worldly/naive Ellen Olenska, sets them against the system and explores - with a brutal honesty that allows for no hope of literary intervention (fate, coincidence or anachronism) - the hypocrisy forced upon them ... and, to be fair, the hypocrisy they force upon themselves.
Had Jane Austen undertaken this tale, she might have told it with more humor but with less honesty. What both authors share, however, is an ability to satirize the often arbitrary, often absurd constraits of "propriety" while simultaneously acknowledging their force and enduring power.
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| Brilliant from start to finish! ***** |
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A proper New York gentleman; that is precisely what Newland Archer is. Accepting of the harsh social codes put forth by society, compliant with the rules set in stone by his forefathers. Newland is a mother's dream. A true abider of the law and civilization, in general. Of course, just because he agrees to do what is expected of him doesn't mean that he loathes it. That he would give anything to rebel against the strict constitutions that are virtually set in stone. But alas, he would never go against what is right; which lands him in an unhappy marriage with May Welland.
May Welland is easy on the eyes, with demure features and porcelain skin; she is also boring, shallow, unimaginative, and, quite frankly...perfect. But perfection is not what Newland is after. May is everything Newland abhors about his close-knit community. She is inoffensive and polite, behaving just so. In his mind, she is a puppet propped up in fancy clothing with not a thought of her own. But she is May; the person he is supposed to love. And he does, at least on the surface. That is, until Countess Ellen Olenska, May's scandalous cousin, resurfaces.
Countess Ellen Olenska is not your typical woman. Feeling restrained and incomplete in an unhappy marriage, she elects to leave her husband in the foreign Europe and file for divorce. It is unheard of for someone of Countess Ellen Olenska's stature to do something so disreputable, but she refuses to back down. It is that fiery disposition; that brazenness, which captivates Newland. She takes risks, and savors the freedom of a single woman. She is unconventional and out of the ordinary. Newland is entranced with every breath, every move, of Countess Ellen Olenska, and soon they are seeking one another's company. But in New York High Society, scandal is frowned upon; and true feelings must be swept under the rug, no matter what the cost.
I'm entranced with New York High Society. There, I said it. The wealth. The way of life. The thoughts. The rules. No one brings the era of Old New York; of the nineteenth century, post-Civil War New York; of the morals and social obligations held in such high regard, than Edith Wharton.
Wharton has the power to manipulate the reader. To bury them deep within the thoughts and dialogue of the characters. She possesses the willingness to dig deep into taboo subjects, and work with them in ways many others shied away from. It is that frothy passion that lights up her work, and makes the reader interested in the era in question. Which transports the reader back to those times. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE does this magically, locking the reader within the world of Countess Ellen Olenska, of May Welland, of Newland Archer; refusing to release them from its hold until the last page has been turned, and the story is complete. Brilliant from start to finish!
Erika Sorocco
Freelance Reviewer
Café Fashionista
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| No one does New York high society better than Wharton **** |
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"It was the old New York way of taking life "with effusion of blood"; the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes", except the behavior of those who gave rise to them."
I do like the way Wharton cuts to the chase and gets to the underbelly of the of 19C New York's hypocritical society. Set in New York's golden age, Wharton tells the story of Newland Archer, who has just announced his engagement to May Welland, although the arrival of May's cousin Countess Ellen Olenska on the heels of a disastrous marriage throws Newland for a loop. Newland and Ellen fight their attraction as he settles down to married life and proper society with May, until finally culminating in a very enigmatic ending to the love story.
Wharton, born Edith Newbald Jones, was born and raised in the high society that she writes about and my understanding is that the old phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" came from the rest of the upper crust trying to keep up with Wharton's family. As much as I enjoyed this, I didn't find it anywhere near as engaging and readable as The House of Mirth, although she is brilliant as always in displaying the foibles, weaknesses and flat out hypocrisy of New York society in the late 19C. This is a very subtle book with a story that unfolds slowly and one to savor slowly - if you're looking for a fast paced, page turning read look elsewhere. |
| An All Time Great ***** |
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This is a book into which I can dip at any moment. The characters are drawn so clearly that they do not disappear into stereotype but instead are constantly surprising the reader with nuances no matter the number of reads.
