The Age of Innocence in Reading with Style

Sep 04, 2013 Juniper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, 2013-books

"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"

4.5-stars, really!!

delicious!!! this is my first wharton (I KNOW!) and while i had already held her in high esteem as a writer and a woman, this book kinda made me fall in love with her. a lot. wharton's prose is beautiful. her eye for detail, incredible. i loved her way with description - sometimes so poetic, other times hilarious and often, both!

* "...her abysmal purity..."
* "The immense accretion of flesh, which had descended on her in m ...more

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Oct 29, 2011 Rosemary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Just as Newland Archer is about to announce his engagement to May Welland in 1870s high society New York, her cousin Ellen returns from an unhappy marriage to a Polish Count and Newland promptly falls in love with Ellen.

The situation could be straight out of Tolstoy but the path that the characters take is very different. Wharton stresses the difference between social mores of the 1870s and the early 20th century when she was writing, but from today's perspective the contrast between America and ...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Bucket rated it really liked it

Shelves: love, literary, culture, 1001-read-all-editions, classic, reviewed, women, pulitzer-winners

Much of this novel reminded me of Pride and Prejudice. However, I like this so much better. Now, Wharton has the benefit of having written this more than 100 years later than Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice.

Wharton was also writing about a time period almost 50 years in her past, giving her the benefit of reflection and judgment - in other words, she could identify the absurdities and poke fun at them without being shocking. Austen also pokes fun at her minor characters, but the difference for ...more

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May 28, 2013 Wendy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, blooms-western-canon, 1001-books, audiobooks, pulitzer

Hmmm...virtually all my GR friends who have read this gave this book 4 or 5 stars, so I feel like I'm somehow at fault for not appreciating this one more. Maybe I should have read the book instead of listening to the audio version (the narrator Lorna Raver was brilliant, though). Did I miss a huge twist? Are my tastes immature enough that I can't fully appreciate quiet books about the idle rich? Because I really did enjoy Wharton's Ethan Frome, and I'm trying to figure out why this one seemed to Hmmm...virtually all my GR friends who have read this gave this book 4 or 5 stars, so I feel like I'm somehow at fault for not appreciating this one more. Maybe I should have read the book instead of listening to the audio version (the narrator Lorna Raver was brilliant, though). Did I miss a huge twist? Are my tastes immature enough that I can't fully appreciate quiet books about the idle rich? Because I really did enjoy Wharton's Ethan Frome, and I'm trying to figure out why this one seemed to just whiz right over my head. One big difference between Ethan and Innocence (I believe, anyway) are the stakes. In Ethan, the characters are poor, they are isolated, they are trapped by more than just social tradition, and they have very few choices. The consequences are absolutely ruinous. in Innocence, the characters are like mimes in invisible boxes, acting trapped when really, they can walk through their invisible wall at any time. Archer wants to discourage Ellen's divorce? He wants to shorten his own engagement? May knows Archer isn't "into" her and wants to keep the long engagement, but then suddenly decides to ask her parents for permission to cut it down to a month anyway? Why? If these are the decisions the characters insist on making (and it seemed to me that the changing of the engagement was ruffling feathers and going against tradition, so I don't get why these people are so terrified of feather-ruffling at other times) I can't really feel bad for them when they don't get what they want. Or, at least, don't get what they think they want. It seemed to me that they all (view spoiler) That's just how life is for any of us--*correction, the luckier of us.

I'm not trying to say that I didn't like the book, because I did, but it didn't really move me beyond mild frustration with the characters, mostly Newland Archer. Wharton's writing was lovely as usual, her descriptions evocative, and I still caught of whiff of the haunting ending, though my reaction was more like "yeah, I know, that's how it is." Perhaps I'll read this again in a few decades to see if a little aging will do me some good and give me more insight into what I've missed--because I sure as hell must be missing something. ...more

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