Rating: 
Summary: Hypocrisy of the Age of Innocence
Review: The Age of Innocence is a thought provoking literary piece which I enjoyed immensely. It is written in a simple, accessible style, yet deeply portrays human emotions and interactions in late 19th century New York City. This novel represents an account of high society life of the 1870s. The events of this novel are wrapped around a prevailing lifestyle of jealousy, shame, and excessive pride which colors the main characters. Not unlike many other segments of the society, then and now, the characters of this novel attempt to disguise these feelings through hypocrisy and deception.
In a time where keeping appearances is everything, the protagonist, Newland Archer, is at conflict with himself. He is engaged to May Welland, who represents stability and the traditional high society life. He begins to fall in love, however, with May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska. After seeing Ellen and her freedom and spontaneity, he begins to question his life and why he feels the need to conform. He realizes how dull his life is and how materialistic and fake the high society aristocrats are. He loves May, but cannot stand the idea of living such a predictable life with no deeper meaning. In the end, he must choose between living the life he is expected to live with May, or being happy with Ellen, yet ruining the family name.
Rating:
Summary: The age of wisdom
Review: Edith Wharton has a place in the North American Literature canon as one of the best female writers ever. With her novels and novellas she was able to portrait and, above all, criticize the wealth North American society of the turn of the Century. Although she wrote about New York, her books acquired a universal dimension, since they talk about the human nature.'The Age of Innocence' is widely regarded as one of her masterpieces, and so it is. It received a Pulitzer Prize in 1921, and has passed through the years as a seminal book from the early XX Century. With her wit and knowledge, Wharton was able to recreate that universe where money and liaisons matter more than people's feelings. Due to this situation, her characters are unhappy, and trying --or not-- to change their almost unchangeable destinies. At the center of the turmoil are Madame Olenska and Newland Archer. She, a unhappy married woman moving back to USA, trying to divorce from her rich and mean husband. He, a wealthy and brilliant lawyer who has a bright future ahead of him. The couple could have a beautiful love story were she not married and, to make matters worse, he not the fiancé of her cousin. Archer's life split in two: on one side is the love of Madame Olenska, with whom he could be happy, but ostracized; on the other a dull marriage with May Welland, what would confirm his status in society and give him the bright future. In the background of this turmoil is Wharton's powerful voice, of a person who has lived in this society and suffered its consequence. Describing and criticizing with brilliance things from a time she lived and knew, the writer was able to create a timeless book. Something that nowadays, almost a hundred years later, is still fresh and very important. The most important thing is not if we have wisdom or not, but what we do with the wit we have. Edith Wharton, for one, used her in a brilliant way creating some books that will last forever, such as 'The Age...' and 'The House of Mirth', showing people how a beautiful society can be mean and hurt whose who dare to be different.
Rating:
Summary: Tension between individualism and confomity
Review: Edith's book talks about the tension between following one's heart and loyalty to societal expectations. Case in point, Newland Archer. Torn by his loyalty to his wife-to-be, who repesents tradition and stability of Old New York society and the soon-to-be divorce, who represents the worldly bohemian life of the Old World, namely European. Mr. Archer has a major dilemma since he's both has both progressive and conservative views. He has very progressive views on art, literature, politics, etc., while at the same time have conservative views on romance. It's the dilemma of most upper class and professional men even in these progressive and liberal times. Most men want stability in their lives, they want a "May Welland" type over the outspoken and unpredictable "Ellen Olenska". Let me get back to the issue at hand, the choices of Newland Archer. Newland seemed to want to have it both ways. He wants to marry May and have Ellen as his secret lover. Knowing that New York society frowns on such things, Ellen decides to leave New York for Europe, therefore annul that possiblity. In the meantime, Newland became a devoted husband to May until her death.
Rating: 
Summary: surprisingly fluid and entertaining:
Review: Generally I don't care for books written by anyone with an agenda. Now of course most self-serving and overwhelmingly too serious tomes aren't particularly worthwhile, those of partisans attacking their equal and opposite extreme. This book was surely written in a heightened and urgent time of deep disgust for the author. She had recently been divorced, ending a loveless marriage to someone history tells us (now, in hindsight and considering the superior accomplishments of his former wife) was something of a jerk. Edith sat down in those moments of disillusion mired in a confusing, overwhelming state of newfound personal freedom and ranted out this smart, funny and throughly entertaining book about how stupid and petty she believed some of her contemporaries and ancestors to be.
