The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
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Read in May, 2008
The Age of Innocence was not on my reading list until Emily (my wife) recommended it after reading it for her book club. I didn't know what to expect and was a little apprehensive, but ended up really enjoying it.
Never have I read a book in which every word was relevant, forcing me into the habit of reading very carefully. I find most books lacking explanation in vital places and overflowing with unnecessary explanation in other...more
Never have I read a book in which every word was relevant, forcing me into the habit of reading very carefully. I find most books lacking explanation in vital places and overflowing with unnecessary explanation in other...more
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recommends it for:
19th century literature fans, sophisticated readers
Beautiful and sad, this is the story of an affair of the heart set in 19th century New York City.
Newland Archer lives the life expected of him--he is rich, tidy, has a leisurely, unnecessary job, and is about to marry the pure, girlish May Welland. Everything is expected, he knows all the correct and ever so important rules of good taste that rule his little world. He believes himself to be perfectly happy. Then, his fiancee's unique cousin, the Countess Olenska, returns to New York after...more
Newland Archer lives the life expected of him--he is rich, tidy, has a leisurely, unnecessary job, and is about to marry the pure, girlish May Welland. Everything is expected, he knows all the correct and ever so important rules of good taste that rule his little world. He believes himself to be perfectly happy. Then, his fiancee's unique cousin, the Countess Olenska, returns to New York after...more
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A tale about the social constraints of high society in late 19th century New York. I came into this looking for an interesting and light read to pass the time, but delightedly concluded that it was so much more. As someone who is fascinated by this era in American history, I enjoyed both the historical context and the vividly engaging plot. To sum up this plot, it is about a conforming (or so he thinks) high society young man, Newland Archer, and his tension between the traditionally acceptable ...more
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Read in September, 2007
it's that old platonic ideal again. courtly love. the way to preserve romantic love is to never have it... "each time, you happen to me all over again." who doesn't want that?? people who have that! for newland, it is never enough. it is torture to be with her and moreso without her. basically, this book is an illustration of the daily BDSM that is romantic love vs. commitment within the context of a "moral" community. and what other context exists?
i never r...more
i never r...more
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Read in August, 2006
This is a gorgeous book with some great characters and a special ambience that I haven't experienced in any other novel. Edith Wharton takes the reader deep inside the strange little world of upper-class late 19th century New York, detailing the manners, the attitudes, the rules, the institutionalized hypocrisy, the spectacular beauty and superficiality, and most of all, the lies that everyone must tell themselves and those around them to survive in a tightly regimented culture that has just ba...more
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Read in June, 2008
At first this novel overwhelmed me with its descriptions of New York society and its oppressive social rules, and the narration felt too on the nose (I get it, I get it: Archer is feeling closed in by these cultural rituals, and he's not passionately in love with his fiancee. I get it!). But this tedium waned once the story got rolling, or it became more nuanced and thus entertaining, and Edith Wharton's prose is enviable the whole way through. Her descriptions of ballrooms and what people are w...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Alison by:
Meghan, Ginnierecommends it for: bohemians, aristocrats, the nouveau rich, paupers
"...His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever going to happen."
The Age that Wharton so painstakingly details in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel (she was the first female recipient) is far from innocent. Rather, it is a world where innocence is feined...where old, rich, tight-knit families make and enforce the rules and rigid standards are in place regarding all a...more
The Age that Wharton so painstakingly details in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel (she was the first female recipient) is far from innocent. Rather, it is a world where innocence is feined...where old, rich, tight-knit families make and enforce the rules and rigid standards are in place regarding all a...more
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5 comments
Having read this novel after Ethan Frome, it was difficult not to compare. It seemed that with both works Wharton was illustrating what seemed to her to be the inherent struggle caused by the presence of both duty and passion in a man's heart. While Ethan and Newland where very different men it seemed as they were walking down the same road. You would think it would give you a sense of deja vu or redundancy, but the duty Newland is bound to is not a product of his character but rather of his soc...more
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Read in August, 2007
When I first saw the film version of this story, I remember being very frustrated with the two protagonists, Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer, as well as with their friends and family. How could they ignore the individual's need for fulfillment and authenticity?
Not until I read the book, did I fully understand the "whats, whys, and hows" of the characters and their social milieu. How were people able to live such repressed, narrow, and seemingly unfulfilling lives? Why did they w...more
Not until I read the book, did I fully understand the "whats, whys, and hows" of the characters and their social milieu. How were people able to live such repressed, narrow, and seemingly unfulfilling lives? Why did they w...more
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I didn't know much about Wharton before reading this book, except that the comments I'd heard about her writing were rather dichotomous: either she was "wonderful and perceptive" or "dull and long-winded." So I expected a good plot with dense prose. Imagine my surprise at not being able to put this book down. I really enjoyed both the plot and Wharton's prose.
The main character, Newland Archer, is from a wealthy, long-established New York family. He is engaged to May,...more
The main character, Newland Archer, is from a wealthy, long-established New York family. He is engaged to May,...more
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4 comments
Brutal and beautiful...Did Wharton only write tragedies? It's a sad state of affairs when Ethan Frome is your most cheerful work.
