Eliot, Karl Marx and Douglas Adams are all buried on the East side, but I’d particularly recommend the West Side (of course, there is no reason you can’t do both). This is the more architecturally interesting area with the Egyptian Avenue and the Rossetti family graves. It was incredibly atmospheric, particularly the first time I went – it was winter and started snowing whilst we walked around. Our guide pointed out the symbolism in many of the sculptures, graves and carvings. It opened my eyes to hidden meanings in familiar objects and images that I’d taken for granted. For example, did you realise the broken pillar often used on graves symbolises a life broken off or cut short? Obvious really, but I was really interested in this as I just hadn’t really thought about it before!

George Eliot’s grave

Since seeing Eliot’s grave and learning a little more about her work through my investigation into Wharton, I’ve been considering reading Middlemarch. Or rather, rereading Middlemarch – I have tried it before about ten years ago and just didn’t get on with it at all. I also tried to read The Mill on the Floss once as well, but also put that down when it all started getting a bit bleak! Have you read Middlemarch? Would you recommend it? I’ve got mixed feelings, but it has now moved from the shelf in the study to my bedside table so that is a sign!

I conclude, though, that, in writing this book, Edith Wharton had in mind more abstract considerations than the personality of the central character.

Decision, for much of its text, seems to pit religion against liberty and progress. Odo develops progressive ideas, but, when he attempts to place them in operation, the human condition (including prejudice, inertia, and ignorance) blocks him at every turn. Religion, at least in the form of Christianity, earns a better name by the end of the book.

I rate this a slow but worthwhile read.

New York. 19th century. The Victorian age. Society parties, opera, gossip and social conventions are at the same level than the ten commandments. Every touch, every look, every thought so chastely impure is so intense and heart stopping than in certain occasions you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. Plus, there’s this unresolved sexual tension between the characters. They deserve someone who yells at them: “Do yourselves a favour and get a room!”, but no one does, so they maintain their composure. Or something like that.

Besides all that, there are family grudges, heritages, marriages, rides on calash, people scandalized by the european habits (the people at the other side of the Atlantic can get divorce: God help us all!), rich aunts, a bloody encounter between rational thoughts and feelings, and in the background, an accurate dissection of the upper class.

Edith’s writing is very detailed (and I’m falling short), which causes the action to develop at the speed of a tortoise, but this is not bad. She gives herself time to light the candles, turn on the music and prepare the dinner in order to create the right atmosphere. That way, the intensity continues in crescendo until you have the need to hold your breath with some scenes.

The line: “We’re all as like each other as those dolls cut out of the same folded paper. We’re like patterns stencilled on a wall. Can’t you and I strike out for ourselves, May?”

Read it while you’re listening to: Match Point Soundtrack

You would like it if you enjoyed: “Portrait of a lady” by Henry James, “Anna Karenina” by Tolstoi

Verdict: Why did it have to end?

Hunter S. Thompson’s Prince Jellyfish

The formal publication of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s first novel may not be far off, especially if Hollywood has already caught on to his second previously unpublished work, The Rum Diary. After all, they can’t let Johnny Depp become too old to play the eccentric writer.

In a chapter titled “Character is Destiny” in Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream, Thompson revealed that he wrote the unpublished novel in 1959, using an assumed name while living in an “illegal sub-basement at 57 Perry Street.” A letter printed in the same book, to editor Angus Cameron, indicates Thompson “tried like hell to finish it,” but a relationship, an arrest, and a dead-end writing assignment “somewhat hindered the progress of the book.”

Excerpts from Prince Jellyfish also appear in Songs of the Doomed, where we learn that the autobiographical story’s protagonist, named Welburn Kemp, heads from Louisville to the big city “struggling against the dunces to make his way.” Kemp’s name comes from two of Thompson’s high school classmates (one died tragically in a car crash, the other suffered brain damage from a wreck), but the character is every bit Thompson. Other people from the author’s past make appearances. Shortly after finishing a first draft, Thompson did head to New York City in search of bigger and better things.

