The Age of Innocence

A reread for me, I think the third time I've read this. Every time I find myself noticing something new. This time I was thinking the entire time of what the book would have been from May Welland's point of view. I would love to read a retelling of that - is there one??

For those who haven't read this, [Age of Innocence] follows Newland Archer, a young man on the cusp of marriage to May Welland and into the stifling, closed off New York society of the 1870s. When worldly, exotic (well, to their small circle) Ellen Olenska returns home to escape a bad marriage, Archer becomes enthralled. This is a love triangle but also a study of what happens when people are caught in a shifting society and whether they'll stick with the old rules or show more forge a new path.

The book is written from Newland Archer's perspective which wildly annoyed me the first time I've read this. Subsequent readings have made me so impressed with how Wharton manages to make this about the women, particularly about May, without giving them a direct voice.

I love this book and highly recommend it. show less

Wharton's unsparing portrait of late 1800s upper class New York shows a society crumbling under the weight of its own pretense and conservatism. The senseless and hypocritical rituals of the upper classes and their tribal persecution of outsiders and nonconformists is portrayed here humorously but also as making many of the most privileged members bear the misery of its burden.
I find it hard to sympathize with Newland Archer, the novel's protagonist, because he seems so much in denial of his feelings throughout the first part of the novel that when he finally admits that he is in love with the Countess Olenska, he is far too enmeshed in the demands of his role as son and fiance to do anything about it.

"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"

4.5-stars, really!!

delicious!!! this is my first wharton (I KNOW!) and while i had already held her in high esteem as a writer and a woman, this book kinda made me fall in love with her. a lot. wharton's prose is beautiful. her eye for detail, incredible. i loved her way with description - sometimes so poetic, other times hilarious and often, both!

* "...her abysmal purity..."
* "The immense accretion of flesh, which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon."
* "...he plunged out into the winter night bursting show more with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate..."
* "...she gave an adipose chuckle and patted his knee with her puff-ball hand..."
* "She had the heedless generosity and the spasmodic extravagance of persons used to large fortunes,..."

this is great stuff!! :)

the age of innocence centers on an upper-class couple, archer and may's, impending marriage, and ellen, may's cousin - a countess who has recently fled her marriage and life in europe, so is plagued by scandal. ellen's presence, (along with being may's cousin, she is also a friend of archer's from childhood (this circle of society is tight, yo!)) threatens the happiness and stability of archer and may's union. though the novel questions assumptions and morals of 1870s' New York society, it never devolves into an outright condemnation of the institution. apparently, wharton considered this novel an "apology" for her earlier novel, 'the house of mirth', which was more brutal and critical. (and which i need to read RIGHT NOW!! heh!)

i truly enjoyed reading this book and was fully immersed in the time and place wharton created here. i loved coming across ideas in the novel, that for the time it was set (the 1870s), would have been very extreme views, and for the time it was written (1920), would likely still have been rather unpopular. ideas like: divorce, equality for (or more freedom for) women, socializing outside of one's 'class', progressive society - each touched on yet never presented as a lecture or a wagging finger.

according to wikipedia (I KNOW!):

"Not to be overlooked is Wharton's attention to detail regarding the charms and customs of the upper class. The novel has been lauded for its accurate portrayal of how the 19th-century East Coast American upper class lived, and this, combined with the social tragedy, earned Wharton a Pulitzer Prize—the first Pulitzer awarded to a woman. Edith Wharton was 58 years old at the time of publication; she had lived in that world and had seen it change dramatically by the end of World War I. The title is an ironic comment on the polished outward manners of New York society when compared to its inward machinations."

my only, only, 'yeah, but...' is because of:

early on in the novel we are told: "Everyone in polite circles knew that, in America, "a gentleman couldn't go into politics." and yet...by the end of the story, we learn that is, in fact, exactly what archer ended up doing. the last chapter has seen time in the story jump ahead 26 years. we are quickly brought up to speed with births, deaths and marriages. yet this one piece made for an inconsistency for me and left me with questions:

* in making the decision, did archer feel he was no longer a gentleman?
* did beliefs change within his level of society?
* did he, rather, just choose to follow his heart into something he truly wanted to do? if so, was this to offset the manner in which he would have rather followed his heart?
* if he had such a shift in thinking...then why not fight for ellen?

you see -- questions, i have them! :)

i loved the ending so much! i thought it perfect. i wondered often during this read if may and ellen were both held to a fantasized ideal in archer's mind. when archer, finally, says, near the very end of the book: "It's more real to me here than if I went up." i was, like, YEAH IT IS!

i think it was a ballsy choice on wharton's part to end the novel in this way. and i suspect wharton was a ballsy broad! :) show less

4½****, which would be 5***** were it not for the final chapter.