It doesn't matter whether we agree with Wharton's viewpoint or not--that isn't necessary to enjoy this book. One of the criticisms of male authors of this era (and prior as well as today) is that they are unable to represent realistic female characters. In most cases this is true, but it is also true with their male characters--self-serving drones who stand in for self-important authors. It was the rare author who was frequently overpraised for somehow 'understanding' women (I am thinking specifically here of Henry James) as if the author-as-God would be otherwise unable to know the thoughts of their creations. The truth is that someone like James and, more to the point here, someone like Edith Wharton, were wonderful character profilers. Wharton's male characters are very true-to-life considering the limitations of the world they exist in. Her female characters seem more to be like cardboard with the obvious exceptions of the primaries. Wharton's agenda, here, regardless of what various generations of literary types of forced onto the meaning of this novel, appears to be quite simply an attack on the world she grew up in. Now this is of course the usual path for self-conscious and self-important writers struggling over their first or second novels and using the often fragmented premises of their own lives as some sort of baited self-therapy exercise, but with Wharton there is something different in her execution. Perhaps it is because she managed to lose herself in the varying paths of her characters and understood the realities of telling a story that she was able to get away from many of the excesses of this usually annoying genre of self-exposure. Maybe she was just a better writer than all of these whining and silly ladies who worship/imitated her repeatedly and timelessly only in their own vision they supplied a shrill sort of political statement believing that their godmother would somehow approve.
I know that I somehow got off track of reviewing this mostly excellent book--four and a half stars more likely for its constant and beautiful evocation of a world gone by, rounded down, simply, because so many other people attempt to prove the validity of their own inhibitions based on a personal connection to something vague they misread in a book that had nothing to do with them.
Recommended with a huff of enthusiasm and an irritable reply to anyone who imagines they truly understand the rage Ms. Wharton was speaking of--
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've read
Review: I enjoyed every word of this book. It just captivated me. I'm glad Wharton chose the sentimental ending rather than going for the melodramatic.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Breathtaking
Review: On a 5 star scale, this is a 7. The Age of Innocence is about New York society in the late 1800's. Wharton's fast paced dialogue is unequivocally the best I have ever read. The reader is not only pulled in immediately but comes quickly to understand the nonverbal communication inherent in the interchanges. This is the heart of the story - the things that are not said, the things that are not done in New York society at that time and how the rigid rules of that society were enforced without ever explicitly saying any of it. In Mrs. Wharton's words: "It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave them. " This is as much a story about the mores of New York society as it is a bitter love story of two people caught up in it.
Newland Archer represents New York society as a young man of high society blissfully engaged to equally prominent May Welland. The reader comes to know him and the story is told through his eyes. It is through him that we come to understand "the rules". When Countess Ellen Olenska returns from a ruined marriage abroad, everything in Newland's structured view of society is challenged. It is as if a veil is lifted from his eyes and he can suddenly see the big picture from multiple points of view. However, one of the facets of "the rules" is to be blind to these angles and once empowered to see, he belongs neither to New York or to the world at large. He has only the choice of destroying all that he knows in pursuit of the mysterious woman who has brought about this change or living a life whose values for him have lost their luster. She, on the other hand, has come to see the value to the ideas that have had Newland so rigidly encased. Together they are a ringing disavowal and endorsement at the same time.
This is not an indictment of that society. Ms. Wharton had condemned it early in her life but eventually found a value in the way that things were done and reflects that sentiment in Madame Olenska who, having had her eyes opened could never fully return.
"... if it's not worthwhile to have given up, to have missed things, so that others may be saved from disillusionment and misery - then everything I came home for, everything that made my other life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took account of them - all these things are a sham or a dream. "
This is not your typical love story and there have been no spoilers given here. In the end, you will feel that the characters have done what is right; however, in this book, it is the definition of right that is being questioned.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: She writes the way Samuel Richardson would have if he was fast-fowarded a century or so. Lovely book, and full of the people you always wanted to meet.
