The Reef by Edith Wharton (Everyman's Library, Knopf) ...

The Reef  by Edith Wharton (Everyman's Library, Knopf)

 

I enjoyed reading this (perhaps) minor novel of Wharton's, first published in 1912.  It's a novel of compact and limited scope, focussing on four characters who become connected in a complex menage a quartre.

George Darrow, an American diplomat stationed in England, is reunited with Anna Leath.  They loved each other in their youth, but Anna married a boring half-French, half-American man who conveniently died before boring her to death with his collection of snuff boxes.  Anna returns to France where she lives with her daughter and mother-in-law, an imperious American who married a French nobleman.  Darrow journeys to France to visit Anna but she abruptly and inexplicably cancels their rendezvous, and he takes up with Sophie Viner, a charismatic and charming young woman he meets on the ferry who is fleeing to Paris to pursue a life on the stage after losing her job as a private secretary and companion to an odious English woman.  Sophie and George spend a week together in Paris, and charm each other.  George's interest is mostly avuncular, but they do end up sleeping together, before parting for what they believe will be for good.

But through a twist of fate (or narrative contrivance), Sophie gets hired as Anna's daughter's governess and becomes engaged to Anna's step-son, Owen.  When George arrives at Anna's chateau to ask her to marry him, he encounters Sophie and a crisis ensues.  George and Anna weather the storm, but Sophie and Owen do not.

Like Ethan Frome, this seemed more like a chamber piece -- the cast is few and the scope is small.  But within these confines the book succeeds as an interesting and engaging novel that adroitly examines the lingering effects of romance past -- effects that linger more indelibly (and damagingly) for women than for men.