I love Edith Wharton and this was a joy to read. Wharton had an observant eye and a talent for bringing her characters to life. I had heard that Undine Spragg is one of the grand dames of detestable protagonists, and she is indeed. She actually makes Scarlett O'Hara look warm and fuzzy in comparison. The one complaint I had was that Undine was such a flat character. She really has NO redeemable qualities, and the only growth she shows is in growing ever more manipulative, greedy, and ruthless. Scarlett, at least, had a few good traits, such as her love for her family and her courage. I think most people, no matter how badly they behave, usually have at least a few markers of humanity, no matter how small and in the minority they may be. Undine is really a little sociopath, since she doesn't seem to be able to feel empathy for anyone, including her loving parents or her own child.

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

Undine is a big deal in the midwestern town of Apex, where she grew up, but finds when moving to New York that she is considered no big deal there. She decides that this is unacceptable and sets out to change it. Change it, she does! She climbs that social ladder like a spider monkey, hopping from one bedazzled, lovestruck man to the next. With each shift she attains a little more, whether it is in social status of the family or a title, but each man gets her a little further up that ladder. The fact that she leaves scorched earth in her wake is not particularly troubling to her (did I mention her sociopathic tendencies?) until finally she comes full circle. The troublesome upstart that she secretly married in her teens (and then divorced) has now become fabulously wealthy and a major force in society, so she remarries him.

A line near the end of the book captures it perfectly: "Even now, 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" (362). Her personality is just a voracious maw, ingesting and digesting everything it sees that it wants, but never getting filled up. It is always open, always searching for something else to absorb. The quest is endless; satisfaction is never reached.

I read a couple of other great reviews by my friends, if you want to check them out:

Sara's review

Alex's review

Wharton, as usual, skewers the society she knows: the wealthy, the fashionable, the cosmopolitan, and the wannabes, both in New York and abroad. What struck me most profoundly is that even though society has changed a great deal over the past century, certain types of individuals remain remarkably similar.

The main character in this novel is Undine Spragg, a beautiful young narcissist with an unquenchable desire to be admired, adored, and indulged. As she marries and divorces her way across the Atlantic and back, Undine leaves an international trail of ruined lives, without ever gaining a shred of insight into her own shortcomings. Sad to say, she reminded me again and again of lovely young women of my own acquaintance, who, in spite of women's currently having many other opportunities for success beyond just manipulating men, still prefer to practice the old-fashioned arts of the gold-digger.

In the course of the novel, Wharton reflects repeatedly on the crux of a problem that she observed in the society of her own day: American men were expected only to earn money, and their wives were expected only to spend it, thus leading to a mutual disdain between the sexes. Yet with a central character like Undine Spragg, who is flawed to begin with -- with blind egotism, narcissism, and childish selfishness -- Wharton manages to open up the narrow confines of Undine's moneyed world to questions of more universal, lasting concern.

I wondered why The Custom of the Country is not as well known as Wharton’s The Age of Innocence or The House of Mirth until I met the novel’s central character - Undine Spragg, not exactly an antiheroine as she doesn’t have redeeming qualities for a reader’s sympathy. For sure, she is savvy and resilient which some might admire had it not been for her cold-hearted ways and cruelty. She is a ruthlessly manipulative gold-digger with the chameleon-like adaptability as she climbs the ladder of social circles from her Midwestern small town to New York and then Paris. She spares nobody except herself. The worst part in her moral void is that she doesn’t see it that way, having that ability to protect herself from any self-doubts and scruples, always attributing the misfortunes and, in some cases, destruction of others, in large measure thanks to her doings, to hapless circumstances or the workings of others as she falsely imagines them.

So how can you sustain reading a longer novel when such a creature is on just about every page? There are many good reasons. Foremost, there is Wharton’s brilliant writing with a razor-sharp satiric wit and observant analytical eye on the ways in which social codes and manners affect personal lives. The social landscape is much wider than in her other two famous novels with New York society again at its center, but also a Midwestern town and Parisian society. She also dissects the rich, a class into which she was born and knows the best, into layers—American nouveau riche as well as the old “blue blood” and, across the pond, European aristocracy—while avoiding stereotypes. There is a dichotomy in each stratum—a forward movement brought by ambitious endeavors vs. ruthless competition reigned by money values (nouveau riche), good taste and a basic sense for decency vs. snobbery (the old New York), a sense for history vs. anachronistic rigidity (aristocratic descendants of the European ancien régime). Consequently, none of the characters is unidimensional, perhaps not even Undine whose every successful conquest makes her eager to take on the next one, never happy…

Oh Undine!

