Rating: 4.5* of five

The Book Report: Society marriages and mores of 1870s New York. Very beautifully constructed. Pusillanimous young lawyer marries frail, fainting flower with a rod of steel up her backside, falls in love with her cousin, and no one gets away happy.

My Review: I've always said mixed marriages don't work. Expecting someone not like you in fundamental, crucial ways to "get" you, to support you, to really be there for you, is not a good bet. Men do not need to be marrying women. Throughout human history, the basic dumbness of the idea has kept all societies of hunter-gatherers from engaging in this horrible, painful, and absurd custom.

We abandon the wisdom of our elders at our peril. Wharton reminds us of why this is so.

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“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”
― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence



A masterpiece of literary construction. There doesn't seem to be a word, sentence, or page out of place. At its core, 'The Age of Innocence' is story that shows the strength and the orchestrated customs and mores of social upper-class society of the 1870s, but also shows its narrowness, its contradictions, and its inflexibility. Inserted into this setting is a frustrated love story (almost a love triangle). It is the this frustration that illuminates the tensions between the coming modern age and the Victorian society that is united in its desire to keep the world from spinning forward and apart.

I've recently seen a lot of this at churches I've visited and attended. There is this conservative and real need to protect what is considered essential and sacred, but the modern world thrusts all sorts of modern problems and challenges in the way. This happens every couple of generations. People and institutions can either deal with the chaos and disorganization (and beauty) of change or they can hide behind rituals and and a false-front that pretends that "all is well" as their world quickly erodes underneath them and they get left behind.

Edith Wharton's novel is beautiful and a classic, but it is also timeless because she perfectly captures the emotions and the contradictions that exist in this type of change, this tension as one age dies and another is born.

Νεαρός δικηγόρος που ενώ το κωλοβαράει στο γραφείο, έχει χρήματα για Όπερες, ταξίδια σε εξοχικά και σε άλλες πόλεις (και μιλάμε για το 1870), και πούρα (βέβαια γλυτώνει λεφτά γιατί ζει με την μάνα του και την γεροντοκόρη αδερφή του). Μια υπόθεση διαζυγίου του έτυχε και η μοναδική δουλειά που του ανέθεσαν ήταν να πείσει την ενάγουσα να ΜΗΝ ασκήσει αγωγή διαζυγίου. Αααα, ήταν να πάει και στην Ουάσιγκτον στον Άρειο Πάγο για μια υπόθεση με πατέντες (ποιον Άρειο Πάγο μωρή μεταφράστρια, σιγά μην πάει και στο Εφετείο Βορείου Αιγαίου) αλλά τελικά η υπόθεση αναβλήθηκε , γκαντεμιά, στην πραγματικότητα ήθελε να δει την ξαδέρφη (βλ. παρακάτω). Είναι διχασμένος ο δυστυχής ανάμεσα στην αγάπη του για την νεαρή παρθένα από καλή οικογένεια και τον έρωτα του για την ξαδέρφη της, άρτι αφιχθείσα από την εξωτική Ευρώπη, που έχει λίγο πολύ την φήμη της τσούλας γιατί, άκουσον άκουσον, άφησε τον άντρα της τον Κόμη που παρά τα οικόσημα και τα μπιζού την κακομεταχειρίζονταν.
Άρχισε από ένα 5αρι, πέρασε από 4αρι, φλέρταρε λίιιγο με το 3αρι, αλλά αυτό το τέλος μου μάτωσε την καρδιά (αν είχα), και δεν μπορώ παρά να δώσω 5αρι, εδώ 4αρι έχω δώσει σε άλλες φουρλούκες. Δεν μπορούν λέει οι αναγνώστες του Goodreads να διαβάζουν για φορέματα και για περιγραφές των δείπνων, βαριούνται. Αν και καταλαβαίνω τι εννοούν, ένα έχω να σας πω : Η Ίντιθ Γουόρντον δεν είναι για λινάτσες, είναι για αρχόντους, για πρίγκιπες. ΟΛΗ η σημασία του μυθιστορήματος είναι ακριβώς αυτά τα φουστάνια (που έλεγε και η Ειρήνη Χαρίτου όταν διάβαζε τις Τρεις Αδερφές) με τους κορσέδες που έπνιγαν την καθώς πρέπει κοινωνία της "παλιάς" Νέας Υόρκης. Πώς μια γυναίκα ήταν απόβλητη γιατί είχε ένα ατυχή γάμο (καλά, ίσως και εραστή, όμως ΜΕΤΑ την φυγή της από το σπίτι) αλλά προς Θεού, όχι ένα διαζύγιο. Αληθινά φεμινιστικό βιβλίο (αλλά όχι σαν αυτά τις φεμινάζι στήλης γνωστής αθηναϊκής ιστοσελίδας για bisexual μονόκερους με τίτλους "Μου έκανε mansplaining ο υδραυλικός μου"), πραγματικός φεμινισμός, για την θέση της γυναίκας σε μια κλειστή κοινωνία που εκτιμά ένα καλό χορό , ένα καλό γεύμα, ένα καλό κουτσομπολιό, αλλά οι γυναίκες και οι καλλιτέχνες είναι απόβλητοι : οι γυναίκες τουλάχιστον όχι χωρίς ένα άντρα δίπλα τους ( Και μη ξεχνάμε την φοβερή μητριαρχική φιγούρα της γιαγιάς της νυφούλας που τα ξέρει ΟΛΑ, και να μη σου πω ενθαρρύνει να συνάψει σχέση ο γαμπρός της με την ξαδέρφη. ) Για αυτό και η παρθενόπη σύζυγος με το που γίνεται κυρία Κοκοβίκου έχει το ίδιο μελιστάλαχτο ύφος όταν λέει "Ναι αντρούλη μου, να πας στην δουλειά σου στην Ουάσιγκτον, να δεις και την εξαδέρφη μου" ενώ από μέσα της λέει "ΠΑΛΙ ΣΕ ΑΥΤΗ ΤΗΝ ΤΣΟΥΛΑ ΘΑ ΠΑΣ". Στο μεταξύ αν περιμένετε σεξ, τι σεξ μωρέ, εδώ μετά βίας της ακουμπάει το (γαντοφορεμένο) χέρι (προσωπική άποψη ότι πρέπει να έκαναν σεξ, περάσαν έναν βράδυ μαζί, δεν θα έπαιζαν σκραμπλ, άσχετα αν η συγγραφεύς δεν λέει τίποτα). Εδώ πήγε να την δει, την είδε από πίσω, και δεν της μίλησε, έμπαινε μωρέ μαλάκα. Και όλο αυτό το γαϊτανάκι πρέπει να κρατάει γύρω στα 4 (;) χρόνια, μια έτσι, μια γιουβέτσι, και τα διλήμματα σωρό.
Fast forward 30 χρόνια μετά , ο ήρωας είναι πια 57 χρονών και η (παλιά) Νεα Υορκη (και ο κόσμος) έχει αλλάξει...
Αυτό είναι Τα Χρόνια της Αθωότητας : ένας κόσμος που πέθανε ενώ στροβιλίζονταν κάτω από τα καλά του ρούχα...
ΥΓ : πρέπει να δω την ταινία του Σκορσέζε (αν και δεν μου φαίνεται καθόλου για ταινία Σκορσέζε).
ΥΓ2 : έχω κάνει ρεφερανς σε Τρεις Χαριτες, Κωνσταντινου και Ελενης , Η δε γυνή να φοβήται τον άντρα , και κύριο Αυγολέμονο. Beat that.

