FRANKLIN FICTION :: ALSO EVERYMAN'S EDITION :: Jennifer Egan on Edith Wharton’s masterpiece @guardian http://bitly.com/2NjRyLD

I read this as part of a literature discussion group, paired with Phillip Roth's American Pastoral. While it was hard to connect with turn-of-the-century New York City, especially given the upper-upper class insularity of Wharton's 40 Families world, the writing--so descriptive and lyrical--was a joy.

Have read House of Mirth. Dry but interesting in the psychological dynamics of the characters. Essentially it's interesting for the head games and social intrigue of the rich social climbing characters, and those already at the top trying to stay there(or who fall down).

The novel I just read in the collection was The Age of Innocence. (I read The House of Mirth over 10 years ago and it is also excellent. I have not gotten to the other two yet.) Wow. What a writer. Set in 1875 in New York high society, the novel is both incredibly beautiful (the sentiments of the main character towards the woman he loves, who happens to be his fiancee's cousin, as well as the writing itself) and somewhat infuriating when you realize how small-minded and even cruel the seemingly genteel characters can be under their veneer of civility. Newland Archer must decide if he should follow thru on his commitment to marry young and beautiful May Archer or follow his increasingly strong feelings for her cousin Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York to escape an unhappy marriage with a Polish nobleman, but the plot is just as much about the accepted modes of behavior (and deception) within a small social circle and how far one can push against them. Impossible to say how good Wharton is in a brief summary -- just read it!

The House of Mirth*****
The Age of Innocence*****

Age of Innocence

A delightful look at a long past way of life by an author of the era. Her brief, admiring reference to Theodore Roosevelt showed that, like him, she understood that, as Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a changing”.

Very interesting to see how the other half once lived. I enjoyed the book, however I confess to enjoying the Merchant & Ivory movie versions better. So lush, it colored in the prose.

I just finished reading The Reef in this collection of four of Edith Wharton’s books. I’ve previously read The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. While I enjoyed the others very much, this time I was overwhelmed by her skill at constructing long, descriptive sentences. Using a combination of commas, semi-colons, and colons, she strings phrases together like pearls.

Her writing strikes me as a mix of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. If Jane Austen’s books are comedies of manners, then Edith Wharton’s are dramas of manners. And where Dickens long strings of phrases bring to life the sights, sounds, and smells of a dreary London slum, Ms. Wharton connects the dots of emotions and thoughts of upper-class people trained to present a reserved facade to everyone.

This book confused me in two ways; the title and the ending. I’m not sure what “The Reef” refers to and I’m not a good researcher. Please let me now if you have any light to shed on how she chose the title.

And I’m not sure what to think of the ending. It just seems to stop, like a painter’s instincts telling him to left the brush up off of the canvas, even though others might see it as unfinished. It’s not her last book and she shows no sign of running out of steam or of rushing the ending as if to make a deadline. Did she spend so much time connecting the dots of their thoughts and emotions so by the end we would know enough about each character to know what happened? Did she leave us hanging on purpose? If you have an idea please let me know.

This edition is published by the Library of America, “a nonprofit publisher dedicated to preserving America’s best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts,” and at a very reasonable cost. They absolutely live up to their goals. The beautiful page layout on soft-white, acid-free paper in a cloth binding that allows the book to stay open easily without breaking made reading a visual, tactile, intellectual pleasure. After moving several times in the past year I’ve become a big fan of ereaders. But this edition has earned space on the shelf and, more importantly, in the moving box. More info at: www.loa.org.

Read "The Custom of the Country" from this collection. Enjoyed it. Plan on reading the remaining titles.

I had read The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence before this, but I reread them and then tackled the The Custom of the Country and The Reef. These novels are all wonderful, especially the brutal and claustrophobic world of Society they present. The women characters especially have such potential and absoluetly no where to go with all their energies and intelligence, so that to watch their eventual defeats seems particularly poigant.

Loved Custom of the Country. If Wharton's good characters, Newland Archer and Lilly Bart find life unsatisfactory, her evil character, Undine Spragg doesn't. Nothing gets in her way and really she allows nothing to inhibit her rise in the rarefied worlds of Paris and New York. The funniest parts of the book are those where Undine learns how the aristocracy really live in late 19th century France. It is not that different from the old monied families of New York.

The Custom of the Country (1913).