L'edat de la innocència (2008)

Problematic. There is feminism and there is anti-masculism, and this book may be nearer to the latter than the former. Had the characters' genders been reversed even the most conservative reader would have found it problematic for its mistreatment (not mere misrepresentation) of women.

Sono pienamente d'accordo con quanto scritto qui da Lilirose. Aggiungo di mio che la 'candida' May è in realtà più smaliziata di quanto sembra ed è, in sostanza, la più furba dei tre: è lei che tiene in pugno la situazione e che riesce a volgerla nel senso da lei desiderato. Benché apparantemente insignificante e sottomessa è, di fatto, un'abile manipolatrice ed è lei che alla fine ottiene ciò che vuole.
Aggiungo anche che durante la lettura mi è tornato spesso in mente Henry James, ma E. Wharton non ha nè la caratura nè la felicità espressiva di H. James. Il contesto sociale è comunque delineato in maniera impeccabile.
La lettura di questo romanzo è stata lunga e a tratti faticosa e solo verso la fine il racconto si è fatto più accattivante, quando le manovre silenti e sotterranee di May conducono la storia al suo esito finale. ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13124382

I read this years ago but didn't remember any details when I reread it recently.

The story takes place in the late 1800s in New York City. More specifically, among the upper class in NYC, a group that took care even in where in Manhattan they would be willing to tread.

There is a small set of established families, rich families, that set the tone. There are years of tone-setting to provide a base. People traveling within this society had better behave as expected.

Which is rather what Countess Olenski didn't do. She arrived on the scene, young and beautiful and separated from her ogre-like Hungarian husband (at least we are persuaded to believe he's ogre-like). Born into one of the old families but having spent most of her life in Europe, Ellen Olenska does not understand the requirements of this New York society, and therefore breaks rules without a thought.

At the opera one evening Newland Archer notices Ellen along with his fiance, May Wellend. He is anxious to be married, as he loves May very much and foresees a happy future with her. His meeting with Ellen changes everything.

Thus it is a love story. It is a society story. It is a story of a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although where the right place would be is a big question.

I enjoyed Wharton's perceptive views of this society, a culture in which she herself moved effortlessly in those years. She reveals her own European point of view as well, as she too spent most of her life abroad. There is in her writing a slightly sharp edge that easily skewers her victims. There is also, often, beautiful language, though not in the least flowery (thank heaven).

It is, in the end, almost a Shakespearean tragedy, and for some of the same reasons that Shakespeare's characters came to bad ends.

( )

Here is what I wrote in my journal at the time I read it:

>>Once I started it, I plodded through it to the end. I had to read it in graduate school. I must say that I found the ending to be a poignant one. I initially resisted the novel because it appeared to be a "teacup tragedy." And the image of the tea cups along with the formal dinners and the social gatherings seem to confirm this. Yet I found Edith Wharton to be more readable than Henry James [I had to read James as well for that class]. One thing I found interesting about the novel was the depiction of social codes and language. Characters would converse but often what was left unsaid was more significant.
I only gave it two stars not because it is bad, but because, it was, well "ok," which is what two stars is. I can say I read it, but I am not likely to revisit it anytime soon. ( )

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else. At least that was the view that the men of his generation had taken. The trenchant divisions between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little scope for the unforeseen. There are moments when a man's imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level, and surveys the long windings of destiny.

Brutal gut punch. Everyone is constrained by social pressure. I found myself thinking of Emerson and his exhortations to resist conformity. If only Newland Archer had read Emerson! ( )