(Book 726 from 1001 books) - The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by the American author Edith Wharton. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize.

The story is set in the 1870's, in upper-class, "Gilded-Age" New York City. Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland.

Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic and beautiful 30-year-old cousin. Ellen has returned to New York from Europe after scandalously separating herself (per rumor) from a bad marriage to a Polish count.

At first, Ellen's arrival and its potential taint on the reputation of his bride-to-be's family disturb Newland, but he becomes intrigued by the worldly Ellen, who flouts New York society's fastidious rules.

As Newland's admiration for the countess grows, so does his doubt about marrying May, a perfect product of Old New York society; his match with May no longer seems the ideal fate he had imagined. ...

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «عصر بیگناهی»؛ «عصر معصومیت»؛ نویسنده: ادیت وارتون ؛ انتشاراتیها (جار؛ فاخته؛ سخن، نشر نخستین، نقد افکار)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز هفدهم ماه نوامبر سال1995میلادی

عنوان: عصر بیگناهی؛ نویسنده: ادیت وارتون؛ مترجم: مینو مشیری؛ تهران، فاخته، سال1373؛ در389ص؛ چاپ چهارم سال1378؛ شابک9644304591؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: عصر بیگناهی؛ نویسنده: ادیت وارتون؛ مترجم: پرتو اشراق؛ تهران، جار، سال1373؛ در319ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نشر نخستین، سال1378؛ در4ص و319ص؛ شابک9646716296؛ باعنوان عصر معصومیت؛ تهران، نقد افکار، سال1389؛ در400ص؛ شابک9789642280803؛