I have to address you, but I must confess that I am very nearly lost for words. I have never met anyone quite like you – in fact or in fiction – and you have made such an impression. You really are a force of nature. You had to be, to have lived the life that you have lived.

Looking back it’s hard to believe that you were the daughter of a self-made man, that you came from Apex in North Carolina. But, of course, you were the apple of your parents’ eyes, and they were prepared to invest everything they had, and to do without themselves, to help you reach the very highest echelons of New York society.

You always got what you wanted. Always.

Did you appreciate what they did for you? Did you understand how much they sacrificed? I think not; there was nothing in your words, your actions, your demeanour to suggest that you did.

At first I was inclined to blame your parents for spoiling you, but I came to realise that it wasn’t them, it was you. I began to feel sorry for them.

You made some mistakes as you climbed the ladder, because you didn’t quite understand quite how that rarefied society worked, but you were a wonderfully quick learner. You changed your behaviour, your appearance, your expectations, to become the person you wanted to be, the person you needed to be, to achieve your ambitions.

And you succeeded. You drew the attention of Ralph Marvell, the son of one of the oldest, grandest families in New York. He loved your beauty, your difference; and you loved everything that he stood for. And so you married …..

Sadly, it wasn’t a happy ending.

You didn’t understand that the families at the pinnacle of society were not the wealthiest. You couldn’t understand that Ralph didn’t share your ambitions – I don’t think that you even realised that was possible – and certainly it was quite beyond your comprehension that he dreamed of a writing a novel. He never did, he had not one iota of your drive and ambition, and I suspect that he lacked the talent. Ralph drifted through life, disappointed that he could not expand your narrow horizons, that he could not open your eyes to the beauty of the art and literature that he loved.

He was part of an old order that was dying, and you were part of a new order that would adapt and survive. You learned how to bend and even change society’s rules to allow you to do exactly what you wanted to do. You really didn’t understand him, you broke him, and my heart broke for him.

I even began to feel at little sorry for you, despite your selfishness, because there was so much that you didn’t understand. There are more important things than money, luxury, fashion, and social position. Things can’t really make you happy, because there will always be other things to want, there will always be things beyond your reach. You learned so much, but you never learned that.

There would be more marriages, more travels, more possessions ….

There would be more damage. My heart broke again, for the son you so often seemed to forget you had. And though you would never admit it, you were damaged by your own actions. But you were a survivor Undine, weren’t you?

You did learn a little; I learned a little about your past, and I came to feel that I understood you a little better; most of all, I do think that when you finally married the right man it made all the difference. It wasn’t quite enough for me to say that I liked you, but I was always fascinated by you.

Now I find myself wanting to do what Alice did at the end of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I want to throw you in the air and say, “You’re just a fictional character!” But I can’t. Because you are so utterly real; not a heroine, not a villainess, but a vivid, three-dimensional human being, with strengths and weaknesses.

You are perfectly realised; your world and everything, everything around you is perfectly realised. The telling of your story is compelling, beautiful and so very profound. It speaks of its times and it has things to say that are timeless. Because, though times may change, human nature stays the same.

Edith Wharton was a genius – it’s as simple as that.

If as a woman you ever think you are making choices that are effectively ruining your life, something my brain likes to punish me with, especially as I stumble through my twenties in confusion and constant questioning of where I want to go in life, read this and see how much worse it could be for you. You could live like Undine Spragg, a woman always striving for more at the expense of those she surrounds herself with, devoid of the humanity and empathy one needs. And yet despite this, she still made for a fascinating protagonist I could not hate. As she social climbed further and further I found myself wanting to shake her in an attempt to wake her up - she had enough. But Wharton does what she did best: critiques the ruthlessness of those who were blindsided by power and determination.

The Custom of the Country is Edith Wharton’s satirical novel which dissects the gilded society she knew all too well and the people, such as her anti-heroine Spragg, said society created through greed. Authors just do not write like this anymore. Wharton’s prose is as elegant as the era she wrote about and lived in as she delves into the consequences of the rich's dissatisfaction with what they have (a lot more than the average person) and their desperate need for more. There is no subtlety to the plot nor what she believed - Spragg’s journey for more is explicitly detailed, forming a novel I could not put down. I truly believe it is a massive shame that thus far no contemporary author is brave enough to produce something similar about the society we live in. There is so much material out there for our scathing The Custom of the Country.

Another delightful read for my degree; one I will pick up again and again.

