The Custom of the Country in Never too Late to Read Classics

Aug 09, 2015 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, literary-fiction

My new favorite writer is Edith Wharton. I have read four of her wonderful novels this year and I intend to read all of the others in time. She is one of the sharpest observers of mankind that I have ever come across. You could believe that she sat and studied the people around her and then drew them in flesh and blood (that often ran red) on the sheets of paper in front of her. They are real, they breathe, and they make me wish to cry with them, comfort them or slap them with a fervor that is g My new favorite writer is Edith Wharton. I have read four of her wonderful novels this year and I intend to read all of the others in time. She is one of the sharpest observers of mankind that I have ever come across. You could believe that she sat and studied the people around her and then drew them in flesh and blood (that often ran red) on the sheets of paper in front of her. They are real, they breathe, and they make me wish to cry with them, comfort them or slap them with a fervor that is generally reserved for non-fictional human beings.

Undine Spragg is one of the most complex characters ever drawn. Much of what she is can be easily understood by viewing her background and seeing her struggle to haul herself up from the acceptable but somewhat meager beginnings in Apex, NC to the elevated status of a New York society maven. She seems to have no scruples about how she elevates herself, however, and she can recognize none of the greater qualities in people. (view spoiler)

Watching Undine claw her way to the top is like watching an automobile accident in the making. You can scream at her to apply the brakes, but she has got too much momentum to ever stop the vehicle. To carry the analogy a step further, if she survives the accident, she will only think she is safer in a bigger, heavier car. She will not really learn to drive any better.

Her selfishness is unbelievable (and yet, sorry to say, I have seen women just like her in my own lifetime...want, want, want and never any satisfaction. (view spoiler)

While it is tempting to concentrate on Undine, since she is the character that moves all the action forward, one should not forget how beautifully Wharton draws all the other characters in this tale. Ralph Marvell is a stupendous character. He is an iconic picture of the old guard that is being squashed in favor of the nouveau riche. (I thought of Ashley Wilkes in GWTW, a man who has outlived the lifestyle he was intended for) All the qualities that make him exceptional are also the things that now hold him down in the society he inhabits. He has his name and little else and we can clearly see the Dogenets are a family falling from power. Peter Van Degen is a great example of someone who is from the old-school families but is learning to navigate perfectly in the new, less moral world of Wall Street investors, and Undine’s father is someone who seeks to become part of a world that does not improve his lot or make him happier. He was a big fish in a small pond in Apex, in New York he barely knows how to fit into the society he seeks. It is easy to see that if not of Undine, he would have been happily prospering in Apex. Every lesser character, from little Paul Marvell to Ralph’s cousin and sister, are drawn with precision and depth and seem real and essential to the understanding of this world.

I could not be more pleased to have added this wonderful book to my growing list of Wharton missives. She is a masterful, insightful, splendid writer; a professional in the art of character study; and an expert in the art of flowing, expressive prose. If you have not come to her yet, you are missing one of the great writers of the early twentieth century.
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Jan 31, 2021 Sarah rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed. Why do they make us read Ethan Frome in school? Its so dreadful, you avoid Wharton for the rest of your life. When I re-read Frome as an adult, I had much greater appreciation. Just as this novel - I would have so oversimplified it if I read it in my teens or 20's. I don't like Undine, but I have much more sympathy and understanding of her now. She's not evil, she doesn't even realize the damage she's caused - she certainly didn't intend it. She's just thoughtless. Vapid. If sh I really enjoyed. Why do they make us read Ethan Frome in school? Its so dreadful, you avoid Wharton for the rest of your life. When I re-read Frome as an adult, I had much greater appreciation. Just as this novel - I would have so oversimplified it if I read it in my teens or 20's. I don't like Undine, but I have much more sympathy and understanding of her now. She's not evil, she doesn't even realize the damage she's caused - she certainly didn't intend it. She's just thoughtless. Vapid. If she lived today (and she does), she'd spend her time watching the Kardashians and other "influencers." The social world has not changed, the fashions change, but not the need. I read an interesting essay by Claire Messud (never read her work, but now want to), who posited some interesting ideas about Undine, and possibly Edith. Edith was perhaps more sympathetic to Undine than you might think. Undine was a smart girl who wanted things -- yet every possibility of getting those things was closed to her as a pretty girl except for one . . . using her beauty to attract rich men. Undine was not stupid, nor lazy. She worked hard at her job - being attractive and the life of the party. She spent a great deal of energy and effort to be the "it" girl. She absolutely saw nothing wrong with expecting financial windfalls to come from her effort -- how else was she to get $$ for the material things she both needed and wanted? With every man that she uses to move up the ladder, she sighs a breath of relief, "At last, she had what she wanted." is a phrase used several times in the novel. Ah, but as soon as she reaches one level, she realizes that if she stands on tip-toe there's a whole other level just beyond her grasp - and her work starts all over again. Early in the novel a European man bemoans the condition of (upper class) American women - they are boring/childish/materially grasping because they aren't allowed to be anything else. American women are not expected, nor even allowed, to take an interest in their husband's work or financial condition. Is it this man's opinion that European (French?) women are expected to be more knowledgeable adult partners? That's the way I took it. Was that Edith's opinion? Maybe.

Was Undine an independent woman - not quite in the sense we think of a modern independent woman because she relied on men for money - but she sure wasn't about to let a man (or society) tell her how to behave. When things start breaking down with Raymond, husband #3, "She gradually began to be aware that her domination over him involved a corresponding loss of independence." Raymond expected Undine to understand financial matters, but "it was a proficiency no one had ever expected her to acquire." This inability to in any way be a financial partner made her less important to Raymond. Then the final death knell of this marriage, Madame Trezac tells Undine that she's not getting invites from Raymond's "set" because she's boring. Poor Undine. "It was impossible for Undine to understand a social organization which did not regard the indulging of woman as it first purpose." I don't know how that squares with her desires for 'independence.'

**Undine visits old beau Elmer's hotel suite, takes in its beauty and fashion, yet noting "there were no books in the room." For Undine, that's a positive, for me (and John Waters) its a big negative.

So old money, old New York Ralph - he cannot survive in this new world. Undine can and does very well. Edith herself (a divorced woman) gave up New York for Europe. I definitely did not get the feeling that Edith was passing any judgments here - just showing us the upper crust in all its questionable glory. ...more

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Sep 22, 2019 Zuly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-identity, non-fiction-psychology, around-the-world-challenge

Undine, the main character in this novel, is so in love with herself and with dresses and amusement that it's truly horrifying. Reading this at the same time as I'm listening to Talking to Strangers lends an interesting explanation for how her husband Ralph got her wrong for believing she had any redeeming qualities, and how this affected him. I don't want to leave spoilers because this one is so well done. I really loved Wharton's The House of Mirth when I read it some 20 years ago. This novel ...more

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