اگر داستان را نخوانده اید شاید این نوشتار داستان را لو میدهد هشدار میدهم

ادیت وارتون، نخستین زنی بودند که جایزه ی «پولیتزر» را دریافت کردند، چکیده داستان: «نیولند ارچر»، در اپرا «کنتس الن النسکا» دختر عمه نامزدش «می» را دیدار می‌کند؛ «الن» به دلیل جدایی از کنت ثروتمند، و فرارش به همراه منشی کنت، و تمایلش به مقابله با عرف جامعه، خودش را بر سر زبانها انداخته است؛ در همین حال، «نیولند» به «می»، که دختری زیبا، ولی فاقد قوه تخیل و ساده است، پیشنهاد می‌دهد، که هرچه زودتر با وی ازدواج کند؛ دختر تقاضایش ر�� رد می‌کند، و با اصرار در مورد روابط دیگر وی، پرسش می‌کند؛ «الن» برای مشاوره گرفتن در مورد طلاق احتمالی خود، به دفتر حقوقی «آرچر» مراجعه می‌کند؛ «آرچر» با خانواده «الن» موافق است، که رسوایی ناشی از این امر، خطر بسیار بزرگی است، و خود «الن» نیز با این موضوع موافق است؛ «الن» فرار می‌کند، و از «آرچر» می‌خواهد که به دنبال او بیاید، «ارچر» فکر می‌کند که شوهر «الن» در تعقیب اوست، اما در واقع کسی که آنها را تعقیب می‌کند «بئوفرت» است، بانکداری که به سختی با نیویورکی‌ها کنار می‌آید، و به داشتن معشوقه زیاد مشهور است؛ «ارچر» که در شور و هیجانات «الن» گرفتار شده، تصمیم می‌گیرد نامزدی خود را به هم بزند؛ اما پیغامی از «می» می‌رسد، مبنی بر این که والدین خود را متقاعد کرده، که تاریخ ازدواجشان را جلو بیاندازند؛ پس از ازدواج، «ارچر» و «می» به مسافرت سه ماهه‌ ای می‌روند، و در این میان با افراد زیادی، منجمله «ریویر» که یک معلم سرخانه «فرانسوی» است؛ دیدار می‌کنند؛ پس از آن آنها تابستان را در «نیو پورت» می‌گذرانند، و «می» در آنجا جایزه ی مسابقه تیراندازی با کمان را می‌برد؛ «ارچر» که هنوز هم مفتون «الن» است، هر بار بهانه‌ ای می‌آورد، تا بتواند او را ببیند، حتی پس از اینکه «الن» شهر را ترک می‌کند؛ «ارچر» میفهمد که «ریویر» - همان منشی، که «الن» همراه او از پیش شوهرش فرار کرده است - پیغامی برای «الن» آورده است، که در آن کنت خواستار بازگشت «الن» شده است؛ اما «ریویر»، به «ارچر» اصرار می‌کند که «الن» را از بازگشت به «لهستان» باز دارد؛ پس از حمله قلبی «کاترین مینگوت»، «الن» موافقت می‌کند، که برای زندگی با وی به پیش او بیاید؛ «ارچر» همچنان امیدوار است؛ سپس «می» به «ارچر» می‌گوید که «الن» تصمیم گرفته، به اروپا بازگردد، اما نه پیش شوهرش؛ پس از میهمانی خداحافظی «الن»، «می» رازی را فاش می‌کند، که او چندین روز قبل، به «الن» گفته بود، و اکنون نیز او فقط به شوهرش اطلاع می‌دهد: او حامله است؛ اکنون در پایان وقایع، با «ارچر» از طرف خانواده‌ اش بعنوان فردی ولخرج، که به سمت خانواده‌ اش بازگشته رفتار می‌شود؛ دهه‌ ها می‌گذرد و «ارچر» که اکنون همسرش درگذشته است، و در زمینه سیاست‌های آزادیخواهانه، فردی فعال و محترم است، بخاطر وعده‌ ای که به پسر خود «دالاس» داده است، به «پاریس» سفر می‌کند؛ پس از آنکه «دالاس» به پدر خود می‌گوید، که او از همه چیز درباره «الن النسکا» اطلاع یافته است، آنها تصمیم می‌گیرند، که از آپارتمان «الن» دیدن کنند؛ اما «ارچر» تصمیم می‌گیرد، که دورادور روی نیمکت پارک بنشیند، و «دالاس» را، برای ادای احترام بفرستد؛ «ارچر» به نوری که از آپارتمان «الن» بیرون زده نگاه می‌کند، و سپس تنها و به آرامی و قدم زنان به سمت هتل می‌رود

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 21/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 06/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

n  

‘The longing was with him day and night, an incessant undefinable craving, like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink once tasted and long since forgotten. He could not see beyond the craving, or picture what it might lead to, for he was not conscious of any wish to speak to Madame Olenska or to hear her voice. He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.’

n
There was never getting away from their circumstances for Newland and Ellen, the protagonists of The Age of Innocence. As I weep for them and their unrequited love, I realized it was not meant to be. Edith Wharton depicts masterfully New York’s traditions and judgmental airs, which were from the start against them. This elite group within which they existed had very rigid rules of behavior, social rituals, fashion, and clear censures for those that violated them. There is a clear hypocrisy in their life that existed behind their conservative moral exterior.
n  

"In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs."

n
As I started reading Edith Wharton’s crisp prose and witty dialogues, I got to know Newland Archer, May Welland and Ellen, Countess Olenska. What was inescapable from the outset is that they were a product of New York society of their time.