Newland Archer is the prototype of a man caught between the world of his head and the world of his heart. While he is drawn to Countess Olenska, he is too aware of the consequences of following that attraction. The true wonder of this book is the subtle characterization of May Welland, the innocent cast between the star-crossed lovers. Both rigid in her adherence to the rules of her class and blind to subterfuge around her, the revelation of her depths, her understanding and her compassion offer the reader a full picture of how love, in its many forms, shapes lives.
The writing is exemplary. Both properly archaic and achingly familiar, it draws in the reader, pulling back the curtains on a world so immersed in duty and tradtion and secrecy as to make the reader feel a part of the structure.
I read it periodically, enjoying the pacing, the language and the heartbreak a million times over. |
| Thought provoking ***** |
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Newland Archer is an exasperating protagonist. He is discontented with his lot in life and thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I have a feeling if he did jump the fence, the bare patches would have made themselves plain and he still would not have found 'happiness' as he defines it. He is a man who allows himself to be guided by 'conventions' but I do not see him exercising any morals. Wharton tells the story mostly from his point of view. You see the inside of his head but you only see the outside of everyone else. Wharton's skill is shown in her ability to allow the reader a sense of what the other characters are thinking without telling explicitly.
On the surface, May Welland seems simple and shallow and Countess Olenska mysterious with deep feelings. I find the two women to actually be quite similar in that they were guided in their behavior by how their actions would affect others who cared for them.
Hypocrisy abounds in the tale: Beaufort is 'bad' because of his numerous affairs and Newland wishes to keep the Countess from his clutches. Newland himself dallied with a married woman before May Welland and he wanted to run off with Olenska and abandon his wife. I see it as one of those things where if you're in for a penny you're in for a pound.
The subject matter of the novel was not a happy one for me but I did enjoy the novel because of the author's ability to set the scene with the same skill and attention to detail of a set designer of a major film production.
The Collector's library edition's small size and beautiful looks just seemed to go with the feel of the story.
I actually may read this one again. |
| Innocence versus imagination ***** |
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Few will seek out a novel set in the New York of the 1870s about wealthy and titled characters who flit from opera box to their brownstone mansions in broughams and landaus, but having read and enjoyed House of Mirth I tried this and wasn't disappointed. Within a few pages I was hooked. This was going to be neither sycophantic homage to a bygone age nor a humourless historical novel. Outside the Academy of Music, for example, the narrative voice is not too snobbish to note that it "was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it." Edith Wharton's talent with words is evidenced on every page and bundled up in even the slightest phrases: Mrs Lovell Mingott is described as "a large blonde lady in creaking satin". We get a feel for both the physical world these characters inhabit ("creaking" is an evocative and surprising adjective) and the more complex inflexibilities of the social conventions and "tribal discipline" behind this woman's stiff character.
Fine words, of course, do not always add up to a fine novel. We need to care about the characters, especially those remote from our own experience. Wharton's characters themselves often fail to care for each other, but this draws you in, and involves you in shifting allegiances of sympathy and judgement. These are neither sentimental nor saccharine portraits, and Wharton's attention to the larger canvas often results in surprising and satisfying connections. Early in their relationship, Newland Archer sees May Welland as an innocent young woman whose eyes have yet to be opened. His mood varies from one of "tender reverence for her abysmal purity" to one of foreboding: "He shivered a little, remembering some of the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for them. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to open hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness?" Even in his bicentenary year, few readers will get the reference to Darwin, which is where the notes at the back of this edition come in handy: apparently, these blind fish found in Kentucky's Mammoth cave were used to illustrate Darwin's theory of natural selection.
Such details and their sceptical texture are an important part of Newland Archer's intellectual and emotional landscape. He is restless, prone to radical thoughts - "Women ought to be as free as we are" - and he is reflective (conversation with one friend "always made Archer take the measure of his own life, and feel how little it contained"). He suggests to May that they might travel. "That would be lovely" is her reply. "His heart sank, for he saw that he was saying all the things that young men in the same situation were expected to say, and that she was making the answers that instinct and tradition taught her to make - even to the point of calling him original." Later, he wearies "of living in a perpetual tepid honeymoon, without the temperature of passion yet with all its exactions."
Archer sees artifice where others might see only loveliness. "Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile." He wonders whether "May's face was doomed to thicken into the same middle-aged image of invincible innocence... he did not want May to have that kind of innocence, the innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience!" No wonder he is drawn to the Countess Olenska...
