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The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton

Start date: December 1, 2017

Finish date: December 31, 2017

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Jul 27, 2012 Jeremy C. Brown rated it liked it

Shelves: audio-e-book-located

What a great book, I mean, except terrible ending… how can you end a book like that?.. is that a spoiler? Well I’m sure some people love the ending, so seeing how it’s personal preference maybe it’s not a spoiler?

This is a very interesting book! Edith Warton’s writing is very witty and funny. I mean just look at this quote: “An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the cle What a great book, I mean, except terrible ending… how can you end a book like that?.. is that a spoiler? Well I’m sure some people love the ending, so seeing how it’s personal preference maybe it’s not a spoiler?

This is a very interesting book! Edith Warton’s writing is very witty and funny. I mean just look at this quote: “An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.”

Here’s a great quote from the book that sets the scene for the novel: “It was the old New York way...the way people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes", except those who gave rise to them. ” In this world of superficiality the main character and narrator Newland Archer is awakened by his newfound love for this Countess Ellen Olenska. Her story and influence help him to become aware of the fake world he lives in and this knowledge and his love for her confronts him with the choice he must make, whether to stay in his current world to hurt those around him less or to break free and become one of those “real people.”

An interesting theme that is treated is the idea that some people are so indoctrinated in their oppression that when confronted with even the thought of freedom and equality they turn their backs to it.

Anyway, good book. I think as with most novels, and movies, and love storys for the past several hundred years there’s an over emphasis on the value of infatuation of two people over the loyalty and fidelity, but still there’s a lot of good to be understood from the story and ideas written about.

Here’s some great quotes:

“And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them ...”

“...he arrived late at the office, perceived that his doing so made no difference whatever to any one, and was filled with sudden exasperation at the elaborate futility of his life”

“It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this young woman's eyes, and bid her look forth upon the world. But how many generations of the women of had gone to her making had descended bandaged to the family vault? He shivered a little, remembering some of the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for them. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to open hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness?”

“It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.”
...more

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