As Newland meets Countess Olenska, he is not prepared for her worldly persona. Thus it is that May and Newland make their engagement public right away, to ease the acceptance of Ellen into their social pack. May is considered the perfect model of what a young wife should be: young, beautiful, soft, obedient, pliant, conventional, and with no opinions on anything of importance. We would consider her boring, but those were different times.

Newland starts out pretty much the same; he's a young lawyer, used to his luxurious and idle style of living; all in accord with the strict rules of society. Yes, both are good persons with many amiable qualities, but they simply are not exceptional. They were clearly not in love, just following rituals that defined that a young man should marry a nice girl with a good family. ’There was no better match in New York than May Welland, look at the question from what point you choose. Of course such a marriage was only what Newland was entitled to…’

Newland and Ellen’s love story is nevertheless magnificent because it is the changes and character growth of both lovers that make it endearing and wonderful. When we first meet Newland Archer he could not have been more in tune with New York society’s status quo:
n  

But Newland Archer was too imaginative not to feel that, in his case and May's, the tie might gall for reasons far less gross and palpable. What could he and she really know of each other, since it was his duty, as a "decent" fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal?

n
If Newland Archer seems indecisive and hesitant, it's in part because he is conflicted with his values and desires. He even starts defending new ideas, ”Women ought to be free – as free as we are” Nevertheless, it is easy to note how typical Newland Archer was when we first meet him, how judgmental, how hypocritical:
n  

There was nothing mean or ungenerous in the young man’s heart, and he was glad that his future wife should be restrained by false prudery from being kind (in private) to her unhappy cousin; but to receive Countess Olenska in the family circle was a different thing from producing her in public, at the Opera of all places, and in the very box with the young girl whose engagement to him, Newland Archer, was to be announced in a few weeks. No, he felt as old Sillerton Jackson felt; he did not think the Mingotts would have tried it on!

n
Could he have been more traditional? ’He hated to think of May Welland's being exposed to the influence of a young woman so careless of the dictates of Taste.’ Yes, in the beginning, he hated the idea of his innocent fiancé being contaminated by the worldly Countess.

Nevertheless, Newland's careful and predictable world is flipped completely upside down when he meets and really gets to know the intriguing and intrepid Countess Olenska. As the plot moves on, we discovered all is not as we first envisioned. Newland is changing as he falls deeper in love with Ellen. He soon starts to show signs of rebelling against his previous ideals, begins transforming himself. A conversation with Ellen’s grandmother and family matriarch is particularly revealing:
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"Poor Ellen—she was always a wayward child. I wonder what her fate will be?"

"What we've all contrived to make it," he felt like answering. "If you'd all of you rather she should be Beaufort's mistress than some decent fellow's wife you've certainly gone the right way about it."

n
But his transformation is not fast or deep enough, he is not able to entirely free himself from the constraints imposed on him by society and his own upbringing. He is not courageous enough?, you might ask. ‘His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen.’ But there is much more at play here. He soon realizes how restrictive his marriage was, how loveless and lonely his life would be:
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’There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that May's only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration.’

n
And much more,
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’He perceived with a flash of chilling insight that in the future many problems would be thus negatively solved for him; nut as he paid the hansom and followed his wife …he took refuge in the comforting platitude that the first six months were always the most difficult in marriage. "After that I suppose we shall have pretty nearly finished rubbing off each other's angles," he reflected; but the worst of it was that May's pressure was already bearing on the very angles whose sharpness he most wanted to keep.’

n

Even after understanding what his marriage would make of his life, he cannot escape.
n  

"Outside it, in the scene of his actual life, he moved with a growing sense of unreality and insufficiency, blundering against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view as an absent-minded man goes on bumping into the furniture of his own room. Absent—that was what he was: so absent from everything most densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes startled him to find they still imagined he was there."

n
He cannot break up from convention, although he dreams of going as far as Japan with Ellen:
n  

"Archer had fancied that his path was clear before him. He had meant to have a word alone with Madame Olenska, and failing that, to learn from her grandmother on what day, and by which train, she was returning to Washington. In that train he intended to join her, and travel with her to Washington, or as much farther as she was willing to go. His own fancy inclined to Japan."

n
Even if the story is told through Newland’s point of view, we cannot forget how much Ellen suffered. Probably even more than him, since it seems she had no choice:
n  

"Oh, I know—I know! But on condition that they don't hear anything unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in those very words when I tried.... Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!" She lifted her hands to her face, and he saw her thin shoulders shaken by a sob.

n
We also soon discover that May is not so innocent. Although all her fight seems to be enforced to defend her marriage, its survival, and in that she would never change. What she learned with her mother she would repeat in her marriage 'Now she was simply ripening into a copy of her mother, and mysteriously, by the very process, trying to turn him into a Mr. Welland'. No, she was never weak just limited.
n  