Edith Wharton’s Literature, Disintegration, and erotica

The prolific Age of Innocence author has two abandoned novels amongst her many unfinished works. Literature, which she started working on in 1913, and Disintegration (1902) are examined in Laura Rattray’s The Unpublished Writings of Edith Wharton. Based on a review of Rattray’s book, the writer describes Disintegration as a “fin de siècle novel of complex narrative design.” Her other novel Literature was contained in a “small writer’s notebook, in which she jotted down informally, in pencil, ideas for story situations and character types, short quotations on writing and life from English, French, and German, and even a schedule of trains leaving Ashford, England for Rye.” The book also contained a 19-page summary of Literature’s plot, character descriptions, bits of dialogue, and about 70 typed pages of the novel. Of course, don’t forget about Wharton’s incomplete and unpublished erotica — a torrid and taboo story called Beatrice Palmato.

Kurt Vonnegut’s If God Were Alive Today

Kurt Vonnegut began writing If God Were Alive Today before he died in 2007. The story focuses on “the stand-up comedian on Doomsday,” Gil Berman. He’s a lecturer who “enjoys cracking jokes in front of a college audience while societal dependence on fossil fuels has led to the apocalypse.” Vonnegut’s daughter Nanette frames the story through memories of her father in We Are What We Pretend To Be: The First and Last Works, praising the “hilarity” and “wisdom” of the “brutal satire on societal ignorance and carefree denial of the world’s major problems.”

Artie Shaw’s The Education of Albie Snow

Jazz bandleader and composer Artie Shaw is best remembered for his music, but the swing-era artist was also a passionate writer. Shaw authored three books, including a 1952 autobiography, and two pieces of fiction that weren’t very well received. His unpublished work, The Education of Albie Snow, is a 1000-page autobiographical novel that took years to write — half of it, anyway. Friends and editors of Shaw’s have seen the novel (including Knopf Doubleday/Random House in 2005), but publishers have yet to bite. An editor described the book:

“It covers from ages 15 to 24, with a couple of flashbacks to age 7 and the first anti-Semitism he encountered [growing up] in Connecticut. It’s wonderful because it has a coming-of-age quality to it, the young teenager and how he teaches himself to play the saxophone and clarinet.”

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Light-House

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Light-House was the gothic scribe’s last work before his death in 1849. Written as a series of diary entries, a lighthouse keeper — believed to be one of Poe’s alter egos — ponders his isolation and survival in the seaside tower along Scandinavian waters. A final diary entry is left empty, which suggests the lonely narrator has died, but some scholars state the work was simply unfinished. You can read it here.

Stephen King’s The House on Value Street

King has a number of unpublished works to his name, many that are stored in the special collections department at the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine. One of King’s most fascinating unpublished books is The House on Value Street. A seed was planted during the weeks King struggled to complete the novel during the wake of the Patty Hearst kidnapping, which grew into The Stand. King described the experience in Danse Macabre:

“It was going to be a roman à clef about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, her brainwashing (or her sociopolitical awakening, depending on your point of view, I guess), her participation in the bank robbery, the shootout at the SLA hideout in Los Angeles — in my book, the hideout was on Value Street, natch — the fugitives run across the country, the whole ball of wax. It seemed to me to be a highly potent subject, and while I was aware that lots of non-fiction books were surely to be written on the subject, it seemed to me that only a novel might really succeed in explaining all the contradictions. The novelist is, after all, God’s liar, and if he does his job well, keeps his head and his courage, he can sometimes find the truth that lives at the center of the lie.”

A moment of free-association led to one of King’s most epic works:

“This phrase and the story about the CBW [chemical/biological warfare] spill in Utah and my memories of Stewart’s fine book all became entwined in my thoughts about Patty Hearst and the SLA, and one day while sitting at my typewriter… I wrote — just to write something: ‘The world comes to an end but everybody in the SLA is somehow immune.’ … [Later] I wrote, ‘Donald DeFreeze is a dark man.’ I did not mean that DeFreeze was black; it had suddenly occurred to me that, in the photos taken during the bank robbery in which Patty Hearst participated, you could barely see De Freeze’s face. He was wearing a big badass hat, and what he looked like was mostly guesswork. I wrote, ‘A dark man with no face,’ and then glanced up and saw that grisly little motto again: ‘Once in every generation a plague will fall among them.’ And that was that. I spent the next two years writing an apparently endless book called The Stand. It got to the point where I began describing it to friends as my own little Vietnam, because I kept telling myself that in another hundred pages or so I would begin to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Chuck Palahniuk’s Insomnia: If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Already

Insomnia: If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Already was scrapped just before Palahniuk set to work on his best-known novel Fight Club. Part of the work appears in the writer’s anti-consumer culture opus (narrated by an insomniac).

