The Reef (original 1912; edition 1914)

I enjoyed this. Definitely "old-school" by today's standards, it describes the consequences of taking affairs of the heart lightly. Wharton's timing, pacing and tone are excellent! ( )

Another great work by Edith Wharton; lindsacl summarized the plot beautifully and all I will add are quotes:

First, my very favorite from this book, on love and all of the contradictory feelings it evokes:
"She was glad now that she had confessed her doubts and her jealousy. ... a woman's very mistakes and indiscetions may help to establish her dominion. The sense of power she had been aware of in talking to Darrow came back with ten-fold force. She felt like testing him by the most fantastic exactions, and at the same moment she longed to humble herself before him, to make herself the shadow and echo of his mood. She wanted to linger with him in a world of fancy and yet to walk at his side in the world of fact. She wanted him to feel her power and yet to love her for her ignorance and humility. She felt like a slave, and a goddess, and a girl in her teens..."

On cold people:
"She was reserved, she was shy even, was what the shallow and effusive would call 'cold.' She was like a picture so hung that it can only be seen at a certain angle: an angle known to no one but its possessor."

On eyes across the room:
"He still felt the throb of surprise with which, among the stereotyped faces of the season's diners, he had come upon her unexpected face, with the dark hair banded above grave eyes; eyes in which he had recognized every little curve and shadow as he would have recognized, after half a life-time, the details of a room he had played in as a child. And as, in the the plumed starred crowd, she had stood out for him, slender, secluded and different, so he had felt, the instant their glances met, that he as sharply detached himself for her. All that and more her smile had said; had said not merely, 'I remember you,' but 'I remember just what you remember'..."

On jealousy:
"She had said to herself: 'If there's nothing between them, they'll look at each other; if there is something, they won't': and as she ceased to speak she felt as if all her life were in her eyes."

"I swear to you,' she heard Darrow saying, 'it was simply that, and nothing more.'
She wondered at his composure, his competence, at his knowing so exactly what to say. No doubt men often had to make such explanations: they had the formulas by heart..."

"And suddenly, as Anna listened to his explanation, she asked herself if it were true.
The question, of course, was absurd. There was no possible reason why he should invent a false account of his return, and every probability that the version he gave was the real one. But he had looked and spoken in the same way when he had answered her probing questions about Sophy Viner, and she reflected with a chill of fear that she would never again know if he were speaking the truth or not."

On raising kids; this statement contains Wharton's own coming to terms with fighting to live one's own life:
"What I've most wanted for him, and shall want for Effie, is that they shall always feel free to make their own mistakes, and never, if possible, be persuaded to make other people's."

On love, and the difference between men and women:
"She liked to hear his voice almost as much as to listen to what he was saying, and to listen to what he was saying almost as much as to feel that he was looking at her; but he wanted to kiss her, and she wanted to talk to him about books and pictures, and have him insinuate the eternal theme of their love into every subject they discussed."

On meeting an old lover:
"Without hastening her step she had smiled and signed to him to wait; and charmed by the lights and shadows that played upon her as she moved, and by the pleasure of watching her slow advance toward him, he had obeyed her and stood still. And so she seemed now to be walking to him down the years, the light and shade of old memories and new hopes playing variously on her, and each step giving him the vision of a different grace."

On love and physical tension:
"She had accepted the shelter of his umbrella, but she kept herself at such a carefully measured distance that even the slilghtest swaying movements produced by their quick pace did not once bring her arm in touch with his; and, noticing this, he perceived that every drop of her blood must be alive to his nearness."

And:
"I'd been trying all the while to put everything I could between us; now I want to sweep everything away. I'd been trying to forget how you looked; now I want to remember you always. I'd been trying not to hear your voice; now I never want to hear any other. I've made my choice - that's all: I've had you and I mean to keep you.' Her face was shining like her eyes. 'To keep you hidden away here,' she ended, and put her hand upon her breast."

