This book contains two novellas about unrequited love. One, Ethan From, takes place in the Winter and tackles the icy factor of a loveless marriage (while pining for another). The second, Summer, takes place (obviously) in the Summer and is decidedly more sultry, although still about a loveless marriage, and sacrifice, and compromise.

I.I have re read her books,they are in my comfort zone just love her writing style,its very poetic and her stories stay with you,,

Allow me to begin this review with an admission:
I
hate
adultery.
When I read Madame Bovary, I was like, "Die!"
When I read Anna Karenina, I was like, "Die!"
King David: "Die!"
The man whose family I used to babysit for when I was a teenager: "Die!"
There is nowhere in any universe, in any poetry, fiction, or prose, where I find adultery to be justified.
I despise it.
[Okay, perhaps, wanting people to die when they commit adultery is a bit harsh, there is just no other idea, literal or figurative, which encompasses my feelings regarding perpetrators of this most heinous trust-destroying love-demolishing act.]
Little did I know that the story, Ethan Frome, was going to delve into this subject matter [though Edith Wharton is not above this topic], and little did I know I would be so devastated for STUPID Ethan, ugh!
A loveless marriage to a harping hysterical woman is dreadful.
I will admit. I wanted Ethan to be able to leave with Mattie and never turn back, but his fate was WORST than death for the adulterous-hearted sensitive souled, Ethan Frome---his consequence was almost too horrific, even for me, a "Die all adulterers" woman, like me.
Edith Wharton is a genius.

By the way, this short story is BEAUTIFULLY written! Delicious prose!

I wasn't a huge fan of Ethan Frome, but I really loved Summer.

Ethan Frome terminé 10 oct 2021

First things first: Skip the Elizabeth Stroud introduction (explanation below).

I think the Harry Potter series has ruined the name Lucius for me. Or am I not the only person who sees that name now and thinks evil?

The love interest in Summer is named Lucius, and while Ms. Wharton could not have know that, several decades after she penned her story, another author would use that name and create a wonderfully memorably bad guy, as a reader, I couldn’t escape the foreboding feeling that Ms. Wharton’s Lucius had to be evil, because, well, Malfoy.

I read the edition of Ethan Frome and Summer that includes an introduction by Elizabeth Stroud. Ms. Stroud is a well-regarded author in her own right, but this is the first time I’ve read any of her work, and I’m cross with her. Was it truly necessary – in the introduction – to give away every plot point? I know. Ethan Frome and Summer are classics. They’ve been out for a long time. But isn’t the point of reissuing classics to introduce them to new readers? As a reader, books lose something when I am not discovering the story for the first time while reading it (my exception for this being Shakespeare and other Elizabethan plays).

I like introductions. I like having a book put into context for me before I read it. But is it necessary to give away an entire book without a spoiler alert? Although I stopped reading the introduction after realizing the extent of the plot summary, so much of both stories was given away that reading them felt repetitive.

I say all of this because it’s difficult for me to give an honest review of these books. I found them overwritten and pandering, but maybe I would feel differently if I hadn’t known what was coming. To me, they both read like a rich woman (who could escape) toying around with the idea of being poor and stuck in a small town. While there were nice moments, the artifice bothered me. Quasi-recommended.

Pretty interesting.Unusual. Upstate New Yorkers.

Ethan Frome is one of the most memorable novels I've ever read. 5 years on I still reveled in this perfect homage to winter. I haven't read "Summer" yet, because, well, it's February.

I've read that this book has finally been stricken from many high school reading lists. Huzzah! No more teens tortured by this turd of a tome.

Before starting these two novels in one, I was sure that I would find them passé and boring. Once again, I was wrong! I thoroughly enjoyed Edith Wharton's writing ... it was compelling to say the least. Her character's faults and strengths appeal to the modern reader because we all have those same urges and we all experience those same failures. Time and place have little to do with human emotion and human nature. This is why Edith Wharton's writing is timeless..

Ethan Frome never gets dull...must be the fourth or fifth time through. And Summer is amazing...haven't read it since grad school ~1991. Good stuff.

These two stories are bundled together as one book, which I think makes a lot of sense. To me, both stories are quite similar.

In both stories, the central character is doomed to live a stark New England life. Both characters' lives are restricted by a conspiracy of social custom wielded by their family members:
- Ethan Frome could never leave his chronically ill wife Zeena, because, what would everyone else think?
- Charity cannot leave Mr. Royall, because, where else does she have to go?
It does not matter that both Zeena and Mr. Royall are some of THE most insufferable characters ever because, in the end, Ethan and Charity must stay true to them.

I generally enjoyed these books, my only gripe being that for how short they were, the stories did not move along swiftyl (maybe this is not the book's problem, but my own, it could be that I am actually getting worse at reading). What I really liked about these stories were their prose. It really stuck out to me, especially in passages describing nature. Some of my favorites:

From Ethan Frome:

"They drove slowly up the road between fields glistening under the pale sun, and then bent to the right down a lane edged with spruce and larch. Ahead of them, a long way off, a range of hills stained by mottlings of black forest flowed away in round white curves against the sky. The lane passed into a pine-wood with boles reddening in the afternoon sun and delicate blue shadows on the snow. As they entered it the breeze fell and a warm stillness seemed to drop from the branches with the dropping needles. Here the snow was so pure that the tiny tracks of wood-animals had left on it intricate lace-like patterns, and the bluish cones caught in its surface stood out like ornaments of bronze." Page 83.

From Summer:

"The nights were cold, with a dry glitter of stars so high up that they seemed smaller and more vivid. Sometimes, as Charity lay sleepless on her bed through the long hours, she felt as though she were bound to those wheeling fires and swinging with them around the great black vault." Pages 208-209.

"Through the small square of glass in the opposite wall Charity saw a deep funnel of sky, so black, so remote, so palpitating with frosty stars that her very soul seemed to be sucked into it." Page 228.