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What Members Thought
She's got Henry James beat hands down.
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I wish we could have spent some time with the two leading women, Ellen & May, rather than just with the feckless Newland Archer. Still, it's an absorbing story, and well told.
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Every so often, I feel that I need to read a classic, as if to fulfill some internal command to pay equal attention to the "canon." Admittedly, sometimes the canon appears in the form of the 1001 books to before you die, etc. So, this month Edith Wharton executes this dictate.
This is the fourth Wharton book I have read and I am starting to notice a pattern, Wharton writes about characters that are doomed, DOOMED, DOOMED! I wonder if all her books have some element of this: a main character who f ...more
This is the fourth Wharton book I have read and I am starting to notice a pattern, Wharton writes about characters that are doomed, DOOMED, DOOMED! I wonder if all her books have some element of this: a main character who f ...more
This feels like a re-writing of one of the Henry James novels, a sequel to Portrait of a Lady or an American version of The Golden Bowl, with a 20th Century sensibility. While James seemed to appreciate the values of 19th Century society, Wharton hauls off and gives it a hard poke in the eye.
Although the central idea seems to be the tragedy of star-crossed lovers, most of the fun comes from having Wharton take her best shot at the narrow mindedness of her parents' generation and stuff shirts ev ...more
Although the central idea seems to be the tragedy of star-crossed lovers, most of the fun comes from having Wharton take her best shot at the narrow mindedness of her parents' generation and stuff shirts ev ...more
One of my all-time-faves, I found this book bitingly funny and insightful, rather than depressing, as I expected from the movie (which is gorgeous, but I had to watch it several times to start to see the humor that permeates the novel).
If I had a list of "favorite narrators" the narrator of this book would be at the top. Omniscent and authorly, but also funny and observant - the voice of a woman you'd really love to take out to lunch sometime. ...more
If I had a list of "favorite narrators" the narrator of this book would be at the top. Omniscent and authorly, but also funny and observant - the voice of a woman you'd really love to take out to lunch sometime. ...more
"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead." Oscar Wilde
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Sep 19, 2011
Sara
marked it as to-read
Feb 10, 2013
Jennifer
marked it as to-read
Dec 25, 2020
Robert
marked it as to-read
