[4+] Shrewd and shallow, Undine is constantly striving for more... more status, more money, more love. I felt no sympathy for her but was nevertheless riveted to Wharton’s brilliant, ruthless character study.

So I had totally committed my schedule to having lengthy tea with a brilliant Oxford professor of incredible intelligence, unsurpassed insight, and fabled dry wit. And while I know that my extended afternoon with Dr. George Eliot would have proven to be a fascinating and immensely edifying experience that I would've remembered for the rest of my life, I still did the bad thing and just blew her off. Yes, I ditched the eminent Dr. Eliot to drink ice cream sodas and read celebrity gossip magazines with a bubbly, divorced Gibson Girl who's gorgeous but dreadful, who's got all the new fashions and knows the most ruthless jokes. And who can really blame me for breaking my engagement? I'm an American! I can't help it! We just wanna have fun. We want things to be sexy and dazzling, and brand spanking NEW. And okay, this book's not new exactly (1913), but it sure reads that way. I can't improve on my mother's description of The Custom of the Country as "Henry James meets Candace Bushnell," except to recommend it also to fans of Gossip Girl and similar treats.

Edith Wharton is truly a fabulous writer, and her style's as gorgeous as the gilded world of the rich she describes. The special thing about this particular book of hers is its repellent anti-heroine, the wonderfully named and well-initialed society beauty Undine Spragg. Undine Spragg makes Emma Bovary look like a sweet, sharp young lady who'd be good BFF material. Wharton's unsubtle point that society (Society?) creates monsters like Undine is not so heavy-handed that the pace or plot gets slowed down. While there are definitely some tragic, Whartonian events in here, the whole novel for me felt both like tragedy and comedy, and her unsympathetic heroine bit works so successfully that the novel profits hugely from that ambivalence. The book ends with a marriage, and is tragic in this weird and smart sense that the hero doesn't realize there has been any tragedy. It's a good good book, truly. I had a swell time.

Can I just say now that I LOVE Edith Wharton? I LOVE Edith Wharton. I just think she's great. She sure could write, man. The Custom of the Country is very specifically about a historical moment and certain issues -- American identity, wealth, the Woman Question, etc. -- but it's in the Great Lit section because the things she's getting into still matter a lot. Undine's one of the most beautiful characters in literature, and it's no accident that she's got one of the most memorably lousy personalities. Wharton makes her very human, though, and weirdly sympathetic, while tying the tragedy that is Undine to ideas about the social role of women and the effects of that role on individuals. So The Custom of the Country is, in that way, a successful social novel, because Wharton gets her political concerns across through -- not in spite of -- the story's unfolding.

But The Custom of the Country is, more than a great social novel, a great Society novel. "Society" being what Americans tried to put together before we got Hollywood, this is a sort of a proto-Valley of the Dolls celebrity cautionary tale, which is another gigantic point in its favor. I also got all riled up when Undine made it to Paris and started trying to get in with the Faubourg Saint Germain set, in the hopes that she'd bump into the main character from In Search of Lost Time. That unfortunately didn't happen, but it is fun to think about, in a really dumb, nerdy, middle-school English class assignment kind of way.... Edith Wharton's no Marcel Proust, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. She's no George Eliot either, so while Wharton may be considered somewhat less respectable in certain social circles, when I go out calling it's her drawing room I rush to first. It's the best decorated and most fun, and Dr. Eliot can wait, possibly forever.

The title, Custom of the Country (1913,) alludes to the different perceptions of marriage in early 20th Century Paris and New York. Undine Spragg, a materialist girl of the Gilded Age, uses her striking Pre-Raphaelite beauty to marry into wealth and social privilege. Casualities of ambition include her American husband and neglected son.

Undine is beautiful, shallow but oddly likeable. Each marriage is a story within the meta-narrative. Her Parisian union to the Marquis de Chelles (a clever pun on the French word, ladder,suggesting a means for social-climbing) occurs against the backdrop of crumbling aristocratic Faubourg Saint-Germain. This arrondissement is clearly unaware that revolution swept away its ancien-régime privileges in 1789. Wharton (a fluent French speaker, unlike poor Undine) lived in the heart of Saint-Germain for many years so understood its idiosyncrasies perfectly. The arriviste Undine never grasps the French attitude towards marriage and extra-marital affairs, nor the Parisian expectation that a woman must be both beautiful and interesting.