On marriage:
"Here, then, was passion in action, romance converted to reality; yet the heroines of these exploits returned from them untransfigured, and their husbands were as dull as ever when one had to sit next to them at dinner.
Her own case, of course, would be different. Some day she would find the magic bridge between West Fifty-Fifth Street and life..."

Lastly on the rat race, sigh...
"The one fixed point in his immediate future was that his leave was over and that he must be back at his post in London the next morning. Within twenty-four hours he would again be in a daylight world of recognized activities, himself a busy, responsible, relatively necessary factor in the big whirring social and official machine." ( )

Anna Leath is an American living in France and recently widowed, with an adult stepson (Owen) and a young daughter (Effie). On a visit to London she meets up with George Darrow, rekindling a romance from many years before. George agrees to visit Anna at her country house Givré, but just as he is preparing to cross the Channel he receives a terse communication delaying the visit. He continues on to Paris anyway, befriending a young woman named Sophy and enjoying a couple of weeks in her company. When he finally visits Anna a few months later, he is surprised to find Sophy employed as Effie's governess. Having already professed his love and commitment to Anna, he decides to keep his dalliance with Sophy a secret.

The novel revolves around the fragile nature of trust and intimacy, and social norms that inhibit expression. It's clear that George adores Anna:

They dined late, and facing her across the table, with its low lights and flowers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in seeing her again in evening dress, and in letting his eyes dwell on the proud shy set of her head, the way her dark hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness of her neck above the slight swell of her breast. His imagination was struck by the quality of reticence in her beauty. (p.127)

Meanwhile he gave himself up once more to the joy of Anna's presence. They had not been alone together for two long days, and he had the lover's sense that he had forgotten, or at least underestimated, the strength of the spell she cast. Once more her eyes and her smile seemed to bound his world. He felt that her light would always move with him as the sunset moves before a ship at sea. (p. 220)

Anna, too, is sure of her feelings, but completely unable to express them, expecting George to pick up on nonverbal cues and initiate all dialogue about their relationship. Even when Anna learns the truth about George and Sophy -- as the reader knows she will -- she is completely unable to work it out in an adult fashion. She wants to give George the benefit of the doubt and initially believes his explanations, but when they are apart, even for a few minutes, doubt sets in. Anna repeatedly shies away from confrontation, putting off the conversation that must take place for their relationship to continue.

The reader knows Anna is capable of deep feeling and expression: early in the novel, she shows tremendous excitement when Owen returns from an afternoon away. It's frustrating to watch her mis-handle the one relationship that will bring lifelong happiness. Fortunately, the scenery is idyllic. Edith Wharton brings France, her adopted country, to life, taking the reader up and down Paris streets, and on long walks through country chateau gardens. She breaks the emotional tension with well-placed humor. For example, consider this description of Adelaide Painter, a friend of Anna's mother-in-law:

After living, as he had, as they all had, for the last few days, in an atmosphere perpetually tremulous with echoes and implications, it was restful and fortifying merely to walk into the big blank area of Miss Painter's mind, so vacuous for all its accumulated items, so echoless for all its vacuity. (p. 212)

Reading The Reef, it was easy to get frustrated with Anna, waffling over her commitment to George. And I was fairly sympathetic to George: he was no saint, but his fling with Sophy occurred before he'd reunited with Anna, and at a point where he thought she had rejected him. And while I longed for Anna to be stronger and more assertive, her inhibitions were not unfamiliar to me. The Reef is an excellent period piece in its scenery, characterizations, and portrayal of relationships between men and women. ( )

1384 The Reef, by Edith Wharton (read 15 Apr 1976) This book was read during the time that I was reading a biography of Wharton. The Reef was published in 1912, and I was greatly surprised by how much caught up with the story I was. Laid mostly in Paris, the nuances are subtly enthralling, with few false notes. I felt the story, reminding one of Henry James, was better than James' stuff, because written in plainer English. The plot, with its adherence to a double standard, is plainly morally uninspiring, but the technique can't help but impress. I found the book one I read with unaccustomed eagerness, busy though I was at the time. ( )