Bunner Sisters

The Bunner Sisters is a brief novella that I felt packed quite a punch. Wharton strays from the world of the wealthy elite and instead explores the lives of two sisters living one small step away from poverty. They have a small shop in NYC and make just enough to get by and set a little aside. They are happy, but then meet Mr. Ramy and both sisters see a chance at marrying him and having a different life. Let's just say the novel doesn't end happily.

Towards the end of the book, this passage really summed up the moral of this novella. This is the thought of the older sister, who sets aside her desires to allow her younger sister a chance for a happy life.

Hitherto she had never thought of questioning the inherited principles which had show more guided her life. Self-effacement for the good of others had always seemed to her both natural and necessary; but then she had taken it for granted that it implied the securing of that good. Now she perceived that to refuse the gifts of life does not ensure their transmission to those for whom they have been surrendered; and her familiar heaven was unpeopled.

As always, I love Edith Wharton's writing. show less

her private longings shrank into silence at the sight of the other's hungry bliss'
By sally tarbox TOP 500 REVIEWER on 23 Sept. 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
A wonderful, wonderful read; unlike most of Wharton's work, it features not the upper classes, but a couple of impoverished spinster sisters, running a humble haberdasher's shop from their basement.
Life is uneventful until the elder, Ann Eliza, decides to buy Evelina a clock. She goes into a little shop and becomes interested in the German owner - apparently a lonely bachelor. Could she contrive to meet him again?
"A sudden heart-throb stretched the seams of her flat alpaca bosom, and a pulse leapt to life in each of her temples."

Themes of self-sacrifice, sisterly show more devotion, anguish but also little humorous touches...I adored it. show less

The Bunner Sisters is a shop, run by the sisters themselves, who are on the verge of spinsterhood and poised to slide into a lonely, but comfortable, old age. They are happy together, have a small but thriving business, with little variety in their daily routine, and it seems to both of them that they have missed something important in life. At the opening of the story, the elder sister, Ann Eliza, buys a clock as a birthday gift for the younger, Evelina, and the purchase introduces them to the clockmaker, Mr. Ramy, and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.

Edith Wharton is so amazing in the way in which she can draw you into the lives of her characters, regardless of what strata of life she pulls them from, and show more then pack the events of their lives with so much tragic meaning. Platitudes kept running through my mind as I was reading: The grass is always greener, be careful what you wish for, don’t fail to see the value in what you have, the best laid plans of mice and men, and love is an uneven thing, someone always loves and gives a bit more than the other.

For the first time in her life she dimly faced the awful problem of the inutility of self-sacrifice. Hitherto she had never thought of questioning the inherited principles which guided her life. Self-effacement for the good of others had always seemed to her both natural and necessary; but then she had taken it for granted that it implied the securing of that good. Now she perceived that to refuse the gifts of life does not ensure their transmission to those for whom they have been surrendered; and her familiar heaven was unpeopled. She felt she could no longer trust in the goodness of God, and that if he was not good he was not God, and there was only a black abyss above the roof of Bunner Sisters.

If you have read other Wharton novels, you will recognize the overall atmosphere that permeates this novella. Wharton often gives us characters who seem to be in the grasp of events they cannot control and who are being swept along to an end which they might have avoided had they read the signs and made different choices. Lily Bart from The House of Mirth kept coming to mind, even though these women are caught in a much different web than the one Lily struggled against.

I think there are few writers who have the skill of Edith Wharton. Her novels are both character and plot driven and I can never recall ending one feeling I had been cheated or that she had failed to stir my emotions. She has a brilliant control of language, never choosing the wrong word or using four when two would suffice. She paints pictures of the human soul, in all its complexity, and she gives us all the sadnesses we visit upon one another. show less

One of Wharton's earliest stories looks at small shop owners in Manhattan - the Bunner Sisters running their own shop. They feel financially settled. The sisters have their bond and roles. Ann Eliza is older, responsible and self-sacrificing. Evelina is whimsical and freer and more creative. When Ann Eliza buys a clock from an out of work bachelor running a little clock shop, this bachelor and the girls take some mutual interest in each other. The rest of the novella is the consequences of this to the sisters.

Although early, Wharton's prose is on display. Easy getting into, easy getting whiled away, and then noticing the feeling in these lines. The novella looks at sibling relationships and roles, and also at loneliness, loss, and, show more quietly, at longing. The prose really fires off in the middle of the book as one sister finds herself alone. It's a lovely novella, showcasing Wharton's early natural sense of prose and composition.

2025
https://www.librarything.com/topic/372264#8913905 show less

The Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton takes place in a shabby neighbourhood in New York City. The two sisters keep a shop selling women’s accessories, like artificial flowers. They barely make ends meet, but by doing some extra sewing, Ann Eliza, the elder sister, is able to give the younger sister, Evelina a clock for her birthday. Although Ann Eliza has come to terms with her spinsterhood, Evelina still clings to the hope of marriage. When the sisters develop a relationship with the clock-maker, Mr Ramy, both sisters are attracted to him. Mr Ramy seems like a quiet, gentleman who would make a fine husband, but it turns out that he is not what he seems. The sister’s fragile sensibilities and naivety leads to their placing trust where show more it shouldn’t have been placed.

First and foremost, this story is a tragedy, a dark tale of poverty, loneliness and despair. Edith Wharton excels in stories that are full of melancholy and repressed emotions. In The Bunner Sisters she expertly pulls on the reader’s heartstrings with this quietly affecting, emotional read. show less

Psychologically astute with a tinge of melodrama in the manner of that other Wharton novella I have issues with, Ethan Frome. Besides that it's a bleak, chilling look at poverty and aloneness--there's no romance or whimsy about that here--and what happens when real life doesn't live up to the promises of moral ideals or religious conviction. Forgotten women, discarded women, people barely scraping by in the margins of society.

This is a short but excellent work by Edith Wharton. Ann Eliza and Evelina are sisters eking out a living in a small buttons and notions shop where customers are few and far between when Hermann Ramy, a clockmaker enters their lives. The sisters, starved for friendship, are overcome by Mr. Ramy's attentions, with dire consequences. This is another book, like Wharton's Summer which I read last year, in which she so successfully delves into characters far-removed from her own social class. The realities of the poor urban working class are clearly presented, and the plight of unmarried women in that time and place are also highlighted.
Highly recommended.

4 stars