Well-crafted novel of a beautiful, shallow, ambitious and grasping woman's path through marriages in early 20th Century New York and France. I particularly liked how Wharton showed Undine growing in social knowledge and sophistication without gaining any depth, self-knowledge or happiness, and how consistently she spread unhappiness to those unfortunate enough to be involved with her, notably her parents, husbands and child.

It would be interesting to contrast Undine with Lily Bart of The House of Mirth, May Welland of The Age of Innocence. Also to consider Wharton's limited concept of the world of business -- there's very little to it other than market manipulation and the dealings of robber barons.

I look forward to discussing this in next month's Group Read.

I loved THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, but this Edith Wharton novel just did not work for me. I get the fact that Undine Spragg is supposed to be a cold and heartless social climber. She's the kind of girl you see in books all the time, but rarely in real life. She gets away with murder. She breaks hearts and ruins lives without ever feeling remorse or really getting what she wants.

This is a type that has been done before. Many, many times before. Becky Sharp? Scarlett O'Hara?

Edith Wharton hates Undine Spragg so much that she forgets to make her charming, or lively, or even energetic enough to hold our interest. You can believe in a bad girl with real appetites (think of Scarlett stuffing herself at the Twelve Oaks barbecue) but how can someone who's selfish and evil be so passive and boring? Undine doesn't lust for real pleasures, like food or drink or sex. She just wants to be in the "best society." But Edith Wharton wants to have it both ways, creating a coarse character but never allowing her any coarse pleasures or even any coarse desires.

Meanwhile, the timid Ashely Wilkes style chump that Undine heartlessly ruins (Ralph Marvell) is such a crashing bore that you can't possibly believe he's much of a loss to mankind. It's hard to believe he wants Undine in a physical sense (no Edith Wharton male ever does that, unless he's a villain and a bounder from the lower depths) and it's even harder to believe he'd drop dead of horror and shame if he found out she was less than pure.

Undine's real main squeeze is Elmer Moffatt, who is the only character in the book I liked. He's the one character who actually seems to enjoy life. When Undine tries to explain to him that her dainty little husband can't stand to imagine her being engaged to Elmer early in life, because "they don't like a girl to have been engaged more than once" Elmer replies, "well, gee whiz, how'd they expect her fair young life to pass? Knitting tidies for church fairs and playing 'Holy City' on the melodeon?" That was the one line in the book that actually made me smile.

Oh, and one of Undine's girl chums when she was a kid was named Indiana Frusk. Edith Wharton seems to think that's just too, too, vulgar, but I thought it was kind of cute. I think I'll write a romance novel about a girl named Indiana Frusk!

I have a saying which is that the greatest trick that man ever pulled was to convince women that they are free. I’m sure many of you are raising your eyebrows at that. I’m serious though. Years ago men tried to control women by keeping them locked up in housework, in children, in piety. Then we realised that by doing so, although we posses them, we aren’t benefitting from it in the way that we would like. No, what we want, what we have always wanted, is for them to look nice, to leave us alone to pursue our own interests, and yet to give us what we desire when we desire it. For that women needed to be convinced of their emancipation.

This freedom, in my opinion, is a mirage. I believe that women are socialised to exercise their ‘free will’ in a way that most pleases men, i.e. they are taught to be promiscuous, to not want commitment, to be ok with all kinds of sexual congress, to be obsessed with their appearance, etc. Furthermore, they have been taught to be satisfied with scraps of attention, to appreciate the glittery, the sparkling, the bright and blinding; which are all things that men can give them with little effort on their part. Of course, not all women fall for the trick, I’m not saying that, but that doesn’t call into question the entire theory. Just look around you, at TV, at pop stars, and so on. Society is ordered in such a way as to create vacuous, easy, and lovely looking women. And this situation is getting worse, the numbers are growing with each new generation. Take it from a man, someone who has been dating girls for a number of years. I’m not taking the moral high ground here, I’m as bad as anyone; I, too, have benefited.

Remarkably, these ideas, which have played on my mind for quite some time, form the basis of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, which was published in 1913. In fact, one character, Charles Bowen, engages in a conversation, about half-way through the novel, in which similar points to my own are raised:

"The average American looks down on his wife [...] How much does he let her share in the real business of life? How much does he rely on her judgment and help in the conduct of serious affairs? Take Ralph for instance–you say his wife’s extravagance forces him to work too hard; but that’s not what’s wrong. It’s normal for a man to work hard for a woman–what’s abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it.”

“To tell Undine? She’d be bored to death if he did!”

“Just so; she’d even feel aggrieved. But why? Because it’s against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man’s again–I don’t mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven’t we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don’t take enough interest in THEM.”