Philip K. Dick’s The Owl in Daylight

Dick never finished writing The Owl in Daylight before he died in 1982, and speculation surrounding the plot abounds. A 1982 discussion on the story between Dick and journalist Gwen Lee suggests Dick wrote about a B-film composer, an alien race unable to hear sound, religion, and the usual cryptic weirdness. The protagonist eventually sacrifices his own body for implantation, offering the character an opportunity to experience the world through alien eyes. At one point Paul Giamatti was set to create a “Charlie Kauffman-esque” biopic about the complicated writer, with the actor playing Dick, but news about the project hasn’t surfaced since 2009. For another take on Dick’s unpublished tale, you can plunk down $434 for a rare copy of Tessa B. Dick’s version of the story. The author’s wife wanted to “express the spirit of Phil’s proposed novel, without using his plot or the one character that he had created.” The Philip K. Dick Estate wasn’t happy about the move by Mrs. Dick, and the book was taken out of circulation.

Charles Bukowski’s The Poet

All we can uncover about Bukowski’s unpublished novel The Poet comes from the 1972 edition of Mug Shots: Who’s Who in the New Earth. “It’s fairly filthy, very lively, and just a little bit literary,” the writer stated. If Bukowski nerds have any other information pertaining to the story, we’re all eyes and ears.

J.D. Salinger

The reclusive J.D. Salinger published his last novella in 1965, but the world continued to wait tirelessly for another story that might rival The Catcher in the Rye. Those 45 years remain a mystery as far as Salinger’s later writings are concerned, but we know the author refused every attempt to adapt his stories and denied access to his manuscripts during his lifetime. Rumors, and recently uncovered letters, indicate that a treasure trove of unpublished works rests in the hands of Salinger’s estate. There may be a clause in the writer’s will and testament that states the family cannot publish Salinger’s stories before a specified time, but all remains quiet since his death in 2010. The author’s widow and son called the rumors “nonsense.”

at the present i am…

♥ wearing: A blue gingham shirt (of course), jeans, lots of random jewels and no shoes
♥ listening: The new Carrie Underwood CD — yes it really is good.
♥ reading: The Age of Innocence by my favorite author ever, Edith Wharton
♥ watching: Watching Dead (but can’t wait for Game of Thrones)
♥ doing: Prepping for Spring aka lots of florals, full skirts, and pastels
♥ loving: Making summer vacation plans with my husband
♥ hating: Nothing at the moment. All is great!
♥ wishing: For a puppy! Has this answer ever changed?
♥ wanting: A new bathing suit. Trying to decide between a whole piece and a bikini

What about you, lovelies?

Eldest and Youngest got me lovely things (book tokens, notebooks, things from my wish list) but Middle Child rather surpassed herself by finding four lovely Green Viragos I don’t have – and here they are:

Lovely new (old) green Viragos!

I was chuffed to say the least – the Willa Cather sounds fascinating; I’ve always wanted to read “Roman Fever”; the Molly Keane is one I don’t have; and I’m trying to get the set of Antonia Whites so this helps a lot!

Well done offspring!

By Kevin Smokler

In Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven’t Touched Since High School, Kevin Smokler takes you on a trip down high school memory lane, when you couldn’t stand reading As I Lay Dying or Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Or maybe you could, you bookworm. Either way, Smokler gives us 10 books and 10 compelling reasons why you should revisit them.

It’s all too easy to look at the novels assigned to us as high school students as monuments or mist, to be worshiped or abandoned as we did our outfit to the junior prom. That either/or narrative matches both how we encounter these “great books” in education (as non-negotiable requirements) and an educator’s hope for our response (that their “greatness” changes our lives). That may be a whole lot no-shades-of-gray thinking on my part. As proof, I’ll accept a “meh” opinion on Moby-Dick or The Scarlet Letter from anyone assigned to write an essay on it as a teenager.

Is there a third way? I hope so. I spent the last year rereading the books my high school teachers assigned to me. My thinking: It isn’t enough to give a classic another look just because “it’s a classic.” A classic is also so because of its resonance and usefulness throughout time, JST as Shakespeare’s Henry V was a patriotic salvo when Laurence Oliver adopted it at the beginning of the Cold War and a warning about the cost of empire when Kenneth Brannagh did at the end of it.