Wharton's modernist narrative is a tour-de-force which, along with The House of Mirth (1906), offers a complex psychological portrait of 'modern woman'. In 1923, she won the prestigious Pulitzer, the first female author to be accorded the honour. I always feel that The Custom of the Country, rather than The Age of Innocence, deserved the accolade... It would make a beautiful film, Mr Scorsese...

Meandering review containing minor spoilers.

While I read “The Custom of the Country”, I was struck by how relevant a commentary on feminism and marriage it still is to this day. Edith Wharton wrote this book over a hundred years ago, and yet Undine Spragg feels awfully familiar. She reminds me of many girls I hear about on television or the Internet: beautiful, spoiled, shallow, materialistic, ambitious… Has so little changed since 1913 that girls like that would still be kicking around, or have they just always been there? Food for thought.

I love Wharton’s voice, that I first discovered reading “The Age of Innocence”, and her style and wit are still as amazing in “Custom of the Country”. But as where I loved the characters of Countess Olenska and Newland Archer, Undine had me rolling my eyes and hitting myself in the face with the book until the last page. Which, to be fair, is worthy of some praise: not everyone can create a highly irritating character that you want to read about as much as you want to beat them with a cricket bat.

And yet is it Undine’s fault that she is such a superficial and hare-brained twit? She is, after all, a product of the “customs of her country”, where the standards and expectations are that women should be a desirable object for men to own - not to converse with. She was taught to behave in a way that will attract a rich husband: her parents, freshly arrived in New York from the much smaller town of Apex, are all too eager to let her gallivant around and socialize in order make a smart match. She never expects to be a man’s equal: she wants someone who will spoil her. She wants to worry about nothing more complicated than her dresses and whatever amusements she can think of and would be bored and annoyed if a man tried to talk to her about business, art or politics. It’s a rather big shock for her when she relocates to another country, where women are expected to be attractive AND interesting: let’s just say she is not ready for this…

The tragic part is that all the wealth, social position and fashionable clothing that she works so hard to get are not really that fulfilling to her, but she doesn’t have the resources to understand why she remains unsatisfied, not matter how much stuff she has. There’s always something more to want, to set your eyes on and pursue, and that is why people like Undine will never experience anything more than a fleeting happiness. And of course, her actions’ repercussions on other people’s lives are as disastrous as she is oblivious to them…

What is fascinating about Undine is that as far as she is concerned, none of this is strange or bad. Her naiveté is such that she sincerely believes she is entitled to having everything she wants – and that someone should simply provide it for her as she is not in a position to earn her own resources. Her father has indulged her so much that he has created this expectation that she only has to bat her eyelashes to get anything, and she projects this expectation on every other man she becomes involved with. If she was truly a “bad” character, she would have married rich men who could have easily provided for her (or ran off with the icky Mr. Van Degen). But she is, in fact, completely clueless because she marries men who, while seeming well-off, do not have the means to keep up with her expectations – and she can’t seem to grasp why they cannot give her everything she wants. Wharton is showing us how awful Undine is, but she’s also telling us that this is not entirely her fault: her society created her to be exactly as she is, and this is a very engrossing character study because the world is still full of people just like that…

In fact, as I read, I couldn’t help but think of Kim Kardashian. Rich, famous, everyone knows who she is. She’s not an actress, musician, singer, artist, political figure or scientist, but she has the notoriety of all these things combined. Her notoriety started because of a sex tape, but no one talks about that anymore: now she is a name and she puts that name on stuff to make money. That’s the post-modern version of Undine: blissfully unaware of her vacuousness and vulgarity, and concerned solely with being the talk of the town. I guess that makes me part of the old guard like the Dagonet because not only do I see no value in this sort of lifestyle and behavior, but it also makes me kind of sick to my stomach. Of well. Back to the book!

My heart broke for Undine’s first husband Ralph, who had a very genuine affection for her, despite a keen awareness of how shallow she is. Some relatives of his have a discussion at some point about how Undine behaves the way “normal” American women do and that Ralph is unhappy with her because he’s abnormally romantic and has non-American expectations about marriage. That the expectations people have about their marriage and partners are unclear, never discussed and that everyone ends up frustrated and cheating on each other relentlessly has clearly been a problem for a long, long time… As said above, the feeling that I was reading a story that could be happening right now never really left me as I read “Custom of the Country”, and it made me ever so slightly uncomfortable.

