For a long time, I was puzzled that The Age of Innocence had won the Pulitzer for fiction in 1921, because Edith Wharton sucked.
When I was an undergrad I had to read a different, more obscure Edith Wharton novel (I won't say which one), and it was horrid. I looooathed it. The plot was feeble and uninteresting, the female protagonist vapid, the male supporting characters even more repulsive. In fiction, I read primarily for human drama and interaction, and if I don't feel that the characters are well-developed and have verisimilitude, I don't feel like reading on. I don't have to like a character or want them as a neighbor, but they have to be interesting. Well, Ms. Wharton's characters in that other, weaker novel were neither likable nor interesting. I was required to finish that novel, but then I was done with Edith Wharton forever.
Since then, otherwise literate people have suggested that I read The Age of Innocence. I always declined. Recently, though, a writer friend hounded me enough that I accepted the loaner copy she pushed into my hands and promised I would at least try it. Thirty pages or so, I promised.
Less than ten pages in, I was hooked. Remember what I said up there about the character-driven novel? Here it is, in spades. If you aren't familiar with the story (no spoilers, I promise), it takes place in New York in the 1870s and centers on a young upper-class attorney, Newland Archer. Though narrated in third person, the reader is privy to Newland's thoughts, ideas, emotions, conflicts. He is engaged to a reputable young woman, but becomes infatuated with her cousin, who is not so reputable. This unfortunate triad (can you feel the tension?) exists in the social minefield of high society, scandal is avoided at all costs, appearances are everything and therefore hypocrisy is the norm. Newland detests his social matrix, but he also benefits from it and it's where he's generally comfortable, so he plays the game. May (his fiancée) and Ellen (her exotic cousin) each have a complicated relationship with society, as well. Their relationships, their choices (or failures to choose) and the consequences drive the action of the novel, and that was all well and good, but I kept reading because Newland and May and Ellen were so very, very real. They were complex, and the choices presented to them were not black and white (hey, just like real life). Newland's interior conflicts constitute the bulk of this luscious reading; however, without getting right into their heads, Wharton portrays both May and Ellen so sympathetically that we, the readers, pick up the cues that Newland misses in order to understand what they're experiencing, too.
This novel is often cited as a masterful portrait of the high society of that time and place, most notably of its shortcomings. Yes, it is that, and yes, it's so well written that you feel yourself needing to step out for air because you're suffocating in that byzantine system of propriety. More than that, though, this novel is about human beings and how they behave when they have to make difficult choices. All the great novels are.
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Reviews with images
A love story which won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, the first such prize for a female
I'd always wanted to read this classic work of fiction, which somehow I missed earlier in life. This book was worth the wait! I'd read Ethan Frome in college, but this was even better. It's a subtle love story whose characters live in the rarified world of the "old rich" in late 19th c. New York City. Wharton, who pays exquisite attention to seemingly every detail and nuance, wrote authoritatively, as her family was part of this wealthy world; therefore, the book serves sociologically to document the time period. That documentation does slightly slow the pace of the book at times; it's almost necessary to put your mind and imagination to work to pretend you're in that time period.The love story is a classic, but I don't want to give away the ending because it would spoil the book. Trust me, this book was worth the wait and worth the occasional effort required to read it. My only regret is that the book ended!This edition of "The Age of Innocence is the definitive 1920 edition which was personally reviewed by Wharton. Her editing skills are also sharp. For example, I couldn't find a single typo in the entire book.
Top reviews from other countries
Marmalade
Thought-provoking!! Relevant even today!
Reviewed in Canada on January 3, 2020