The conclusion to the penultimate chapter was extremely powerful. (In some ways, its understatement tilting into irony reminds me of the final line of Nella Larsen's Quicksand.) Then comes the final chapter and it's a bit of a letdown.

I can understand why Wharton may have felt a need for that final chapter — to put a contemporary (1920) spin on her story — but I think that conclusion became too didactic. I'd have ended with the ambiguity of May's triumph, but then, I'm someone who likes Jamesian ambiguity.

Loved, loved, loved this book. Wharton's tale of frustrated love and longing, of being claustrophobically penned in and controlled in every way by one's milieu, is a masterpiece. Poor Newland...it's his innocence, his lack of awareness of society's insidious, pervasive web, that is the theme of the novel. The apparent ingenue, May, is no such thing; instead she's a shrewd, aware young woman not above manipulating both her cousin and her fiance/spouse. What is amazing is the distance between the characters surface or public lives and their real lives. Astoundingly well done. A nice extra touch is the use of Faust, the opera, as a recurring image, pairing Helen/Elena Olenska.

In 1870s New York City, rich heir Newland Archer is newly engaged to rich heiress May Welland. It’s a good match since they’re both in the same super-rich close-knit social circle. This circle is disrupted by the arrival of May’s cousin Ellen from Europe, returning to America in scandalous circumstances having escaped an abusive marriage to a Count. She doesn’t follow the strict unwritten social rules of the New York rich - she dines with whomever she wants, speaks her mind, and petitions for *gasp* a divorce. Newland works at the law firm she has hired and feels drawn to her intellect and worldliness. He’s torn between wanting to give her the gift of freedom and safety or listening to their friends and family beg him to show more discourage her because divorce just isn’t done. In an effort to get Ellen out of his head Newland moves up his wedding to May, and Ellen moves to Washington DC. When they see each other again a year after the wedding, they realize nothing has changed between them. Newland wants her to stay close so they can still be in each other’s lives, but Ellen is still unwelcome in his society, so she leaves for Europe (but not back to her husband). Newland plans to follow her, but May tactfully reveals she is pregnant and he stays. Decades later, the widowered Newland is visiting his adult son in Paris when he’s invited to dinner at Ellen’s. He declines.

This is not a super fun read because Newland sucks a lot. Both Ellen and May are pretty sympathetic. Ellen just wants freedom and safety. May is smarter than Newland gives her credit for, even if she mostly chooses not to use it. You could argue she’s a bit manipulative but she’s only trying to manipulate herself out of the position her husband put her in. As a man, Newland is the only one in the triangle with real agency, but he doesn’t know what he wants - essentially he wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to keep the luxury and privilege of his life, and his marriage to May, but also wants to be with Ellen, but does not want to commit adultery or have a mistress (because that would be unseemly). And in the end, even when he’s eaten the cake, and then he gets the cake, he throws it away.

Aside from the lackluster main plot there’s a lot of interest here. The side characters are vivid - especially the snappy Granny Mingott and the scandalous Beaufort family. It’s a peek into a world full of bizarre unspoken rules and strict rituals that haunt Americans to this day. In this respect Ellen is especially interesting - the American myth tells us that European nobility is stratified, stuck-up, and overly formal, but it’s the American plutocracy that shuns Ellen for stepping a toe out of line.

Worth reading once for the Gilded Age historical context, but I don’t think I’ll ever return to it. show less

It took me awhile to get through this novel. While I read, I think my inner critic was opining on whether or not it was worthy of the Pulitzer Prize (there's a whole side story on this, involving author Sinclair Lewis, and how one feels about it may largely depend on one's definition of "wholesome").

I gave this novel 4 stars because overall, it is a very good novel and Wharton is a very good writer. She takes a cold hard look at late 19th century New York society, its social hypocrisy and unspoken codes of morality. Her characters are very well drawn and believable and, at times, quite maddening as they move through the time and place they are born into.

Wharton can be, by turns, intensely romantic: "Each time, you happen to me all show more over again."

Then, hilarious: "Mr. Jackson had helped himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the mournful butler had handed him with a look as sceptical (sic) as his own, and had rejected the mushroom sauce after a barely perceptible sniff. He looked baffled and hungry..."

Then, tragic: "But after a moment a sense of waste and ruin overcame him. There they were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well have been half the world apart."

This is a sad story, but one also full of family ties and loyalties that give certain characters a dignity about them, showing awareness of the restrictive lives they lead under social controls. These restrictions certainly apply to the women of this time, but also extend to the men, who find themselves just as trapped as the women (albeit with more ways available to sidestep them).

My particular copy was poorly edited, to the point it was distracting more than once. I enjoyed this novel enough to want to revisit it in the future, and will treat myself to a quality hardcover. Definitely recommended. show less