Undine reminded me of Emma Bovary, who was not half the social climber Miss Spragg is (possibly because Emma lacks the callousness), but who also wanted it all and failed to understand why that was not always possible. Undine is a typically American girl though, and she will let nothing come between herself and what she wants: people and material positions are just means to an end in her eyes, but this ruthlessness comes from a strangely innocent place. She does not mean to trick anyone, but she can’t understand what the big freaking deal is. That being said, I don’t think the comparison to Becky Sharpe is really accurate, because Becky is a mean piece of work with a calculating brain who never makes a move until she is certain it will land her where she wants. Undine is more like a magpie: she sees a shiny object, goes for it and never notices the mess she makes in the process.

If you are looking for a subtle, insightful, intelligent but not-too-heavy novel, this is a fantastic little book about social mobility, the New York society of the Gilded Age and their strange unwritten rules and ideas. I’m not sure I’d call this book straight up feminist, because Wharton’s aim was not to get political about the restrictions on women’s lives that led to situations like those she described. But she was an incredible observer of human nature who had the chance to meet people from all social strata and grew up immensely privileged herself; she must have met her fair share of women not unlike Undine. She created one of the most memorable characters I have come across in a long time: love or hate her, Miss Spragg will not leave you indifferent. 3 ½ stars rounded to 4, because while it gave me major eye-rolling induced headaches, the writing is as lovely as expected from Wharton.

Undine Spragg! You are spectacularly named! You are also difficult and horrible and pitiful! And also so complex and fun to read about! "She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them."

God, I love Edith Wharton.

Frankly this could also be titled American Psycho.

"Las costumbres nacionales" es una novela cuya temática me recuerda a escritores realistas como Stendhal, Balzac, y Maupassant pues la historia se centra en un personaje arribista capaz de hacer cualquier cosa por ascender socialmente. En cierto modo la escritora estadounidense Edith Wharton logró crear una versión femenina moderna y americana de "Naná" el clásico de Emile Zola. Cabe señalar que todas estas referencias literarias son francesas y decimonónicas, y aún así, Wharton es capaz de distinguirse imprimiendo en su historia un sello americano y decididamente actual.

Con aire visionario la escritora vislumbra el futuro dominado por el comercio, el dólar y la imagen personal que hoy vivimos. La novela se escribió en 1913 poco antes del estallido de la primera guerra mundial, momento histórico en el que las monarquías se suprimen para abrir paso a los nuevos protagonistas de la vida social: los potentados industriales. La obra sugiere que estos nuevos magnates habrían utilizado a la vieja aristocracia como trampolín, y una vez que los miraron desde arriba comenzaron su desplazamiento. Por supuesto, esos potentados requieren de mujeres tan audaces como Undine Spraggs la dominante protagonista de esta historia cuyos únicos valores y afectos son lo frívolo y lo material.

De igual manera, Edith Wharton vislumbró el modelo de mujer que pretende imponerse en la actualidad: una socialité egocéntrica, obsesionada con la imagen los lujos y las excentricidades; incapaz de efectuar un razonamiento profundo, incapaz de entender el arte e incapaz de sentir empatía por sus semejantes. Sus intentos para pasar por entendida de la actualidad, la filantropía y el arte, siempre fracasan. A pesar de ello, la protagonista posee una sensación de autosuficiencia tal que no le interesa siquiera simular decencia. Tradicionalmente las antiguas princesas y duquesas atendían a la necesidad de practicar o fingir la práctica de las virtudes morales. En cambio Undine Spraggs no necesita ni entiende el por qué tendría que practicar tales virtudes, pues ella es joven, rica; y por encima de todo, es americana.

La protagonista:

El personaje principal personifica un retrato a la frivolidad con todas sus letras. Se trata de una muchacha de origen pueblerino que recibe una educación demasiado permisiva y en consecuencia cree merecerlo todo. Su personalidad es tan egoísta que exige la satisfacción de sus caprichos sin importar que estos perjudiquen a los seres que le rodean. Su deseo por figurar por satisfacer su vanidad y su apetito consumista es insaciable. Por lo tanto, para ella es imprescindible ubicarse en los escalones más altos.