Mrs. Fairford, sinking back into her chair, sat gazing at the vertiginous depths above which his thought seemed to dangle her.

“YOU don’t? The American man doesn’t–the most slaving, self-effacing, self-sacrificing–?”

“Yes; and the most indifferent: there’s the point. The ‘slaving’s’ no argument against the indifference To slave for women is part of the old American tradition; lots of people give their lives for dogmas they’ve ceased to believe in. Then again, in this country the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it, and the American man lavishes his fortune on his wife because he doesn’t know what else to do with it.”

“Then you call it a mere want of imagination for a man to spend his money on his wife?”

“Not necessarily–but it’s a want of imagination to fancy it’s all he owes her. Look about you and you’ll see what I mean. Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she’s so important to them that they make it worth her while! She’s not a parenthesis, as she is here–she’s in the very middle of the picture. I’m not implying that Ralph isn’t interested in his wife–he’s a passionate, a pathetic exception. But even he has to conform to an environment where all the romantic values are reversed. Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman’s drawing-room or in their offices? The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? The emotional centre of gravity’s not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it’s love, in our new one it’s business. In America the real crime passionnel is a ‘big steal’–there’s more excitement in wrecking railways than homes.”

Bowen paused to light another cigarette, and then took up his theme. “Isn’t that the key to our easy divorces? If we cared for women in the old barbarous possessive way do you suppose we’d give them up as readily as we do? 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 attempt 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 pretense 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!”

I’ve included the discussion almost in its entirety because it is so fabulous. Reading it was one of those miracle discoveries that you get every so often in literature, when someone articulates almost exactly your own thoughts and feelings.

The focus of the novel is Undine Spragg, a self-centred but very beautiful young woman. She is a poster-girl for the dangers of socialisation; she embodies my, and Charles Bowen’s, ideas about the way that women are raised and taught to behave. Her mother is weak and subservient, maybe even intimidated by her daughter; her father appears to believe that she should have everything she wants, no matter how unreasonable. Indeed, Abner Spragg does exactly what I was talking about at the beginning of this review: unable to engage with his daughter properly he simply throws something shiny or new and expensive her way in order to pacify her. He doesn’t do so for sexual gain, of course, but he is putting in place a pattern of behaviour and creating and re-enforcing an attitude towards relations between men and women that will carry the girl throughout her life. Later, when she starts forming serious relationships, she brings the same expectations to them, which is that the man ought to always satisfy her desires. In these relationships, the male concern is sexual, but they take on the paternal role: they keep their true thoughts and feelings to themselves, they shelter her from business matters, and so on. Undine’s role, both in her own mind and in the minds of the men she encounters, is simply to look beautiful.



In a way, you could call The Custom of the Country a feminist novel, because, of course, socialisation of women, male attitudes towards women, are feminist concerns. However, Wharton is too clever and too deft a writer to fall into the trap of writing a political tract. She appears to be saying it is a great shame that women are kept at arm’s length, are taught and encouraged to be beautiful and little else, but she does not ever really blame anyone for this state of affairs, she is entirely even-handed, and she certainly is no man hater. Ralf, one of Undine’s husbands, is, for example, probably the most sympathetic person in the whole novel; he is shown to be truly in love in with his wife and devoted to his son. Yet, Undine’s and Ralf’s marriage is not on an equal footing either. He doesn’t want to bore her with financial or business matters, while she thinks it his responsibility to ensure her amusement. Crucially, Undine doesn’t want a relationship on an equal footing: she wants to be pampered and spoiled and allowed to do what she likes

Undine Spragg is one of the most extraordinary characters in literature. It would be easy to see her as a typical conniving, scheming femme fatale, but she isn’t really. What is most interesting about Undine is that she truly believes that she has a right to what she wants, that no one and nothing ought to be able to stop her. That is not the same as a traditional femme fatale, a Becky Sharp, who know that they are bad or that they are doing bad things, and don’t care. Undine thinks she is absolutely in the right; she would be mortified to think that she is in the wrong. There is, in fact, a great deal of naivety and innocence in her. She twice marries the wrong kind of man, not exactly for money as you might anticipate, but because she doesn’t seem to understand the relationship between her desires and money [i.e. that the things she wants cost a lot of money and that money doesn’t simply come to hand when it is called for]. Both men aren’t rich, and yet Undine thinks they should still do all they can to please her and cannot comprehend why they are unable to. She also makes many social faux pas; she does not use society, or manipulate it; she is essentially clueless, but eager to learn. The upshot is that Undine is both monstrous, almost sociopathic, and yet somehow strangely charming, strangely endearing. And, I think, that the sympathy I felt towards her comes from me being a man, because, again, being a man I like, I respond to, beautiful but child-like women, just as the male characters in the novel do.

