A glorious reread of what I consider one of Edith Wharton's finest works. It was so glorious that I failed to do what I intended: analyse for an assignment and form an argument. Wharton's style: the social realism, the descriptiveness, the dramatic irony and her sharp wit, all of which build up her representation of Gilded New York but also the central relationship to which you will adore was exquisite. She places you directly within the society she critiques and in the middle of the action, if, you are like me, fall in love with it straight away. There is just something incredibly swoon-worthy about period drama romances and the stories that accompany them. The longing. The mutual want. The forbiddenness of the requited love between Archer and Count Olenska's relationship was everything - again. I knew the story, I knew the relationship, I knew the open ending, and yet I was once again engrossed.

This was the easiest five stars to give when I first read it years ago; and once again on my second read it remains the easiest five stars given.

79th book of 2023.

I struggle to write about books I love because there's something so incomprehensible about a book that touches you. This is my third or fourth Wharton but it felt like a different writer entirely. I finished this on my lunch break in my usual spot, sitting with my back against the cathedral in the shade. After finishing it I put the book back into my bag and sat peacefully for a few minutes thinking about Newland Archer and some of the sentences within: ''Each time you happen to me all over again.'';
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But all these abstractions and eliminations made of his mind a rather empty and echoing place, and he supposed that was one of the reasons why the busy animated people on the Beaufort lawn shocked him as if they had been children playing in a graveyard.

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and others I can't quote without giving away the story. It's the age old story of marriage and affair, but I was enthralled, like I've never been before on an old 19th/early 20th century tale of marriage. I can't say what it was, the kinship I felt with Newland, the writing, Wharton's observations on the characters that felt so startlingly real that the book felt contemporary... A masterpiece perhaps!