Below are 10 high school classics where I found that useful thing I missed the first time around.

Click here to read the rest of this story

title: The House of Mirth

author: Edith Wharton

narrator: Barbara Caruso

genre/imprint: Classics

length: 13.5 hours

summary: What Galsworthy did for Edwardian England, Wharton did for turn-of-the-century New York, and she did it to perfection in The House of Mirth. Hackles bristle discreetly, lips curl ever-so politely, and every breach of good taste is carefully recorded, as social aspirant Lily Bart launches a desperate bid for a place on the city’s elite social register.

review: My midlife crisis is affecting me in odd ways. I haven’t bought the sports car and I haven’t traded in my wife for a younger model (yet), but I have looked at my bucket list of reading and found myself lacking in a lot of classics. To make up for that, I have decided to read some of them via audiobook.

Although I have read other titles by Edith Wharton (including her wonderful short story, False Dawn), I had not read The House of Mirth, her second full length novel. I found it interesting that having written so early in her career, in 1906, Wharton was able to rise above her elevated socioeconomic status and recognize the hypocrisy of her set. The narrative moved smoothly with each new character and situation seemingly perfectly designed to progress Lily Bart’s situation.

Since I am not a historian, I do not know how the title was reviewed at the time of its debut, but I would think the subject matter, and particularly the ending, would have been somewhat shocking to the gilded age sensibilities.

Barbara Caruso’s narration did a great job with both the male and female characters, giving each enough of a unique intonation to keep conversations separate. A great read (listen).

reviewer: Patrick

Author:

This is a peculiar little book. Imagine being in a marriage that just wasn’t meant to be and falling in love with somebody else who seems to really get you. Imagine that divorce and counseling just isn’t an option, and misery is all you have left looking forward to. This is a book about Ethan Frome, who is stuck in this particular situation. He marries his wife some years ago pretty much out of fear of being alone. Something tells me that the stress from his mother’s death had a lot to do with this rush decision. Plagued by a need for someone to be there for him, Ethan plunges into the commitment without really having any special feelings for the woman. This set up for the story made me stop for a minute, put down the book on my lap, and carefully think about the possibility of something like that happening to a person. To think of it, people throughout the ages have been marrying left and right not out of love, but out of necessity, ambition, fear of scandal, desperation, and numerous other reasons. How happy could these people really be? Perhaps, they count on learning to love the other person, just like they learned to walk and count to ten. Is it realistic to learn something like that?

Ethan too apparently planned to learn to love his wife, but Zenobia quickly turned out to be in need of care herself, slumping in a string of illnesses. I have a strong opinion that Zeena was in fact a hypochondriac with a Munchhausen syndrome, especially considering the change in her attitude at the end of the book. Leaving with a constantly cranky and sour woman, Ethan naturally became infatuated with Zenobia’s sweet and gentle cousin Mattie, who comes into the household as help. It was painful to see the turmoil of passions that both Ethan and Mattie were forced to hide under their reserved demeanor. An occasional touch and a slipped word were all they needed to exchange the tender promises of love. While adultery is a difficult subject to sympathize with, I certainly hoped to see the young lovers would find a way to be together. Unfortunately for my idealistic dreams, Ethan and Mattie decided on a very tragic path to their freedom.

Gosh, what a powerful little book! I keep wondering about the ending quite a bit: how do I interpret it? Was it a final unfair jeer of life at two innocent souls? Was it punishment for intended adultery? Was the outcome of Ethan and Mattie’s rush decision an ironic twist of fate? How did Wharton herself feel about these two? I could have sworn her sympathies were with them, but the few closing remarks left me doubting myself. I don’t know, I am no scholar, but it sure is fun to keep asking these questions, as if the answers will start falling from the ceiling. I cannot say that this book will take the place of an ultimate favorite in my heart – it is just rather too straightforward for that, – but I would give it four solid stars and a promise that I will come back to Wharton sometime in the future.

Valley appears to be a growing-up book. It begins with Odo, aged nine, growing up with foster parents in 18th Century Italy. A strange arrangement—the one one involving foster parents.  Apparently, high-flyers with pretentions to good blood, couldn’t bother with the trouble and expense of children; so, if I understand

the matter, they ordered lower-class families in the countryside to raise them (the children) at their (the lower classes’s) expense! The parents, good blood notwithstanding, might, as in this case, have insufficient funds to carry on life in the manner they desired if they had to bear the economic burden of their children.