In her excellent introduction to this edition, Cynthia Wolff describes Wharton looking back to her post-Civil War childhood in New York while writing this novel with her experience of World War I still fresh. Deeply affected and deeply impressed by the survival of France and the endurance of its people, Wharton concluded that they had preserved their sense of "larger meanings" and "understood life to be made up of... renunciation as well as satisfaction, of traditions as well as experiments, of dying as much as of living." In these times of climate change and financial profligacy, themes of renunciation and satisfaction are especially relevant. Indeed, there is much in the novel that resonates with our world: one character complains that "now we live in a constant rush"; another warns, "Think of the newspapers - their vileness!" There is a run on a bank that brings "social extinction" to the culprit's family: "Archer's New York tolerated hypocrisy in private relations; but in business matters it exacted a limpid and impeccable honesty."
In an interview, Wharton said that a tragedy with a happy ending "is exactly what the child wants before he goes to sleep... but as long as he needs it he remains a child, and the world he lives in is a nursery-world." She believed that personal happiness depended upon surrendering some personal gratification to the general good and on having a rewarding social role. Put simply, this sounds like a heretical inversion of the American Dream, a mandate for socialism. It takes a mature and intelligent novel to work through what she means, and to do justice to her resistance to those timeless and seductive desires for "absolute personal fulfillment" and "utter freedom". One irony is, you'll get a great deal of selfish pleasure from reading this - but like every classic novel it'll make you think more deeply about the wider world as well.
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| Last Generation? ***** |
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| The fabula of Age of Innocence is not really too intricate. Nor would it have avoided the cliche of an unhappy-marriage-in-high-society story had it not been for Wharthon's capability to capture in it the exact moment in the life of New York's cream when this kind of a relationship no longer had to be established but the main characters would not as yet have acquired the boldness to avoid it. The unique feature of Wharton's novel consists in the way she explores the generation gap between her protagonist's parents and grandparents in his ways of thinking in the first part, and the way she does the same in the protagonist's observations on his children in the second part. What lends the novel sublime quality is the assurance that the members of none of these generations had to necessarily "live their lives in lie" but rather in a different kind of truth that could be, and in the protagonist's case was, even more honorable than the many other "truths." |
| Love, Loneliness and the Strictures of Society. ***** |
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Imagine living in a world where life is governed by intricate rituals; a world "balanced so precariously that its harmony [can] be shattered by a whisper" (Wharton); a world ruled by self-declared experts on form, propriety and family history - read: scandal -; where everything is labeled and yet, people are not; where in order not to disturb society's smooth surface nothing is ever expressed or even thought of directly, and where communication occurs almost exclusively by way of symbols, which are unknown to the outsider and, like any secret code, by their very encryption guarantee his or her permanent exclusion.
Such, in faithful imitation of Victorian England, was the society of late 19th century upper class New York. Into this society returns, after having grown up and lived all her adult life in Europe, American-born Countess Ellen Olenska, after leaving a cruel and uncaring husband. She already causes scandal by the mere manner of her return; but not knowing the secret rituals of the society she has entered, she quickly brings herself further into disrepute by receiving an unmarried man, by being seen in the company of a man only tolerated by virtue of his financial success and his marriage to the daughter of one of this society's most respected families, by arriving late to a dinner in which she has expressly been included to rectify a prior general snub, by leaving a drawing room conversation to instead join a gentleman sitting by himself - and worst of all, by openly contemplating divorce, which will most certainly open up a whole Pandora's box of "oddities" and "unpleasantness:" the strongest terms ever used to express moral disapproval in this particular social context. Soon Ellen, who hasn't seen such façades even in her husband's household, finds herself isolated and, wondering whether noone is ever interested in the truth, complains bitterly that "[t]he real loneliness here is living among all these kind people who only ask you to pretend."
Ellen finds a kindred soul in attorney Newland Archer, her cousin May Welland's fiancé, who secretly toys with a more liberal stance, while outwardly endorsing the value system of the society he lives in. Newland and Ellen fall in love - although not before he has advised her, on his employer's and May and Ellen's family's mandate, not to pursue her plans of divorce. As a result, Ellen becomes unreachable to him, and he flees into accelerating his wedding plans with May, who before he met Ellen in his eyes stood for everything that was good and noble about their society, whereas now he begins to see her as a shell whose interior he is reluctant to explore for fear of finding merely a kind of serene emptiness there; a woman whose seemingly dull, passive innocence grinds down every bit of roughness he wants to maintain about himself and who, as he realizes even before marrying her, will likely bury him alive under his own future. Then his passion for Ellen is rekindled by a meeting a year and a half after his wedding, and an emotional conflict they could hardly bear when he was not yet married escalates even further. And only when it is too late for all three of them he finds out that his wife had far more insight (and almost ruthless cleverness) than he had ever credited her with.
Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize and the first work of fiction written by a woman to be awarded that distinction, "The Age of Innocence" is one of Edith Wharton's most enduringly popular novels; the crown jewel among her subtly satirical descriptions of New York upper class society. By far not as overtly condemning and cynical as the earlier "House of Mirth" (for which Wharton reportedly even saw this later work as a sort of apology), "The Age of Innocence" is a masterpiece of characterization and social study alike: an intricate canvas painted by a master storyteller who knew the society which she described inside out, and who, even though she had moved to France (where she would continue living for the rest of her life) almost a decade earlier, was able to delineate late 19th century New York society's every nuance in pitch-perfect detail, while at the same time - seemingly without any effort at all - also blending together all these minute details into an impeccably composed ensemble that will stay with the reader long after he has turned the last page. |
| Wharton Puts Jane Austen To Shame ***** |
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| Wharton's story about taboo love and social mores in New York high society puts Jane Austen's quaint, fluffy world to shame. It is written in a prose that is exquisitely styled - fitting the period of the story - but has a richness and cunning that fully and ardently conveys all the intrigue, passion, and emotion of the story. Wharton's descriptions are unparalleled; her depiction of New York high society is absolutely enrapturing - it is a world that will live on in your imagination. |
| Passion and the outsider ***** |
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It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.
That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.
Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.
After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?
There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.
Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."
And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.
In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.
The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.
"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty. |
| Totem and taboo in old New York. ***** |
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| The reading public must have been taken by shock when, in 1920, Wharton published this novel. Written off by most of the critics and audience of her time as having her best literary years far behind her, she produced what is arguably her most important work. Her story of New York City in the 1870s, where family name and propriety counted as much as accumulated wealth, resonated with readers who were just beginning to catch hints of the looming social revolution that would come later in the decade - and once again shatter time tested institutions. Wharton's looking back to the time of her youth (she was 57 when the book was published) is neither too sentimental nor too critical, but simply a fond remembrance of the time and place in which she lived and, like Madame Olenska, eventually escaped. However, it is not with Madame Olenska but with Newland Archer that Wharton is closest associated. Belonging to similar social castes, both the author and Newland are able to see the foibles in their social milieu but in no way are ready to discard it totally. Whereas, in the end, both are ready to follow their individual paths from Old New York they are fully aware of what is expected of them as members of this society, and act accordingly. This is the central theme of the novel: individual desire vs. collective propriety. In the hands of a lesser author, this conflict could have resulted in a quite heavy and didactic work - and as interesting as an evening at a needlepoint demonstration. By clothing her novel in the time tested mantle of a love story, she is given rein to employ her talents to the fullest. In short, she re-creates the New York City of the 1870s and peoples it with characters that seem to be historical, not just based on historical models. The characters of Madame Olenska, Newland, May Welland and, especially, Mrs. Manson Mingott are wonderfully drawn and never become stereotyped nor trivialized; in fact, they are so lifelike that the reader (as if knowing them for years) is able to anticipate their thought patterns and actions. And of course, there is the city itself - before the Holland Tunnel, Grand Central Station, subways and telephone, where 39th Street was considered the hinterland. Wharton treats the city with affection as well as with the critical eye of the archaeologist attempting to reconstruct some long past civilization. Especially fine is the final chapter in which Wharton (in less than twenty pages) summarizes the life of Newland from the time of his parting with Madame Olenska to his life in early twentieth century New York. The economy of her prose in this final chapter combined with her justaposition of sentimental reflection and historical fact are first rate. Particularly moving is the final scene in which the reader leaves Newland sitting on a bench outside of Madame Olenska's apartment in Paris unable (and unwilling) to abrogate both his loyalty to his now deceased wife, May, nor the unrequited love that he still has for Madame Olenska. |
| One of the best books I've read ***** |
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| I enjoyed every word of this book. It just captivated me. I'm glad Wharton chose the sentimental ending rather than going for the melodramatic. |
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