Difficult to get into at first (Newland Archer starts as such a wooden character) but well worth the effort. In addition to one of most evocative descriptions of Paris, the final chapter presents a wise, wistful reviews of competing claims of passion and principle.
To give you an idea:
"He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memor...more
Difficult to get into at first (Newland Archer starts as such a wooden character) but well worth the effort. In addition to one of most evocative descriptions of Paris, the final chapter presents a wise, wistful reviews of competing claims of passion and principle.
To give you an idea:
"He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memor...more
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Read in January, 2008
Read this in high school but was due for a re-read...
Wharton is a genius - you think you're going to get a love story but you get a social satire instead. The basic plot, set in Old New York of the 1870s, is interestingly told from a man's point of view: Newland Archer, engaged then married to the girl he is "supposed to" want, the innocent and unimaginative May Welland. Yet he finds himself drawn to her cousin, the fascinating Ellen Olenska, a social pariah after separating from her...more
Wharton is a genius - you think you're going to get a love story but you get a social satire instead. The basic plot, set in Old New York of the 1870s, is interestingly told from a man's point of view: Newland Archer, engaged then married to the girl he is "supposed to" want, the innocent and unimaginative May Welland. Yet he finds himself drawn to her cousin, the fascinating Ellen Olenska, a social pariah after separating from her...more
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I'm a sucker for Wharton's books. To me, she is Jane Austen's antithesis. She shows the ugly and sad side to society living. Long-suffering characters are not redeemed and reunited in her world. If you haven't read a Wharton novel: start here. It's the perfect introduction to the teeming world of late 19th century NY society. Your name matters. The names of your closest friends and associates matters. Where you spend your summers matters. Where you lodge when you are in the city matters. ...more
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Read in March, 2008
After reading 'Ethan Frome' I was curious as to what other works Edith Wharton had written because that story was so vivid and the anguish so real that I was sure whatever else was written by her had to be just as good. Luckily, I was right.
'The Age of Innocence' is her masterpiece. The fluidity and efficiency of the characters to do what is right rather than what is good made the story similar to others I've read yet at the same time startingly different. New York City is a big character in t...more
'The Age of Innocence' is her masterpiece. The fluidity and efficiency of the characters to do what is right rather than what is good made the story similar to others I've read yet at the same time startingly different. New York City is a big character in t...more
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Read in August, 2007
Maybe this book got five stars from me because it has sentimental value - my mother enjoyed the movie enough to buy the tape, which was an extravagance for her, and I grew up watching it over and over again and really enjoying it. Amazingly, I never read the book until quite recently. I had only ever read Ethan Frome by Wharton before, which is certainly a good book, but also sort of an after-school special. (KIDS: DON'T ADULTERATE AND TOBAGGON.) I passionately loved Age, though. W...more
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Wow, just finished this book this morning and it was fantastic. I had read The House of Mirth several years ago and loved it, but had never read anything else of Wharton's. The Age of Innocence was different in a lot of ways, but most importantly because it was written after World War I. By this time, she had left America -- disenchanted with it as were many of her contemporaries and friends, including Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald -- and was looking back at Old New York, the New York t...more
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Read in July, 2008
Edith Wharton's writing is so beautiful. So many times I found myself re-reading lines just to wonder to myself how someone can put words together like she does.
I loved this book because of the emotional quandaries I found MYSELF in when trying to decide how to react to the characters. Wharton does a remarkable job of eliciting sympathy from the reader for all three of the main characters, and since they can't all have what they want, therein lies the emotional conflict for the reader. ...more
I loved this book because of the emotional quandaries I found MYSELF in when trying to decide how to react to the characters. Wharton does a remarkable job of eliciting sympathy from the reader for all three of the main characters, and since they can't all have what they want, therein lies the emotional conflict for the reader. ...more
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Read in June, 2008
I always enjoy stories about a restless character who longs to act out against convention. Though restless characters in other books have tried to act, probably, more nobly than Newland Archer did in this book. I’m sure the conventions of ninteenth century New York society weighed particularly heavy on its members. I just happened to read this book after reading a manners and decorum guide from the same era and place, and it was interesting to watch the characters obey the rules I’d just rea...more
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Read in November, 2007
I like Wharton's style of writing overall but at times she gets too bogged down with tiny period details. She did that in House of Mirth at times and also in this one. There is similar action in this book (mostly just parties and dinners of the upper class who never go to work) and the reader many times gains information through dinner party conversations. Wharton had much to say about the hidden corruption of her society and had to write several books to get all of that out. As opposed to t...more
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This elegant novel tells the tale of Newland Archer, a well-bred, well-heeled member of 1870's New York society. At the book's opening, he has just become engaged to May Welland, who he considers an ideal match for a man of his station. Unfortunately, Archer's idealized plans for the future are quickly interrupted by the arrival of May's cousin, the disgraced but charming Countess Olenska.
At first, Archer finds the Countess' willingness to disrupt the ridged conventions upon which his lif...more
At first, Archer finds the Countess' willingness to disrupt the ridged conventions upon which his lif...more
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