"I told her I was afraid I hadn't been fair to her—hadn't always understood how hard it must have been for her here, alone among so many people who were relations and yet strangers; who felt the right to criticise, and yet didn't always know the circumstances." She paused. "I knew you'd been the one friend she could always count on; and I wanted her to know that you and I were the same—in all our feelings."

n
But Newland was still dreaming of breaking away from everything, of being with Ellen. He tells May he needs to get away, but she was ahead of him. Not an innocent at all:
n  

”I want to take a break–“
“A break? To give up law?”
“To go away, at any rate – at once. On a long trip, ever so far off – away from everything–“
He paused, conscious that he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. “Away from everything – “he repeated.
“Ever so far? Where, for instance?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. India – or Japan.”
“As far as that? But I’m afraid you can’t, dear … Not unless you take me with you. …That is, if the doctors let me go …but I’m afraid they won’t. For you see, Newland, I’ve been sure since this morning of something I’ve been longing and hoping for–“
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Only Mama and your mother. …That is – and Ellen. You know I told you we’d had a long talk one afternoon – and how dear she was to me.”
“Ah–“ said Archer, his heart stopping.

n
What I concluded is that Newland might be rebellious while May is until the end tradition itself. This pattern we witness endlessly, and when Newland ponders what their marriage and family life had been like it is all summed so clearly:
n  

‘This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered. Her incapacity to recognize change made her children conceal their views from her as Archer concealed his; there had been, from the first, a joint pretense of sameness, a kind of innocent family hypocrisy, in which father and children had unconsciously collaborated.’

n
For one thing, his life as a man allowed him more freedom even to circumvent social customs for he was not as closely watched. Not that it was easier for him, for he struggles between social conformity and honesty to one's emotions. And not that May would want to change. She was set on her role without any uncertainty.

And often we see him contradict himself. Despite his transformation, we realize he will always be a 19th century man, as we witness him saying things such as “What could he and she really know of each other, since it was his duty, as a "decent" fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal?”, while later he will dream of running away with Ellen.

The essence of Edith Wharton’s novel is whether Newland and Ellen ever had a chance? Not at their time. And Ellen recognizes reality: ”Ah, my poor Newland – I suppose this had to be… You’re engaged to May Welland; and I’m married”. And Newland replied, “It’s too late to do anything else”. To apart mean a return to their old respective life patterns, but to be together would mean going against what they both loved the most in the other. I can't love you unless I give you up. Being together would mean breaking too many rules, hurting loved ones, and carrying a guilt that would ultimately separate them if not physically for certain emotionally.
n  

"But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands—and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before—and it's better than anything I've known."

n
This great work is a bittersweet love story at the mercy of society’s morals and ethics, with conflicting values that prevents them from realizing their most ardent desire to be together. I'd say this is the strong and beautiful point of this classic.
n  

The idea that he could ever, in his senses, have dreamed of marrying Countess Olenska had become almost unthinkable, and she remained in his memory simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts.

n
Even more heartfelt:
n  

The long was with him day and night, an incessant undeniable craving, like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink once tasted and long since forgotten.

n
The characters are forced to adjust and readjust to their changing life, but that is still not enough. At least it was not in their lifetime. The changes they go through are not deep enough to allow them a happy ever after. How painful to live through this changing times; and how dreadful to accept their fate. I can just imagine and suffer for them, and weep for them. Here lies the greatness of The Age of Innocence.

Their fate was to be apart, and so nothing rests for them but to keep their memories intact. It's what we lost and our memories that stay with us. If he had gone up to meet her, it would be another story.
n  

’"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard himself say; and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.’

n
Oh, I have to repeat myself: there is nothing more heartbreaking than unrequited love. So I weep again for them.

---
My first impressions:
n  

“I can't love you unless I give you up.”

nOh, Vessey, I just finished The Age of Innocence! And I have to tell you that the last 10% conquered me. It made it me think that it had to be. They were set on their way before Ellen arrived and Newland and Amy made public their engagement. And I believe it had to end as it did. Suddenly, I discovered it deserved 5 full stars. It's what we lost and our memories that stay with us. If he had gone up to meet her, it would be another story.

I loved how it analyzed his marriage with May, the old costumes that are no more. That hypocritical society that held him down is finally fading. But too late for Ellen and Newland.

Well, it is all still too new to me, and the only thing I can say is that it touched me deeply. Maybe more because of my age, since I know enough of life and remember all that I lost and could never simply be revisited.
n  

"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard himself say; and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.

n
There is nothing more heartbreaking than unrequited love. So I weep for them.
____

A masterpiece.

Newland Archer, a young lawyer, is engaged to be married to May Welland, a sweet but (he soon comes to realize) rather limited girl. Their two families are prominent ones in 1870s Manhattan so everything is as it should be. And then Archer meets Countess Ellen Olenska, a childhood sweetheart and May's cousin, who is back in NYC after fleeing a disastrous marriage in Europe. She is unconventional, beautiful, and shares Newland's interest in art and books. Can you guess what happens?