As you can imagine, Odo’s mother, Donna Laura, doesn’t come off as a sympathetic character. At ten percent into the book, she has buried her first husband and, still young and attractive, taken on a second husband who is her grandfather’s age. It’s probably not just physical.

As a reflection on women’s rights in the early 20th century, women such as Charity were willing to bend their backs and seek independence but rusty toes were always willing to poke out of bushes and trip them. Women were stuck in intentional mouse traps–they couldn’t help but be dependent. Ok, let’s throw women back in the home WHERE WE THINK THEY BELONG because we don’t think such beautiful creatures deserve to live in such utilitarian, unfurnished spaces such as the mills or mines for example. Women are mothers, they proclaimed, but aren’t men fathers?

I hope at the end of Wharton’s Summer, Charity runs away from her small town, but where will she go? Where has history gone? When will history stop recurring and plucking women out of the “real world?”

I must be grateful however for MY college education, my space, income, and financial responsibilities. I will never let myself be a product of a recurring past–I will ride my car, my bike through the streets to avoid the stuck-out toes. Maybe, in the 21st century, society will once and for all, run over the mouse traps and see gender as fluid.

“Ah, no– she was too intelligent not to be honest with herself. She knew that she hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood ’till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch.”

…to be the candle or
the mirror that reflects it.

The only thing I seem to collect is dust. Well, dust and infirmities. If left to my own devices, I would probably collect more living creatures (I still want a pair of pygmy goats!) but, regrettably, we seem to be slouching toward the de-acquisition stage as far as animals go.

I guess you could say I’ve begun a collection of chickens that look like bowling balls.

The CE, however, is a true EC. That is, our venerable Chicken Emperor is also an Emperor of Collecting. As a kid he collected agates and coins and who knows what else. Equations, perhaps. Early in our marriage he happened past a local antique store where a small Oriental carpet was on display outside and that chance encounter led to thirty years of drinking tea in back rooms with Middle Eastern rug experts. One of them is now his good friend Wali, an Afghan emigre who left his country during the Soviet occupation in the early 1980′s to start a new life in the United States.

The CE back in 1990 at an oriental rug conference.

Wali and the CE at the recent wedding of Wali’s youngest son.

It recently occured to the CE what many visitors to our home have observed repeatedly over the years: we have too many rugs! And so arrives the end of an era. There will be no more Tekke Turkomans, Isfahans, bagfaces or camel bells crossing our threshold. In fact, he is currently in the process of downsizing his collection, just in case you’re looking to decorate your yurt.

Chloe poses with a Caucasian rug, most of which come from Azerbaijan

Ah, but what I have learned about the CE is that one esoteric collection simply leads to another. (JMHO, but anyone who says collecting is not an addiction should perhaps then inquire as to why the purveyors of collectibles are called “dealers”) I don’t think we’re ever going to see him collecting thimbles or frog figurines or even baseball cards. For the CE, odder is better and that is what brings us to Napoleonia, if that is by any chance a real word. As an avid student of military history, the CE has long studied Napoleon, and with him, study is a slippery slope that leads to collecting. Weird stuff. Like a statue of a Napoleonic era soldier that brings to mind a supremely hideous lawn ornament. Oh, and sabres. You might have photographs or posters hanging in your study; we have sabres.

The CE’s bliss is a decorator’s nightmare.

The good news is that, as with rugs, collecting Napoleonia also means collecting friends. In the process of learning about the sabres of the Napoleonic era, the CE was led to a learned gentleman in Atlanta who became his “sword mentor”. Al has advised the CE on matters of authenticity and has helped him build his small collection and, in the process, has become a friend. He visited us a few months ago and the two of them pored over things Napoleonic for hours. Later this year we will visit Al in Atlanta and I imagine he and the CE will have another sabre session there.

Swordplay: Al and the CE

The dogs were convinced Al came to visit them, so he was forced to take them for a walk.

The CE, not yet being quite full-tilt mad, eventually realized that there was only so much wall space that could be dedicated to swords. He did not, however, see this as a reason to cease collecting. Not in the least. Because for my dear husband, when one wall is covered, a bookshelf opens up. And so began his collection of 20th century American literature. Books. Yes, books. You know, those things they say people don’t read anymore?