If this is all the book had to say it would still be a brilliant, forward-thinking novel. However, it raises many other fascinating questions, deals with other engrossing themes, such as money, divorce, family, parentage, duty etc, etc. Perhaps the overriding theme, the one that ties many of the other themes/ideas together, is that of old vs new. Undine’s battles, her disagreements with the grand old families, the Marvells and de Chelles, is indicative of the tension that Wharton sees between old values and new, the old world and the new world. However, Undine is not quite as modern as she may seem at first glance. She instinctively respects these traditional families, although only because she feels them to be important and respected by others. It is Elmer Moffatt, my favourite character in the novel, who truly embodies the new age. Moffatt is unrefined, he has no great name or heritage behind him; he is brash and loud and straight-talking; he is a speculator, a self-made man. He is, in fact, The American Dream.

There is a poignant scene towards the end of the novel, although in order to understand it some explanation is required. Undine has married a French aristocrat, who, albeit titled, and therefore giving the appearance of wealth, has very little ready cash. Undine, needing money for her trips to Paris, arranges for a man to come and view and put a value on some very expensive de Chelles family heirlooms; and Moffatt is the man who comes to buy them. He offers two million dollars, but de Chelles turns the offer down. The Frenchman is incredulous, he cannot fathom why Undine would even have the heirlooms evaluated; there is no question, he says, of them ever being sold. For Undine, however, they are merely objects, which are pleasant to look at but only if they are not taking the place of other, more pressing, desires. Anyway, eventually, right at the end of the book, Moffatt is seen bringing these heirlooms home. He has, of course, bought them. de Chelles and his set, his values, his way of life even, is on the way out.

If I have any criticism to make of The Custom of the Country it is that Undine’s second marriage too closely resembles her first. Consequently, you feel as though it is unnecessary, as though you’ve already been through this already, that Wharton had made the same points previously, and this makes the novel drag a little bit in the final third. Furthermore, it doesn’t make sense that Undine would make the same mistake twice, i.e. that she would again marry someone who is seemingly well-to-do, but financially in dire straights, because she would foresee, you’d imagine, that she would find herself in the same position that she so loathed before. I feel as though Wharton could have cut the de Chelles marriage out completely, and if she had done so the novel would have been even more wonderful, more brutal. In any case, this minor quibble about pacing aside, The Custom of the Country is one of the most satisfying novels I have read this year.

Knyga patiko nors skaitėsi lėtai. Labai sužavėjo ši klasikos knyga.

Brilliant character study of a Narcissist, Undine Spragg, and the varying fates and responses of the people who love her or come under her thrall. Beautifully narrated by Barbara Caruso.

Wharton must have known an Undine Spragg, or two? She creates a vivid Undine, or Undie, for short, anti-heroine and the central focus of the novel. She is single-handedly the most selfish, spoiled-rotten, cheeky, little miss I have yet encountered in classic literature. Someone forwarded me a YouTube of a young person on the Phil Donahue Show who was worse, but not by much. Undine was still a pretty piece of work. Her looks carried her a long way, most of the way usually. I kept waiting for her to get her comeuppance.

The ‘custom of the country’ refers to how American husbands and wives distanced themselves from each other via commerce in Wharton’s time, the beginning of the 20th century. Men working themselves to death at a career in order to keep the wife provided for at certain economic level, yet all the while, his work commitments precluded real involvement with home and family. And the missus for her part was busy maintaining ‘their’ social status which also became an all-consuming passion, distracting her from giving any real attention to what her beloved spouse was doing for her and the children. And this, according to Wharton, was how couples set themselves up for drifting apart, loneliness, philandering, and eventually divorce.

Edith Wharton has written a biting satire of that time. Her characterization of Undine is one I will never forget, which is why I believe she had to have known someone(s) like her. Some other reviewers commented that they wanted to see Undine learn from her mistakes. First, define your terms. Define what is meant by the word ‘mistake’. I suspect Undine’s definition of that word would not match most other peoples. By her standards, I would have to say she did learn from her ‘mistakes’. But then don’t take my word for it. Read it yourself!

A provocative, antithetical masterpiece. It stirred up all kinds of thoughts and feelings in me and I feel sure I will want to return to it.

I just can't take to characters who are so...unlikeable..yet I nearly always hate to love them. Beautiful writing and descriptions though.