Undine es la compañera perfecta para un magnate machista puesto que sexualmente es muy atractiva; el trofeo ideal para ser exhibido. Además no se entromete en el camino del varón dejando sus negocios en paz y ocupando su capacidad intelectual (que en este caso es muy poca) en reunir todos los medios posibles para brillar socialmente. Para Undine el sexo tiene un papel secundario. por lo tanto puede darse el lujo de entregarlo indiscriminadamente, si a cambio obtiene los medios que necesita para imponerse en sociedad. Oficialmente lo de esta mujer no es prostitución pero en la práctica pareciera serlo. En Undine Spraggs lo emocional está atrofiado. Sus ojos están demasiado puestos en la superficie, de tal suerte que jamás mirará hacia su interior. El único amor que es capaz de dar es el amor por el lujo y el despilfarro.

Lo que Undine desea es la admiración aduladora y la envidia de las que le rodean. Cuando ve que otra mujer de su posición obtiene un bien o una conexión social que le pone en desventaja, lo toma como una afrenta que indudablemente debe vengar. Su especialidad es el capricho manipulador; sus maneras infantiles hacen que su profunda maldad parezca inocente. No reconoce sus faltas porque se niega a verlas. de esa manera imagina mantenerse moralmente pura. Undine no es una mujer fatal en el sentido tradicional de la expresión ni una viuda negra que cometa fechorías con alevosía y ventaja. El personaje es simplemente un ser vacío e ignorante que no sabe actuar de manera distinta a la que le impone la sociedad consumista.

A pesar de la banalidad de la protagonista esta historia no es superficial en lo absoluto. Por el contrario, desarrolla cuestionamientos muy profundos. Por ejemplo, existe un capítulo en el cual los personajes comparan la decadencia de la sociedad neoyorquina, con el colonialismo americano. El señor Bowen, (pariente del segundo marido de Undine) considera que las clases altas asentadas desde hace mucho tiempo en Nueva York, vendrían siendo una especie de pueblos originarios de Norteamérica; mientras que la agresiva burguesía arribista, recién llegada a la ciudad, serían los invasores colonialistas. En este sentido el matrimonio de su distinguido sobrino Ralph con la recién llegada Undine representa la incómoda convivencia entre ambos grupos.

El título de la novela.

El titulo de "Las costumbres nacionales" se refiere a los agresivos usos de la burguesía americana que para inicios del siglo XX ya era lo suficientemente poderosa para confrontar a la rancia nobleza europea. Tales costumbres son la fiesta continua, el consumo indiscriminado, el arribismo descarado, el divorcio sucesivo, y la constante caza de la coyuntura; es decir la gran oportunidad que les catapultará a la cima. No hace falta hacer notar que éstas costumbres perduran hasta la actualidad y que no son exclusivamente estadounidenses. Pareciera que consumir y medrar son los deportes favoritos de la sociedad moderna.

Sin embargo, el verdadero significado del título se explica en uno de los capítulos del libro. La consigna es mantener a la mujer marginada del ámbito de los negocios y la mejor manera de lograrlo es colmándola de bienes materiales y habituándola al barril sin fondo de las compras y las frivolidades. De esa manera, los hombres de negocios evitan que sus esposas se empoderen y se ahorran el involucrase emocionalmente, impidiendo que las debilidades del varón queden en evidencia. La comunicación el amor y el sexo se sustituyen por las compras y los triunfos sociales, así el hombre de negocios se mantendrá a distancia, y podrá darse sus gustos, siempre y cuando, tenga satisfecho el apetito consumista de su mujer. La moderna banalidad femenina se tolera y se fomenta en las altas esferas, porque en el fondo funciona como un método para refrendar el dominio patriarcal.

Con esta perspectiva, los actos de corrupción pasan desapercibidos a ojos de Undine. Son cosas de la política y los negocios; cosas que a ella no le interesan. Lo que le interesa es deslumbrar en sociedad y para lograrlo el varón debe proporcionarle todo lo que necesite.

La estructura y el estilo de narración:

Esta obra literaria se encuentra dividida en cinco libros. con un total de 456 páginas, pero en ella no hay nada que sobre. La historia puede parecer un tanto parsimoniosa porque la escritora profundiza de manera prolífica en la psicología de los personajes. No obstante, el estilo es limpio y extremadamente pulido. La prosa mantiene un ritmo poético casi musical. Leer a Edith Wharton es un asunto repleto de fluidez y en esta fina degustación mucho tiene que ver la traductora, Catalina Martínez Muñoz pues su trabajo es excelente. Con todos estos elementos podemos decir que «Las costumbres nacionales» es una novela cercana a la perfección.

