The Custom of the Country

...However, she was not always happy. She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.

Edith Wharton dazzles again! This time we meet only child and rich spoiled brat, Undine Spragg, who is on a mission to ingratiate herself in New York's upperclass society but is having trouble making the best of her limited funds and connections. How is a beautiful and charming girl to be taken seriously when all that matters in this exclusive world is wealth? Marry into money, of course! Undine was born for this lifestyle, all she needs is a benefactor husband she can mold and manipulate into giving her what she wants whenever she wants it.

Enter Ralph Marvell - he's handsome, well bred, in line to inherit, and completely enamored by Undine's fresh beauty and perspective. She thinks he's the perfect man to cater to her every need but is love and adoration enough to change the listless poet? Undine is ambitious and driven where Ralph is languorous. How the two of their lives intertwine and change each other and the people around them is the brilliant and tragic story of The Custom of the Country.

Like always, I am enamored by the characters and settings in this novel. Wharton has once again written a masterpiece that transcends time and place. It is a harrowing expose on the realities of marriage, business, parenthood, greed, missed opportunities, and how, in the real world, love is rarely ever enough.

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SPOILERS

Social gold does not always glitter

Edith Wharton did not have a happy life. Nor do her characters. What is happiness anyway, if not merely a part of our lives, something we all pursue, but rarely, if ever, possess in a clean, full form? We are destined to fail. We are imperfect by design. And Undine Spragg is one of the most imperfect characters I have come across. Actually, imperfect is an understatement. She is a walking disaster. A woman almost completely devoid of empathy and self-respect. She is forever entrapped in her search for greatness, but nothing she achieves is ever enough. As soon as I was finished, I told my friend Jeffrey: “What is the point of achieving what you dream of if you can never enjoy it, because you are always so consumed with what you don’t have, if the very reason for wanting what you do is that you don’t have it and once you have it, you find yourself bored and angry and it turns out that nothing has really changed? I think that the reason why the protagonist – I should say the antagonist, really - can never be happy with her achievements is her lack of desire to share them. And, of course, they lose their meaning. She merely wants to be admired and indulged and not bothered with anything, to not think and be responsible for anyone and anything. She has no sense of self. She wants to be treated like an object, like all she exists for is to be admired from afar, like she has no substance, in the same way a doll or a sculpture is admired, like she is empty. And this is why her life is empty too.” As my friend Sidharth says, life needs life to see itself.

n  It was admiration, not love, that she wanted. She wanted to enjoy herself, and her conception of enjoyment was publicity, promiscuity – the band, the banners, the crowd, the close contact of covetous impulses, and the sense of walking among them in cool security..A stranger – that was what she had always been to him. So malleable outwardly, she had remained insensible to the touch of the heart.n

In her mind there is no place for considerations, scruples, limitations.

n  It was impossible for Undine to understand a social organization which did not regard the indulging of woman as its first purposen

She completely lacks depth. She combines passionate desires with passionless nature. A combination that leads to the downfall of everyone who loves her and her own personal hell. But is it merely her fault?

n  The real paradox is the fact that the men who make, materially, the biggest sacrifices for their women, should do least for them ideally and romantically. And what’s the result – how do the women avenge themselves? All my sympathy’s with them, poor deluded dears, when I see their fallacious little attempts to trick out the leavings tossed them by the preoccupied male – the money and the motors and the clothes – and pretend to themselves and each other that that’s what really constitutes life! Oh, I know what you’re going to say – it’s less and less of a pretence with them, I grant you; they’re more and more succumbing to the force of the suggestion; but here and there I fancy there’s one who still sees through the humbug, and knows that money and motors and clothes are simply the big bribe she’s paid for keeping out of some man’s way!’

‘And is Undine one of the exceptions?’

Her companion took the shot with a smile. ‘No – she’s a monstrously perfect result of the system: the completest proof of its triumph. It’s Ralph who’s the victim and the exception.n

Unlike others, Undine doesn’t learn any lessons, doesn’t go through any profound changes. She keeps being a soulless, mindless force of nature, sucking the life out of everyone close to her. This book, just like The Age of Innocence, reveals the truth that often stays unsaid. That when women are belittled, men are no less harmed. Because each right entails with itself a responsibility and vice versa. When there is no equality, when there is no partnership, there are no winners. Only destruction. And by refusing to admit it, we become our worst enemies. Undine is a woman of her time. But is Ralph truly an exception? There is no doubt about how much he loves her and that he wants to give her much more than just material goods, that he wants her to be an essential part of his life. However, he misses to realize that indulging someone isn’t enough to create a real partnership. By tolerating and accepting everything she does – to him, to their child – he is no less of a supporter of the vicious circle. He completely loses his spirit.

