The Husbands of Edith (TREDITION CLASSICS)

I'd been reading a grim diet of the formidable Carlos Fuentes who was treated like royalty at the Mexican festival and I needed something more cheering. A reliable classic, a reassuring costume drama might do the trick. Edith Wharton was an inspired choice. As soon as I opened the novel I knew I was in safe hands.

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The airline could delay and insult me, the storms could batter me, but I was secure, enthralled by the fortunes of one of the most appalling and fascinating heroines ever created. Undine can, and she does. She dares, risks, exceeds, rises, falls, and rises again. She is a force of nature. Her energy is dreadful, her beauty is fatal. She is a fortune-seeker from the Midwest, upwardly mobile, ignorant but quick to learn, and ambitious not for riches her humble and devoted father has made money and spent lavishly upon her but for admiration and social glory.

We watch, as she glitters and ascends, through a rapidly changing society that seems forced to accommodate her longings and bend to her will. Will she ever meet an obstacle to her rapacious desires?

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You have to read on, literally to the last line, to find out. Her physical presence in the novel is extraordinarily powerful. With her "black brows, her reddish-tawny hair and the pure red and white of her complexion", she attracts attention wherever she appears - and she appears as much as possible and dresses as expensively as she can. No wonder the society painter Popple, famous like John Singer Sargent as the only man who could "do pearls" and realise dress fabrics, is eager to paint her portrait. There is a finely comic scene in which the artist, "becomingly clad in mouse-coloured velveteen", presides over a tea-and-cocktail party in his fashionable studio, where Undine, now Mrs Ralph Marvell, glittering with diamonds and dressed for the sitting "in something faint and shining", embarks on an intrigue with the man whom she intends for her second victim.

This studio gathering of the rich and vacuous is not simply a satiric set piece on New York manners and morals: There is a great deal of plot in this novel, and it is splendidly constructed.

A cast of characters from the Spraggs' Midwest past in Apex City threads itself artfully and menacingly through the story of Undine's triumphal progress. There is Mabel Blitch, transformed into the transiently useful Mrs Harry Lipscomb, who introduces her to debating clubs in lofty hotels with sonorous names on the Upper West Side. There is the rapidly prospering Elmer Moffatt, who knows more about Undine than is helpful, and who hovers like a shadow in the dim financial background. There is Indiana Frusk, once the wife of a druggist's clerk, who reappears established in Paris in the Hotel Nouveau Luxe as a divorcee, re-married and immensely wealthy - though her marriage is not recognised in "certain states" back home.

Undine, faced with Indiana's undoubted triumph, is forced to fall back on the comfort of noting that she was wearing a totally unsuitable dress for the time of day, "still twanged a piercing 'R'", and had one of her shoulders higher than the other. Undine's behaviour is mercenary and selfish throughout, and she shows no feeling for her son Paul.

At least she is not hypocritical in this, for her reaction on finding she was pregnant at the end of a prolonged continental honeymoon had been of utter horror. November 21, Sold by: Is this feature helpful?

Thank you for your feedback. Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. See all customer images. Read reviews that mention new york age of innocence edith wharton newland archer old new may welland ellen olenska york society countess olenska upper crust beautifully written gilded age pulitzer prize high society house of mirth cousin countess countess ellen young man dumping her cheating pretty and naive. Showing of reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase.

This star-crossed love story centers on a love triangle. Rebelling against a long-time, smothering tradition, a young, idealistic man, Newland Archer, marries his loving and sweet-natured-but, boring and traditional- wife, May, under pressure from friends and family. To the disapproval and shock of her family and New York society she has deserted her husband, a rich, albeit unsavory French Count.

However, her integrity, compassion, and joie de vivre make her a sympathetic and irresistible character to all who know her, especially the men, who fall under the spell of her charms and are depicted as being in a much better positon to flout the chains of society in contrast to the women of the time. Archer loves the Countess Olenska because she possesses the attributes he most wants himself, and she is a metaphor for freedom of choice in that she defies the expectations of her sex and the confines of society in exchange for being true to her own ideas of integrity and proper behavior.

A heart-wrenching story of unrequited love, it depicts the forces that band together to bring the protagonists to heel and keep them chained to separate destinies.

Their personal desires are squelched by family and friends in the name of dutiful honor and expectations amidst the rigid judgment and hypocrisy of their unyielding, self-righteous social class. Edith Wharton was a master at evoking the social mores and confines of the society she grew up in, and is often a society that she seems to condemn for its snobbery and hypocrisy.

This story is so beautifully written and is evocative of human nature which demands that men and women put duty, honor, and pride above all else regardless of individual liberty and personal happiness. In the concluding pages, the reader has an epiphany that one comes to terms with the sweet fragileness of our memories by consciously choosing to reject choices that may expose and destroy perceived perfection in order to maintain the dream of what might have been.

So, it is with Archer. He, at last, accepts that he gave up something dear to him for the greater good. And, as he moves into mid-life, fate helps him to accept that it may have been the right decision, after all.

The Age of Innocence is a story that will resonate with anyone who suffers and pines over the one that got away in the blush of youthful love. It remains a story for the ages and serves as reminder that we cannot always direct the course of love, because love takes many forms, and often wounds us. It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized. That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband.

At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm. After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others? There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the s when it was first published.

But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion. Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning.

It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore. In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional.

But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention. The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is suitably pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways.

And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty. See all reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.