Ahora hablemos de la característica más importante: en la época en que esta historia fue escrita, ya había sido superado el estilo de narrador omnisciente en tercera persona; un narrador casi divino que lo sabía todo y que juzgaba moralmente las acciones de los personajes. Pues bien, el tipo de narrador presente en «Las costumbres nacionales» no hace juicios morales. Por el contrario, parece adecuarse a la perspectiva perversa de la protagonista guardando silencio en torno a sus comportamientos más abyectos. De tal suerte que los lectores inexpertos (y los poco escrupulosos) podrían confundir el sentido de la obra y considerar a la protagonista como modelo a seguir. ¿Si en ningún momento el narrador afirma que Undine haga nada reprobable, entonces significaría que no existe maldad y que su comportamiento audaz sería digno de ser imitado? Ciertamente para leer literatura se necesita de buen criterio,

En efecto, Edith Wharton esperaba que el lector inteligente notara su ironía. Desafortunadamente la poca cultura lectora de nuestros días (y la persistencia de los valores materialistas que tanto se señalan en esta novela) podría hacernos pensar que Undíne Spraggs es el gran dechado; la gran socialite famosa y triunfadora de su tiempo. Yo espero que la serie televisiva dirigida por Sofía Cóppola y protagonizada por Scarlett Johansson, sea capaz de interpretar correctamente al personaje.

Conclusiones:

La idea principal, es que el lujo la codicia y el protagonismo social son un barril sin fondo; nunca es suficiente lo que se consigue. Sin embargo, «Las costumbres nacionales» no es un libro de moralejas y en ese sentido el desenlace resulta inquietante pues sugiere que al aproximarse el ocaso de su belleza Undine podría adoptar nuevos métodos para medrar. Las hazañas de la protagonista podrían haber continuado en un segundo volumen.

Si Paris fue para Balzac, Zola, Stendhal y Maupassant la ciudad de los arribistas y las trepadoras, ahora Wharton propone a Nueva York como la sede emergente. El medroso personaje balzaquiano evoluciona de manera notoria en esta literatura (o mejor dicho se degenera). La codicia y la lujuria eran los motores que movían a legendarios personajes de ficción como Julien Sorel o Eugene De Rastignac. En cambio, a la protagonista de «Las costumbres nacionales» la moverán motivos más estúpidos como el ansia de ser vista y el deseo de imitar. No hay duda de que en esta psicología existe un complejo de inferioridad bastante marcado, lo que sugiere que esos figurines mediáticos que actualmente deslumbran a las masas son en realidad gente muy insegura que necesita de la adulación y los reflectores, para olvidarse de su insignificancia.

En la búsqueda de la fama y el triunfo social siempre encontraremos una especie de trampa: alguien marca arbitrariamente una pauta dictando qué es lo más exótico, lo más exclusivo y lo más deseado. De igual manera, alguien marca los limites de un círculo exclusivo al que sólo los más ricos y los más audaces podrían ingresar. Y aunque dicha pauta (ya sea una conducta, una moda o una excentricidad) sea en el fondo una verdadera tontería o una abominación infame, los arribistas siempre morderán el anzuelo y pagarán lo que sea con tal de pertenecer al círculo dorado de los pudientes y experimentar la bagatela. Tan sólo por conocer y profundizar en ese mecanismo vale la pena leer este libro, y seguir atendiendo la sorprendente literatura de Edith Wharton.

One of the most terrible female character I've met in literature; compared to her Becky Sharp is a novice!!!!

Undine Spragg is one of literature’s great anti-heroines. She’s beautiful, spoiled, vain, selfish, shallow, materialistic, and vindictive—Daisy Miller’s evil doppelganger. A shameless, nouveau riche social climber, Undine out-Scarlett’s Scarlett, and there’s no Rhett Butler to tell her he doesn’t give a damn. In Undine’s world men—fathers, husbands, lovers—exist to make money to buy things to keep Undine happy. Her only child, a son confused by his series of fathers, is at worst an inconvenience, at best something of minor interest, like a new dress or a stick of furniture. Yet it does credit to Edith Wharton that she could make Undine sympathetic, to the point where I found myself rooting for her. In that respect, she at times seemed like Frankenstein’s monster running from a mob of crazed, torch and pitchfork wielding villagers.