We both share a weakness for Willa: here are some Cather firsts

As I have mentioned here before, it started with our shared affection for Willa Cather, then branched out into Edith Wharton and then, there you have it, a new collection. And one of the most fun things about collecting books is meeting the book dealers. Among those who have become friends are Joshua Mann and Sunday Steinkirchner, newlyweds and co-owners of B&B Rare Books in New York City. They spent a night with us during their sojourn between West Coast book fairs a few weeks ago and we had so much fun hosting the Manhattanites for their first visit to Santa Barbara.

First order of business was chicken introductions: here is Sunday with a reluctant Lucy

And then the CE gave them the tour of his library

And before they left for San Francisco, we had breakfast at the beach

Later this month, Josh and Sunday will be opening their new Gramercy/Flatiron gallery at 30 East 20th Street. If you’re going to be in the city, you’ll want to make an appointment to visit, if not to see their books then at least to visit with their powerfully cute Shih Tsu, Marlowe, who we are told will be ambassador-in-residence at the new gallery.

If Marlowe had a sibling, they could be bookends! (Sunday Steinkirchner photo)

The CE will undoubtedly continue to collect. I just hope that along with the swords and the books and whatever else he dreams up, we continue to collect such lovely friends along the way.

By the way, dear CE, I do have a birthday coming up and these two wearing bows are probably cheaper than jewelry:-) (image from worldbook.com)

I have also read The Age of Innocence and The Custom of the Country since Christmas, with Summer next on my hit list. So far, I feel that The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence are my joint favourites; The House of Mirth because of the heartbreaking story of Lily Bart. I doubt anyone could stay composed as they read her words: ‘I have tried hard, but life is so difficult – and I am a very useless person.’. The Age of Innocence is also my favourite because of the perfect ending. I will try not to give it away, but again, could there be a more perfect sentence than this: ‘she said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you’d given up the thing you most wanted’? One other piece of hers that blew my socks off was a short story called Roman Fever. I’m not normally a huge short story fan to be honest as in the past I’ve found them a little unsatisfying but Roman Fever has inspired me to try them again so Wharton’s Ghost Stories and Tales of Old New York will be joining my bedside pile shortly! Which is your favourite Wharton?

I had heard relatively little about Wharton until last year and I wonder if that is because I’ve just missed her or because she is under-rated as a woman writer of mainly shorter novellas? I’ll leave you for now on that note whilst I muse on themes in her work that I might explore for my PhD…

But it’s not. Instead, the story taps into the timeless suspicion of ‘what was my spouse like before I met them.’ At the beginning Waythorn is pleased with his wife, younger than him and making him feel younger. The fact that she was married twice before is easily ignorable. The first was to a Mr. Haskett, which neither Waythorn nor any of his friends has ever met, and is thus forgettable. As for the second marriage to Gus Varick:

“…the alliance was brief and stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even Varick’s stanchest supporters admitted that he was not meant for matrimony, and Mrs. Varick’s grievances were of a nature to bear the inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue, and in the semi-widowhood of this second separation Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was allowed to confide her wrongs to some of the most scrupulous ears in town. But when it was known that she was to marry Waythorn there was a momentary reaction. Her best friends would have preferred to see her remain in the role of the injured wife, which was as becoming to her as crape to a rosy complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed, and it was not even suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his predecessor. Still, people shook their heads over him, and one grudging friend, to whom he affirmed that he took the step with his eyes open, replied oracularly: “Yes—and with your ears shut.””

But, as the story unfolds, Waythorn finds himself in business with Varick. The two start seeing each other regularly, even occasionally meeting at Waythorn’s house. This is enough to start making Waythorn uncomfortable about Varick’s previous claim over his wife, and this only increases once Mr. Haskett re-enters their lives.

There appears to be a number of scholarly papers discussing this story, some of which are excerpted here. Rather than compete with them I’ll simply say I really enjoyed the story, and Waythorn’s gradually changing attitude to his wife is fascinating.