Wharton knows everything about this Gilded Age world. The prose is subtle and elegant yet so sharply observed; the central characters live and breathe and have a feeling of mystery; the sense of place is vivid; the plotting and structure are tight.

And although it's set 150 years ago, the situations are universal. When the smitten Newland sees Ellen after a long time he exclaims: "Each time you happen to me all over again," which gave me shivers because it sounds so contemporary.

The final chapter, in particular, is a model of economy: decades flash by showing changing mores, and a poignant sense of regret and acceptance suffuses everything. I was sobbing during the final pages.

It took me a while to get used to all the secondary characters and their foibles. And of course not all of that era's NYC population is represented. But there are fascinating insights into class and hierarchy and the role of women in this unique world.

The Age Of Innocence is must reading, especially if you're engaged to be married. I will definitely revisit it and read Wharton's other novels.

دوستانِ گرانقدر، داستان به زبانِ ساده، نابودیِ عشق و از بین رفتنِ روزهایِ خوش، به دلیل برخی از سنت های اشتباه و قوانینِ ساختگی جامعه است.. داستانِ فداکاری و از خودگذشتگی و از دست رفتن آنچه با تمامِ میل به آن دل بسته اید... داستانِ عشق «نیولند آرچر» با «کنتس النسکا» فامیل نامزدش یعنی «می ولاند» است.. کنتس النسکا که ما او را در داستان با نام «الن» میشناسیم، برای جدایی و طلاق از همسرِ ثروتمندش کنت، از اروپا به آمریکا آمده است.. البته به نوعی با منشی همسرش از خانه گریخته و حال مسیرش به آمریکا و خانواده اش منتهی شده است.. نیولند با آنکه دورانِ نامزدی با می را سپری میکند با تمامِ وجود دلدادۀ الن میشود... دلدادگی و عشقی که نیولند نمیتواند آن را در جمع ابراز کند و مجبور است بر خلافِ خواسته و تمایلش به زندگیِ کسالت آور و تکراری با «می ولاند» ادامه دهد
داستان، زندگیِ موجوداتِ عجیبی را نمایش میدهد.. موجوداتی که در تظاهر کردن زندگی میگذرانند.. موجوداتی اشرافی که جز سرک کشیدن به زندگی، خورد و خوراک، خانه و نوعِ پوشش و ازدواج دیگران، کاری ندارند... برایِ این موجودات ظروفِ غذاخوری و تزییناتِ خانه، بیشتر از انسانها و ارزشِ وجودی آنها اهمیت دارد... زندگی کردن با چنین موجوداتی با روش هایِ سنتی و اشرافی، برای کسانی همچون دو شخصیتِ داستان ما یعنی الن و نیولند که زندگیِ شادمانه و مستقلانه را میپسندند، بسیار سخت و دشوار است
نیولند آرچر شخصیتِ اصلی داستان، وکیلی از خانواده ای ثروتمند و با نفوذ در نیویورک آمریکا است که دفترِ حقوقی دارد.. شخصیتی فهمیم و مهربانست و مدافعِ حقوقِ زنان.. مردی که نسبت به اطرافیانِ خویش، از شعور و درکِ بالایی برخوردار است... نیولند به قدری خونگرم و آرامش بخش است که کنتس النسکا یا همان الن، تنها زمانی حس خوشحالی واقعی را درک میکند که زمانش را با نیولند آرچر میگذراند... ولی در سویِ دیگر، نامزدش می ولاند قرار دارد.. دختری سنتی با افکاری سنتی و اشرافی.. دختری که حتی ذره ای تفاهم و شباهت بینِ او و نیولند دیده نمیشود.. طبقه بندیِ این دختر جوان از انسانها و اعضایِ جامعه، به دو بخشِ عامی و اشرافی، تقسیم بندی میشود.. در صورتیکه نیولند به استعدادها، اخلاقیات، هنر و کردارِ انسانها توجه دارد و به آن اهمیت میدهد... الن با شور و دلبری که در وجودش دارد، با نخستین نگاه ها، معنایِ عشق و زندگیِ حقیقی را به نیولند نمایان میسازد، ولی از سویِ دیگر به خاطرِ همان دوستی و عشقی که در دل دارد، نیولند را تشویق به زندگی با شخصی میکند (می) که وجودش از عشق تهی میباشد و تنها دیواره ای از خوشی ها و مهمانی ها و مراسم و روابطِ اشرافی به دورش کشیده شده است
الن، تنها چیزی که نیاز دارد احساسِ امنیت و حمایت است.. چیزی که در خانواده و اطرافیانش درکی از آن وجود ندارد.. نیولند در تلاش است تا مراحلِ طلاق گرفتن از شوهرش کنت را برایش آسان سازد که البته کارِ دشواری است، چراکه در این جامعه، که مردم کاری جز پشتِ هم حرف زدن و سرک کشیدن در زندگیِ دیگران ندارند، طلاقِ یک زن میتواند برایِ جنس زن، آنهم زنی زیبا و معاشرتی همچون الن، آزار دهنده باشد.. هرچه باشد عرفِ یک جامعۀ سنتی این طلاق را نمیپذیرد و باعثِ رنجشِ خاطرِ زنانی همچون الن میشود
خلاصه... با آنکه نیولند، نسبت به احساسی که به می دارد، دچار تردید میشود، ولی به دلیل همان سنتهایِ اشتباه و دست و پاگیر اطرافیان، تصمیم به ازدواج با می میگیرد.. ازدواجی که هیچ شباهتی به زندگی با عشق نداشته و ندارد.. و مجبور میشود ندیدنِ الن را برای مدتها تحمل کند... برای نیولند زندگی بدونِ دیدنِ رویِ الن و شنیدن صدایِ آرامش بخشِ او، بسیار دلگیر و غیرقابل تحمل است.. چقدر میتواند سخت باشد که با کسی زندگی کنید و وقتی او را میبوسید، تنها برایِ ترحم و حتی رفعِ تکلیف باشد، بدون آنکه از آن بوسه لذت ببرید.. نیولند از سویی عاشقِ الن است و برای او اهمیتِ زیادی قائل است و از سویِ دیگر باید خود را فدایِ تعهد به ازدواج با می و روابطِ خانوادگی کند.. الن و نیولند هر دو مجبور هستند تا برایِ حفظ آبرو و فداکاری، از یکدیگر فاصله بگیرند................ عزیزانم بهتر است خودتان این داستان را بخوانید و از سرانجام آن آگاه شوید
---------------------------------------------
امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، مفید بوده باشه
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»