I suppose if Undine had lived in 2012 rather than 1912, she would have been a Reality TV star, a no-talent “celebrity” with thousands (or perhaps millions?) of followers on Facebook and Twitter. That makes her very relevant and interesting as a character. And Wharton tells Undine’s story in elegant, polished, yet very readable prose that puts the reader squarely into Undine’s New York/Paris glitterati world. The Custom of the Country is one of the great novels of the early twentieth century, and very much worthwhile reading today.

Here is a summary of the book: young, pretty girl who's never satisfied constantly making terrible choices that ruin her life.

That's literally it.

It was fashionable at one time to send rich American girls who had everything over to Europe in order to acquire a title from an impoverished aristocrat who was none too fussy about his bride so long as she came with a very generous papa. Some of them, like the extremely despicable Lady Rose Astor How else can one describe a racist, anti-semitic bff of Henry Ford and other Nazi sympathisers? really became part of their adoptive country and others, like our heroine, Undine Spragg didn't.

Undine wasn't top-drawer wealthy to begin with, only middling, and she had a past, but that didn't stop her pursuit of wealth, haute couture, a sparkling social life and compliments. She came from Apex and you might think reached her apex on marrying a French Marquis and gaining a title and a historic palace, but no, he wasn't rich enough for her. And so displaying all the worst characteristics of an American (as described by the Marquis - shallow, no feeling for history or art, everything is valued according to its monetary worth and has to be new) she tries to sell, or persuade the Marquis to sell, tapestries given by Louis IVX to his family. In doing so she meets her first husband again, now a billionaire, and so a quickie divorce at midnight is arranged with a wedding minutes later, and she is happy as happy could be. All that money!

Her husband, provider of this unlimited largesse, lives if not to regret it, at least to make the best of it, which is more than can be said for her second husband, father of her only child. He shot himself. The husband pals up to this child, whom Undine scarcely knows and cares even less about. The husband knows that if he had no money, he too would not bask in her affections but be subject to the same cold, brittle light Undine regards her son with and determines to do his best for the boy.

It's quite a brilliant book, related closely to the French genre of beautiful women and the machinations they get up to in pursuit of wealth. But the French are moralistic and the woman always gets her comeuppance, whether it be the pox, age, or the mirror on the wall keeps telling her there are younger beauties that men will pay top dollar for, not old whores past their sell-by date. Edith Wharton being an American does not feel the need for this sort of ending. Her heroine, nasty as she is has achieved the American dream of social-climbing and wealth - anyone can get to the top. And there she leaves her narcissistic billionairess.

Well-written, and very enjoyable. The only flaw for me was the headlong drive for money and social domination was not tempered by any softness or virtues in the heroine. She lacked humanity. You couldn't identify with her as you could with, say, Madame Bovary

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton tells the story of Undine Spragg who moves from the midwestern United States to New York, and then on to Paris. Undine is spoiled beyond belief, but she is fascinating in her own way, and this story of her move up the rungs of the ladder of society through her 3 marriages is very entertaining.

It is easy to write off Undine as simply a spoiled, hateful, hurtful, and very selfish person, but the part I admire about her character is that she wants what she wants, and is determined to get it, no matter what she has to do. Is having a strong, unshakable sense of oneself necessarily a bad thing?

Her three husbands as characters in the story each provide her an insight into what she wants and doesn’t want in her life, and the progression and change in Undine throughout the novel is very satisfying. Does she get what she deserves in the end?

The scenes and settings in this novel (as in all the Edith Wharton novels that I’ve read) are really great. Wharton did such a wonderful job in this book of not just telling but also showing her readers by illustrating the sights, sounds, and even the smells and feelings of her settings.

The title of this book is perfect in the varying customs that Undine is placed in and has to adjust to, from New York society, to Paris and Europe, and even back in her old hometown of Apex City. The varietal societies and customs turn into an education for Undine, and she traverses all of them with that unerring sense of self that she possesses.

So all in all, The Custom of the Country is a not to be missed novel of fans of Edith Wharton’s books. My favorite of her novels is House of Mirth, but this one is definitely worthwhile and very enjoyable.

Matt