Mess

On Monday I  wrote a review of a biography of Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee. I posted it on Goodreads and then tried to post it on this website via a link to Goodreads . I also tried to post it on Instagram using the same link. Goodreads will post to Facebook, but there is the same problem with the link. Although I spent a lot of time, none of it worked. It was just a big mess. The experiment of integrating Goodreads and this blog failed. Since I promised all of you a review, I am going to post it below. Going forward, I am going to post short reviews of books on Goodreads and leave it at that.

Book Review: Hermoine Lee, Edith Wharton

Hermoine Lee’s biography of Edith Wharton is a mixed bag. Well-written, the book exceeds 1236 eBook pages, making it very comprehensive. Apparently, Wharton tried to control what people would write about her after her death, so she requested letters back from people and then burned both her letters and theirs. This is true for Morton Fullerton, a man she had an affair with while she was still married.

The absence of these letters created a problem for Lee. She resolved this dilemma by telling Wharton’s story through her published books and stories and her unpublished manuscripts. This approach made the book more of a literary study than a truly developed account of Wharton’s life. Since I haven’t read every single thing Wharton wrote, I sometimes found this disconcerting. I rarely wanted to know the full plot of the book or short story that Lee was discussing. There were too many spoilers.

Many years ago, I read a biography of Wharton by R.W. B. Lewis, which I enjoyed. I’m giving a paper about a few of Wharton’s short stories in June at the Edith Wharton summit so I wanted to refresh my memory about her life. Reading Hermione Lee’s biography met that goal and also made me want to read more of Edith Wharton’s work.