Ethan Frome in Never too Late to Read Classics

Aug 07, 2019 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: early-20th-century, 2019, 1001-books, novella, american, divine-comedy-booklovers

I knew of Ethan Frome as an apparently dreary book used to inflict tedium on American high schoolers. It seemed somehow separate from "Edith Wharton", who signified novels about rich young American women in Edwardian dresses, which I wasn't really interested in reading. (This is one of the points of history in which my general interest is lowest anyway, and adding that to Americans, and the typical 'marriage plot', well.) But if I'm finally to make inroads towards finishing a reading project tha ...more

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Nov 06, 2017 Xan Shadowflutter rated it liked it

First time reading this was in high school, and I remember thinking how much I liked it. I remembered incorrectly. Now, after a recent reread, I realize I misremembered much and now I like it a lot less.

A cherished memory obliterated.

This is always the danger of a reread: memories fade, merge with other memories, and your likes and dislikes change over the years. Then WHAM!, the reread is less delicious than you anticipated. So, stop rereading you say? Well, no, because other rereads turn out b ...more

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Sep 30, 2017 Sarah rated it really liked it

I read this in highschool and hated it. I just re-read it because another novel I read referred to it. I totally enjoyed it this time - though enjoying another's misery is probably not an apt description. One thing I never thought of before is how in her other books, the female leads are always angling for that financially proper marriage (think Henry James too), and these gals often pay dearly for marrying the "wrong" guy. This is the about the only novel from that era I can thin kof where the ...more

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Jan 22, 2014 Cleo rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, american-literature, 2015-back-to-the-classics, 2015-52-books-in-52-weeks

3 ½ stars

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Jan 22, 2017 Jamie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Thoroughly depressing yet a nice read. I read the majority of it in one Sunday evening. Poor Ethan. The writing gives you a passionate distaste for one of the characters and I always appreciate when a novel makes you feel.

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