Rating:
Summary: Be careful what you wish for
Review: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Highly recommended.
A classic novel made famous by a recent movie, The Age of Innocence is the story of a society man, Newland Archer, caught between two very different women. On the one hand is May Welland, the virginal Diana of New York society, whose seeming frankness and innocence discourage and oppress him: "Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile." All this is "supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow." Her counterpart is her cousin Countess Ellen Olenska, vaguely exotic, vaguely dangerous, forbidden-primarily because she is not the "artificial product" of society, but a genuine, sensual woman whose independent way of thinking is enough to tacitly and then overtly banish her from the very company that Newland's life is built around. She is !"different," as Archer will later discuss with one of his children. No one else would say, "Why not make one's own fashions?" thus giving a voice to what Archer himself deep down believes but can't put into practice.
Ironically, it is May who first forces he and Ellen together, against his will, in her efforts to be kind to her cousin, who has just returned from Europe. As he sees more of "poor Ellen," estranged from her emotionally abusive husband and seemingly vulnerable to the wiles of the wealthy outsider scoundrel Julius Beaufort, he finds himself returning again and again to her until he realises he is in love with her-long after the reader has reached that conclusion. He resolves the dilemma by rushing his marriage to May, or makes it that much worse. Thus ensues a delicate balance between the life he has chosen with May, with whom he now realises he has no emotional bond, and the life he would choose if he were more sure of himself, more sure that being true to !oneself is more important than being true to one's system.
Nearly every character is memorable-from the massive Mrs. Manson Mingott, May and Ellen's grandmother who is old enough and skilled enough to intuit all and manipulate all; to the womanizing Lawrence Lefferts, whose behavior is acceptable because he knows how to play the game, how things are "done"; to the frigid bastions of society, the van der Luydens; to May's mother, who cannot be exposed in any way to "unpleasantness"; to Archer's virginal sister Janey, who lives life vicariously through gossip and guesswork.
Many scenes and locations are equally vivid: Beaufort's lavish house and party; the contrast of the van der Luydens' dinner party; Archer and May's conventional and stifling honeymoon, more sporty than romantic or passionate; Archer's pursuit of May in Florida and his following Ellen to the Blenkers' and then to Boston; a revealing ride with Ellen in May's brougham; Mrs. Mingott's house in the m!iddle of "nowhere," where she rules like a queen and where the politics are only slightly less complicated than those of Elizabeth I's court-all unforgettable places and scenes.
In less intelligent or skilled hands, the plot could have become mere melodrama, but Wharton knows how her society worked, who inhabited it, what it forgave, and what it could not pardon. Affairs are pardonable; treachery, real or perceived, to the framework of what holds these people together is not. In the end, May saves Archer from himself-and dooms him to her kind of life by doing so. When he gives up all his dreams, he looks into May's "blue eyes, wet with tears." She knows what he does not and remains cold as the moon that the goddess Diana rules.
It could be said that May and Ellen represent two sides of Newland Archer-both are people he is afraid to become. If he is like May, he experiences death of the mind, death of the soul, death of the emotions, becoming what he is expected t!o be to keep the foundations that society is built upon steady, strong, and standing. (It is no coincidence that a theme in Wharton's The House of Mirth is the vulnerability of that house to the influx of modern ways.) If he becomes like Ellen, he will lose everything that he has built his own foundations on. In the end, he is neither, nor is he himself. His tragedy is not that much less than that of The House of Mirth's Lily Bart, both victims of a society they need but cannot survive.
Diane L. Schirf, 28 April 2001.
Rating:
Summary: Totem and taboo in old New York.