Introduction
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text

--The Age of Innocence

Explanatory Notes

Un té de jazmín. Sí, sé que no tiene nada que ver con esta maravillosa historia, pero es así como la veo: como una taza de aromático té. Sutil. Delicada. Cálida... Y a la misma vez, fría como la hipocresía que se sentaba en los palcos rojos y dorados de la vieja Academia, la noche en la que debutó Madame Nilsson. La misma noche en que Newland Archer volvía a ver a la condesa de Olenska... Una historia que te atrapa y no te deja indiferente; una de esas novelas que se te mete en la piel...

n   “The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”n

I’m not much into romantic stories – I mean how much of ‘Ellen, I love you’ and ‘Newland, it is wrong’ one can bear? More so, love triangles – and why they call it love triangles. Just look at this one – Archer has relations with May and Ellen but the two women do not love each other, so where is the third side of triangle? Shouldn’t it be called love angle or love V? In fact, if you think about it, a love triangle is only possible when at least one of three people is homosexual or bisexual ... well, that is just the kind of thing I wonder about when not working on my paper on quantum mechanics involved in motion of Nitrogen particles in low atmospheric temperatures.

Also, I don’t much like leisure classes; for me they represent half the things that are wrong with the world – they are hypocrites, full of ideas of ‘society’ and ‘common folks’, vain, sinfully rich, are always talking about useless subjects like- other equally boring people, balls, marriages, clothes (clothes! Clothes!), food etc.

The good thing is Wharton doesn’t much like them either.

n  Innocencen

There can be many meanings of the word ‘innocence’. The people of society pretend to have and collectively impose on themselves conformity to standard of an innocence that is more of an ignorance and a willingness to stay the same - “ the innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience!”

But in reality these things come involuntarily; you can’t shut them out when they come; although you can always pretend. And so, almost all characters of 'society' are hypocrites.

n  
n  "“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.” n  
n

May is a typical example – she knows that women are expected to be innocent in above mentioned meaning of the word and so acts naive to affirm to the standard. In affirming to social expectations, she refuses to be honest with her own emotions. The only time she breaks away from social expectations is out of compassion for Ellen and Newland - ’her courage and initiative were all for others, and that she had none for herself’ However, her need for conformity defeats even this exemplary compassion once institution of marriage is thrown into equation.

One other meaning of the word ‘innocence’ is honesty to one’s emotions and ideas – to cry when one feels like crying, to say and do what one thinks is right and not to take society’s dictation. Far few people accomplish that - Ellen is explicitly told not to talk about her emotions. The only people in the novel who are innocent in this later sense are either misfits (Ellen) or from so-called common people (M. Riviere). And that is why I think that the title is ironic.

Newland, the protagonist, is much more rebellious than May. For one thing, his training into matters of social form was not as closely watched; then there was all the sentimental education from novels. He struggles between social conformity and honesty to one's emotions.

And that often makes him contradict himself. Sometimes he is saying saying sexist things like “What could he and she really know of each other, since it was his duty, as a "decent" fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal?” and taking offence because too much of Ellen’s shoulder is visible. At other point he is fighting for women rights. At one point, we are told “Few things seemed to Newland Archer more awful than an offence against "Taste," while later he will want to run away with Ellan.