n  The flame of love that had played about his passion for his wife had died down to its embers; all the transfiguring hopes and illusions were gone, but they had left an unquenchable ache for her nearness, her smile, her touch. His life had come to be nothing but a long effort to win these mercies by one concession after another: the sacrifice of his literary projects, the exchange of his profession for an uncongenial business, and the incessant struggle to make enough money to satisfy her increasing exactions. That was where the ‘call’ had led him …n

He spends his whole life diminishing himself and exalting her. This adoring, gentle, maybe too good to be true husband feeds the abyss as much as every self-centered lover of boot-licking out there. Not having appreciation for yourself is as bad as not having it for the person next to you. The lack of sense of self is probably the only thing he truly shares with Undine. Even in the end, when he finally has a reaction, he takes down not her, but himself. He destroys himself and the future of his son.

The distinction between winner and loser, abuser and victim, is not always quite clear. To me Ralph and Undine, albeit very different, are two sides of the same coin. Products of an ill system that either corrupts or crashes you. Unlike the ending of The Age of Innocence, the ending of The Custom of the Country doesn’t leave us with a glimmer of hope. It is perfect and eloquent in its bleakness. Edith Wharton strips the body of the late XIX century New York society of its brilliant clothing, separates the skin from the bones and turns the bones into dust. There is no happiness in this story, but there is truth. And, as imperfect as we are, it is up to us whether we shall let it be our truth or find that glimmer of hope, after all.

My thanks to Candi for the recommendation! :)

I was going to give this novel 2 stars, but the last 100 pages or so were much better than other parts of the book (in my opinion), which to me dragged along in a number of places. So, 3 stars for me. I liked ‘The Age of Innocence’ [3.5 stars], ‘The House of Mirth’ [4 stars], and ‘Ethan Frome’ (read this a long time ago and then a month ago for a re-read, 3.5 stars) more than this one, however. I appear to be in the minority, at least after reading the reviews I have read so far. And Goodreads reviewers have this rated higher than the aforementioned novels of hers.

I must say that Edith Wharton was consistent with the central character. Undine Spragg did not have a good bone in her body throughout the book

Note:
Here is a nice article by Jia Tolentino (New Yorker, September 9, 2019), “What Edith Wharton Knew, a Century Ago, About Women and Fame in America” — substitle: If Undine Spragg, the heroine of Wharton’s novel “The Custom of the Country,” were alive today, she would have a million followers on Instagram and be a Page Six legend. [https://www.newyorker.com/books/secon... ]

Reviews:
•tNice review by an established writer of fiction, Margaret Drabble): https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
•thttps://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
•t(don’t read this if you intend to read the book, save it for afterwards...it gives everything away) https://relevantobscurity.com/2019/07...

I am baffled that I didn't read any Edith Wharton when I was a teenager, but it has been fantastic to get to read her stuff for the first time as an adult. The writing is spectacular, and her insights into class, gender, greed, lust, and status feel amazingly contemporary. Classics for a reason.

As to The Custom of the Country in particular, I have not taken such delight in the ruthless machinations of an anti-hero(ine) since Breaking Bad. Rooting for a shallow sociopath has never been more fun! And there is still some room for sympathy about the strictures on women that force them to use what they have to get what they want, and the fact that some people are just doomed to discontent. But mostly there is the delicious trail of death and destruction that follows in the wake of Undine Spragg, the titian Walter White of early twentieth-century New York.

Also, the venn diagram of people who have recently read both The Custom of the Country and Njal's Saga may consist of Population: Vanessa, but I loved the parallels between Undine and Hallgerd. Yeah, they're hot, but bad things will happen to you if you marry them!

"Undine Spragg -- how can you?" The novel opens with U's mother wailing this mock protest at Undine snatching a just delivered note from her hands, assuming it's for her. The incident seems like a minor one at the time, but such is Wharton's artistry that it quietly presents the major question of the novel: How on earth does U. get away with all the shocking behavior ranging from the merely rude to the devastatingly cruel? And more importantly, who or what, ultimately, is responsible for U's behavior? W. offers evidence throughout the novel suggesting that U. is a product of a rigid partriarchal and materialistic culture that denies women any outlets to creating a meaningful, productive life, and that therefore forces them to engage in a Darwinian war for survival (according to some critics, W. was quite interested in Darwinism and its effects on social life). The novel's title sums up this view when Charles Bowen explains why U. can not comprehend how much work is required by her husband, Ralph, to support her demands of a lavish lifestyle: “Because it’s against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man’s again -- … Why haven’t we taught our women to take in interest in our work? Simply because we don’t take an interest in them.” And much later, W. again suggests that U's character is a "role" created by society for beautiful women: “She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them. ... She had learned that there was something she could never get, something that neither beauty nor influence nor millions could ever buy for her. She could never be an Ambassador’s wife; and as she advanced to welcome her first guests she said to herself that it was the one part she was really made for.”