The Other Two by Edith Wharton

Availability: free online (out of copyright), print

Word count: 7,400

First published: Collier’s, 13 Feb 1904

Where to find it: It’s free online in a number of places such as here and here:

50 Great Short Stories, edited by Milton Crane, 1983, Bantam Classics

Wharton Collected Stories: 1891-1910, collection, 2001, Library of America

I feel like The Age of Innocence gets a lot of flack for being a Scorcese picture without gangsters, guns, or blood on the walls violence. I can’t really find too much injustice in that. It doesn’t have those things, but maybe that’s a big part of the reason I love it. I’m not a big Scorcese expert (getting there hopefully), but he actually goes outside of the violence and the gangsters quite a bit. Even if the results aren’t perfect, I love the concept of people going outside of their comfort zone and trying something they don’t normally do. It’s so hard to do well, and as in this case, even when it is done well people don’t expect it so they end up going “what….?” But regardless of Scorcese’s reputation for tackling completely different subject matter, The Age of Innocence is a great film that I immediately loved.

Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a New York lawyer from a prominent family, eagerly engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder) also from a prominent family. It’s basically perfect, socially speaking, but there’s another problem that materializes. Countess Ellen Olenska (Michele Pfeiffer) is May’s cousin come back to New York after scandalously leaving her abusive European husband. At first she is ostracized for seeking a divorce, but the Wellands and the Archers do their best to use May and Newland’s engagement to distract everybody from Ellen’s scandalous doings. Newland, being a lawyer, is asked to review Ellen’s case, and through this gets to know her better. At this point it’s obvious that these two are going to fall in love and the society of New York is not going to be happy about it.

There are two main things in this movie: the love story and the societal machinations that get in the way. The kind of ironic part is that their similar reactions to society is what brings them together in the first place. Newland listens to her saying all of this stuff that he’s been thinking about the people he’s with and how they act, but he’s never said any of this and is surprised that someone actually would. This is most obviously apparent when she walks over to him (which apparently women aren’t supposed to do), makes fun of some of the people they both know, and remarks “it seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it the copy of another country.” This line is sort of problematic for me as I am not particularly up to snuff on social customs of Europe as opposed to England or America, but since Ellen has felt the need to escape to Europe and then escape back again, I gather that the rigid social restrictions are in all of these places. America was a chance for freedom for whoever went there, but unfortunately this didn’t work out.

So at first, Newland is basically her lawyer, but they are always friendly. He comes over to her house, and I wasn’t sure how unusual this was. There’s this other guy who comes over quite a bit, he’s a realtor, but he’s not in great social standing so I wasn’t sure. Regardless, this means a lot to both of them. They speak frankly about how Ellen should behave that will draw the least attention to herself, but also how to best get her what she wants. He advises her against a divorce (which he might not have done if he wasn’t in denial of loving her) because it will basically kill any social position she has by being related to the Wellands. “Our laws favor divorce but our customs do not.” Once Newland realizes how attracted he is to this woman, he tries even harder to marry May as soon as possible.

May is a really interesting character, and Winona Ryder does a great job with her. She was actually nominated for an academy award, but lost to Anna Paquin in The Piano. At first, she seems really sweet and clueless. That’s only because that’s what she wants you to think. She’s mastered the art of moving in society so well that for a good portion of the film you don’t even realize she’s so calculating. Even if you do, I don’t think Newland does. Newland goes down to Florida to move up their wedding date, and May asks him if that’s really what he wants to do. If he’s really sure about marrying her, or if he just wants to move it up because there’s someone else. She cites a different example from the past and not Ellen, but I think she’s knows exactly what’s going on. Even if she doesn’t, she’s close enough so that her question has the same effect either way. I don’t think Newland fully realizes the force of social maneuvering that is coming to bear on him in this scene, but he will later. She’s using reverse psychology on him too, she wants to marry him and marry him she will. Not because she loves him, but because it’s the best thing to do socially. Her manipulation becomes more and more apparent as the film continues on.

