Venality

[Michael]

This 1913 book has Wharton's usual depth of feeling and reflection and I'm struck particularly by her excoriating of the ruling classes - whether 'old' money (bigoted, cramped, pseudo aristocrats) or newly rich selfish, crooked financial spivs. She came from the US aristo-class herself and must have met the other sort. Her story highlights the plight of children (here and in The Children) - especially in the new-rich households - but she suffered herself, personally, from the restrictions in the old social groups. I'm not sure if she had any children herself - in her unhappy marriage. Can't help feeling that if she were still with us, she might be politician - US democrat or UK Labour.

[Stacy]

Good observation about how this book reveals that children are the greatest sufferers of the moral failure of the adults in their lives. It is more subtle here than in The Children but it is definitely a sad undercurrent. Wharton's astute portrayal of the lives of children, though she had none herself, can be traced to her extraordinary power of observation and her perspicacity regarding man as both an individual and a social being. I imagine that Wharton's role as an observer would hamper her from becoming enmeshed in the political scene in which she would surely have become the thing which she deprecates in most of her novels.

[Shirley]

What struck me was the absolutely relentlessness with which Undine Spragg went for whatever was her current goal. But we began to realize that nothing would ever be enough and when the edges of disappointment began to creep in - those around her would have done well to scatter.

[Caroline]

Wonderful book with deep insights into human nature -- or at least the self-absorbed, sometimes narcissistic-types depicted in the novel. I have searched high and low for something just like this and decided "House of Mirth" would do, except that is about a woman's urge for material possessions whereas Undine's character involved a quest and a desire for so much more.

Does anyone know of a book that approximates the theme and character in Custom of the Country?

For what it's worth, I did just finish, "Miss Mole," a novel written by E.H. Young in the 1930s. Very English. I got through it and, although it was nothing at all like Custom of the Country, it had its charms.

[Caroline]

Shirley wrote: "What struck me was the absolutely relentlessness with which Undine Spragg went for whatever was her current goal. But we began to realize that nothing would ever be enough and when the edges of dis..."

How true. The last page of the book (was it the very last paragraph, maybe?) underscored this point. What an extraordinary ending, a synopsis, really, of Undine's essence.

[She's So Novel! ꧁꧂]

Caroline wrote: "Wonderful book with deep insights into human nature -- or at least the self-absorbed, sometimes narcissistic-types depicted in the novel. I have searched high and low for something just like this a..."

This is so old & you have probably found something by now, but I was thinking Vanity Fair & Forever Amber.

As ruthless as Scarlet O'Hara is, she does have some redeeming characteristics, but that would be another possibility.

I thought The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, although very overhyped showed some of this too.

[Virgulab]

Well, the whole thing reminded me of Madame Bovary but the fate of our 'heroine' turns out quite differently.