So, is that it -- our grubby, piggy culture is the culprit? If you've read other W. novels, such as House of Mirth and Age of Innocence, you know that while W. is much interested in the power of cultural codes, she's no simplistic American, female version of Zola with a deterministic view of life. No, no, she's way too smart and too talented a novelist to settle for such pat explanations. As others have commented, Undine has not a shred of decency and evokes no sympathy, and lacks the tragic gravity of Lily Bart and Ellen Olenska, but boy-o-boy she sure is -- what's the right word here, captivating? mesmerizing? riveting? -- to watch in action. Like Mrs S., I found myself at several points wailing "Undine -- how CAN you?" Sure, I was shocked and clucked my tongue in moral outrage so many times that I had to pop Advil to relieve the ache in that waggy muscle (are tongues muscles? appendages?), but the pain was a sublime one and I was grateful for so many opportunities for clucking and admonishing. In short, Undine is such a vivid and compelling character that she transcends facile anthropology. All due, as expected of Wharton, to the brilliant prose and biting wit. Witness these deadly riffs on marriage and divorce:

“No woman ever knows she’s discontented till some man tells her so. My God! I’ve seen smash-ups before now; but I never yet saw a marriage dissolve like a business partnership. Divorce without a lover? Why, it’s – it’s as unnatural as getting drunk on lemonade."

“A divorce is always a good thing to have: you can never tell when you may want it.”

I would call this novel 'page-turning Wharton' (page-turning being a relative term, of course, in W's oeuvre). Though the longest of her novels, I believe, I found that it moves at a romp, employing some judicious 'meanwhile-back-at-the-ranch' narrative leaps, but without sacrifcing the kind of brilliant social detail one finds in a Hogarth print, if I may mix media.

All in all, this novel is a cut below masterpieces like House of Mirth and Age of Innocence -- hence, the 4 stars -- but a must read for Wharton fans. Not sure I'd recommend it as a starting point for readers new to Wharton -- as stated earlier, it does lack the depth of other novels -- but it does contain many of the qualities that make Wharton one of the American greats.

4.5 stars. Is there a better name for an untenable protagonist than Undine Spragg? I think not.
Somewhat embarrassed I never read any Edith Wharton until now, but also excited she came into my life at the perfect time.

Undine is a force of nature and her insatiable pursuit of enjoyment, wealth, and admiration is like a car crash -- you can't look away. Wharton's prose is both beautiful and SEARING.

"An imagination like his, peopled with such varied images and associations, fed by so many currents from the long stream of human experience, could hardly picture the bareness of the the small half-lit place in which his wife's spirit fluttered." Still thinking about this sentence.

فحش و بدوبیراه‌هایی که از مترجم و منتقد ایرانی گرفته تا خواننده‌ی ایرانی عموماً دوست دارن به اسکارلت اوهارا بدن (و من از بیست‌وخرده‌ای سال پیش تا حالا نفهمیده‌م چرا)، همه شایسته‌ی این گوساله‌خانوم انگل‌صفت عنتر بود.
من آشغال خوندن دوست دارم ولی این واااقعاً در یه سطح متفاوتی از زباله‌ی اعصاب‌خردکن قرار داشت.
گمونم باید برم درباره‌ش تحقیق کنم چون احتمال داره من نفهمیده باشمش که اینقدر رنج کشیدم حین خوندنش (ایشالا که همینطوره، امتیازش اینجا چهاره).
هرگز یادم نمیاد در نُه‌دهم طول کتابی یه سره گفته باشم بمیر دیگه بابا، بمیر هم من راحت شم هم ننه‌بابات، هم شوهرات، هم بچه‌ت.
اسپویلر
اینکه نمرد هیچی، ربه‌ر عاقبت بخیر هم می‌شد حالا.

To begin, I do enjoy Edith Wharton. The first book that I read was Summer & it garnered a 5 star review. Like Summer , Edith Wharton does create an interesting story, one of the follies & exploits of the upper class from her era. I did like the writing style, she creates multi dimensional characters as well as eloquent backdrops. However, I really struggled with this book. Undine is one of the most unlikable, shallow, and disgusting characters that I've had the displeasure of reading. Initially, I thought she was simply an ignorant woman but as I continued reading I no longer held that opinion. Undine is manipulative and cruel and I just simply couldn't bear to read anymore about her. Wharton did achieve her goal of painting a scathing picture of the exploits of the upper class of the late 19th century, sadly I just couldn't finish it.