In the begining, he is revolting in that he argues for equality of sexes but only in as far as he knows his would-be wife won’t be taking those liberties. But really people are like that. A lot of people I know in real life have this NIMBY attitude – they want equality for women but only when that ‘women’ represents distant vague sections of society like people from tv or newspapers – but they lack similar initiative in their family where habit of traditionally available advantages stops them from doing that.

These themes are similar to Lawrence, when compared to his, the psychology of Wharton's characters is more believable and she doesn't preach in as obvious a manner.

In fact, there is alternative way of looking at the novel – Archer’s oscillation between passions and conformity represented in Ellen and May; is a story of many such people; had the novel been written by a man he would have been accused of using May and Ellen as metaphors (especially given how subtly the characters of two women are developed).

n  
"“He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust; and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty.” n

Yes indeedy, what could be more jejune than another early 20th century novelist choosing as her subject the problematic relations between the sexes amongst the idle rich? D H Lawrence and Henry James do the same, the first like a big dog gnawing at a bone and finding something it mistakes for God in the marrow, and the latter in his infinite cheeseparings putting the whole thing into the form of a three-dimensional chess game played by sardonic French subatomic particle physicists who you suspect own little dogs, the kind you want to step on and squish. And many other novelists great and small dance about on the same subject.

Well, Edith Wharton starts off like she is trying to get at something very interesting in The Age of Innocence. Here is the young man contemplating his future marriage:

What could he and she really know of each other, since it was his duty, as a 'decent' fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal? ... He reviewed his friends' marriages - the supposedly happy ones - and saw none that answered, even remotely, to the passionate and tender comradeship which he pictured as his permanent relation with May Welland. He perceived that such a picture presupposed, on her part, the experience, the versatility, the freedom of judgement, which she had been carefully trained not to possess; and with a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were : a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.

Much later the young man sadly muses thus:

There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free

- apart from making you think "how very rude!" this begs the question what liberty, exactly, did this proto-feminist man suppose could be accessed by upperclass females in the 1870s in New York? Edith Wharton's clear intelligence makes me think that ambiguity clouds these various musings only because she fears she's already been too bold. So this compelling theme gets lost when she subtly changes gear. Still, there are enough zingers to keep you reading and relishing - for instance -

What if 'niceness' [in a wife:] carried to that supreme degree were only a negation, the curtain dropped before an emptiness?

Hmm, what if indeed. Or, concerning the rigours of class in New York,

It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country - nice one, Edith.

There's no getting away from it, Edith is indeed Henry James in drag, and this novel is kissing cousins to the early HJs like Washington Square, The Bostonians and The Portrait of a Lady. These idle rich, they're dull buggers you know - indeed Edith goes on and on about just how boring their lives are as she describes the dining, the travelling, the frittering, the spending, the ladylike sports the ladylike ladies did (archery - no, not nude mud wrestling, what large sums would I not pay to read Edith Wharton describing such a scene), the families, the clans, their history, their posh houses, their posh horses - oh please spare us - half way through you really wish that the fabric of space and time should rend asunder and a scary bunch of Sendero Luminoso guerillas break into the great ballrooms and dining rooms and haul the whole pack of them off to the sweaty jungles of Colombia for some serious political indoctrination. Plot spoiler : this does not happen. Instead, this book is a study of circumscription and circumspection, of people (the hero, the heroine and the wife) not getting what they want. And as such, when we are able to skirt round the pages of orotund description (A winding drive led up between the iron stags and blue glass balls embedded in mounds of geraniums to a front door of highly varnished walnut under a striped verandah-roof; and behind it ran a narrow hall with a black and yellow star-patterned parquet floor upon which opened four small square rooms with heavy flock-papers under ceilings on which an Italian house-painter had lavished all the divinities of Olympus" - did you get all that Mr Set Designer?) the heart of this tale is sad and almost beautifully done. But really mimsy with it.

**

PS - I saw the movie too which was as elegant as all get-out, apart from the dodgy Enya-like song splodged in the middle. That Michelle Pfeiffer - cor, blimey. I wouldn't kick her out of bed. Still and all, the movie is a 100-minute argument as to why you should read the book instead, because what's missing is Edith Wharton's mind, which is a great place to dally in. You get voice-overs in the movie which only serve to remind you how literary adaptations, however spiffily dressed-up (and aren't they all?) are not the real deal, they're the unreal deal. These movies are like aides memoires on gorgeous notepaper written with a ten thousand dollar pen. The note says : read the book.

Exceptional writing and examination of the New York high society, marriage, family, destiny, prejudices, lost love, at the end of the XIXth century.

Wharton was a perceptive observer, with an uncanny understanding of society.

I must confess, I didn't quite feel the 'big love' between Countess Olenska and Newland Archer and that occasionally I got a tad bored. Regardless, it's an impressive novel.

I loved the ending, it wasn't what I expected, but it was a bold choice and I admire that a lot.

I'm looking forward to reading House of Mirth.