Review: The reading public must have been taken by shock when, in 1920, Wharton published this novel. Written off by most of the critics and audience of her time as having her best literary years far behind her, she produced what is arguably her most important work. Her story of New York City in the 1870s, where family name and propriety counted as much as accumulated wealth, resonated with readers who were just beginning to catch hints of the looming social revolution that would come later in the decade - and once again shatter time tested institutions. Wharton's looking back to the time of her youth (she was 57 when the book was published) is neither too sentimental nor too critical, but simply a fond remembrance of the time and place in which she lived and, like Madame Olenska, eventually escaped. However, it is not with Madame Olenska but with Newland Archer that Wharton is closest associated. Belonging to similar social castes, both the author and Newland are able to see the foibles in their social milieu but in no way are ready to discard it totally. Whereas, in the end, both are ready to follow their individual paths from Old New York they are fully aware of what is expected of them as members of this society, and act accordingly. This is the central theme of the novel: individual desire vs. collective propriety. In the hands of a lesser author, this conflict could have resulted in a quite heavy and didactic work - and as interesting as an evening at a needlepoint demonstration. By clothing her novel in the time tested mantle of a love story, she is given rein to employ her talents to the fullest. In short, she re-creates the New York City of the 1870s and peoples it with characters that seem to be historical, not just based on historical models. The characters of Madame Olenska, Newland, May Welland and, especially, Mrs. Manson Mingott are wonderfully drawn and never become stereotyped nor trivialized; in fact, they are so lifelike that the reader (as if knowing them for years) is able to anticipate their thought patterns and actions. And of course, there is the city itself - before the Holland Tunnel, Grand Central Station, subways and telephone, where 39th Street was considered the hinterland. Wharton treats the city with affection as well as with the critical eye of the archaeologist attempting to reconstruct some long past civilization. Especially fine is the final chapter in which Wharton (in less than twenty pages) summarizes the life of Newland from the time of his parting with Madame Olenska to his life in early twentieth century New York. The economy of her prose in this final chapter combined with her justaposition of sentimental reflection and historical fact are first rate. Particularly moving is the final scene in which the reader leaves Newland sitting on a bench outside of Madame Olenska's apartment in Paris unable (and unwilling) to abrogate both his loyalty to his now deceased wife, May, nor the unrequited love that he still has for Madame Olenska.
Rating:
Summary: Totem and taboo in old New York.
Review: The reading public must have been taken by shock when, in 1920, Wharton published this novel. Written off by most of the critics and audience of her time as having her best literary years far behind her, she produced what is arguably her most important work. Her story of New York City in the 1870s, where family name and propriety counted as much as accumulated wealth, resonated with readers who were just beginning to catch hints of the looming social revolution that would come later in the decade - and once again shatter time tested institutions. Wharton's looking back to the time of her youth (she was 57 when the book was published) is neither too sentimental nor too critical, but simply a fond remembrance of the time and place in which she lived and, like Madame Olenska, eventually escaped. However, it is not with Madame Olenska but with Newland Archer that Wharton is closest associated. Belonging to similar social castes, both the author and Newland are able to see the foibles in their social milieu but in no way are ready to discard it totally. Whereas, in the end, both are ready to follow their individual paths from Old New York they are fully aware of what is expected of them as members of this society, and act accordingly. This is the central theme of the novel: individual desire vs. collective propriety. In the hands of a lesser author, this conflict could have resulted in a quite heavy and didactic work - and as interesting as an evening at a needlepoint demonstration. By clothing her novel in the time tested mantle of a love story, she is given rein to employ her talents to the fullest. In short, she re-creates the New York City of the 1870s and peoples it with characters that seem to be historical, not just based on historical models. The characters of Madame Olenska, Newland, May Welland and, especially, Mrs. Manson Mingott are wonderfully drawn and never become stereotyped nor trivialized; in fact, they are so lifelike that the reader (as if knowing them for years) is able to anticipate their thought patterns and actions. And of course, there is the city itself - before the Holland Tunnel, Grand Central Station, subways and telephone, where 39th Street was considered the hinterland. Wharton treats the city with affection as well as with the critical eye of the archaeologist attempting to reconstruct some long past civilization. Especially fine is the final chapter in which Wharton (in less than twenty pages) summarizes the life of Newland from the time of his parting with Madame Olenska to his life in early twentieth century New York. The economy of her prose in this final chapter combined with her justaposition of sentimental reflection and historical fact are first rate. Particularly moving is the final scene in which the reader leaves Newland sitting on a bench outside of Madame Olenska's apartment in Paris unable (and unwilling) to abrogate both his loyalty to his now deceased wife, May, nor the unrequited love that he still has for Madame Olenska.
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