He then goes back to Ellen, confesses his love for her, and basically asks her what he should do with his life. Ellen also loves him, of course, but still wants him to marry May. Now they will be doubly separated, so this seems just as contrary to their wishes as Ellen not divorcing her husband. Why does she do this? At first it seems she encourages the marriage for the unselfish reason that May would be hurt, but that’s not the whole story. She has to keep Newland himself, so that she’ll still love him.  ”You couldn’t be happy if it meant being cruel. If we act any other way I’ll be making you act against what I love in you most… I can’t love you unless I give you up.” This is particularly important for the remainder of the film, where Newland and May are married and Ellen is living in Washington or Boston or wherever she happens to be at the moment which is almost always not New York. They just try to keep this idea of the love they had (or could have had depending on how you look at it) from dying. This tension of them being separated never really finds any sort of release; they never go off together, Newland never tells May or anybody else, there’s just this never ending sense of torment that eventually just dissipates. I don’t want to give away the ending, but by the time the end of the film comes to it you wonder how much of their relationship was based on the ideal of flaunting society or meeting another cultured person or whatever the case may be, and how much was actual love or desire. Are they more satisfied being apart and cherishing the idea of what they could have had than actually having it? Who knows, but of course people change over time and there’s a big time elapse in the film, so that’s another possible explanation.

One of the many things I appreciated about the film was it’s use of a narrator, voiced by Joanne Woodward. It was especially helpful because a lot of times, as is the point of the story, the social interactions were so veiled and subtle from a 21st century point of view (and even more especially in my case as I’m not too good as social interaction) that they did require explanation. As things got more and more difficult for Newland to ever see Ellen even though they would just be talking, is was helpful to have someone telling me exactly how difficult it was. I have seen this movie twice, and I picked up on so much more the second time. There’s a specific moment when it becomes obvious to anybody well-versed in these types of things (not me) that Newland and Ellen are not going to see each other for a long time, perhaps never. I wouldn’t have gotten it unless the narrator helped me out. She said it, and I was like “where are you getting this information from?” but I knew by then to trust her because she knew what was going on. The second time I was able to get past being thrown completely off-balance by her pronouncement and actually see some of the signs that pointed to it. I still don’t exactly know how it became obvious in this particular scene, but I was aware of the fact in general. So the narration is really helpful, not to mention giving the film some of its most eloquent lines.

There is a reoccurring use of flowers in the film. They are referred to and bought for people throughout the film but I wasn’t really sure what they represented specifically, but they kept showing up so much that I figured they had to represent something. The only thing I can really think of is the obvious standby of romance blooming and whatnot, but that really seems too easy and they appear in ways that kind of seem to contradict that. The realtor guy as well as Newland sends Ellen flowers, but the flowers that Newland (her actual love interest) sends her are yellow. That was sort of strange from my point of view because usually red is used to represent passion, and thinking along those lines I would have expected the red flowers to come from Newland and not the realtor guy. Scorcese also did the color flash thing similar to the thing that Hitchcock used in Marnie. Scorcese uses yellow and red at various moments, and again I can’t quite figure out why. I found it odd that they were used in the beginning of the film quite often but as the film went on they basically went away, and again, not sure why. There’s plenty of stuff for me to pay attention to next time around.

I love The Age of Innocence, first because the romance is engrossing and second because the social manipulation that happens around it is even more engrossing. It’s actually based on the 1920 novel by Edith Wharton, which I must read. I’ve heard that this film is a pretty faithful adaptation, so I’m betting the novel is just as good as the film. Scorcese also does some really cool stuff in the film, like this one shot where all of these men are walking down the street in exactly the same way, another when someone is looking through opera glasses and the images are transitioning really quickly, and also some cool dissolves of lights turning on. Not really sure how much some of this has to do with the themes of the film specifically, but they were really cool to see so I just had to put them in there. Like I said, I’m not a Scorcese expert and it’s too early to declare this my favorite film of his, but it is near the top of the ones I have seen so far.

“Please don’t ask me, I don’t speak your language.”

The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton

There are qualities to The House of Mirth that reminded me of other books around the theme of single women at the turn of the century, such as Thank Heaven Fasting, Consequences, The Third Miss Symons. How do you survive as a girl who is unmarried, and yet brought up for the exact purpose of marriage and nothing else? How to navigate the world of social conventions, of dos and don’ts for women? And how to deal by the time you are relegated to the sidelines of society because you are considered of unmarriageable age or reputation?

Some might call these books bleak. Others might complain about the lack of power in these girls and the unlikeability of the main characters. For me, the themes, characterisation, the painful realism are what made me love Thank Heaven Fasting and Consequences. It is what made me raise my hopes for The House of Mirth to, perhaps, unrealistic heights. I had a more complicated relationship with Wharton’s novel, and with its main character Lily Bart than I had with the books by E.M. Delafield, although it far outranks The Third Miss Symons. Look, perhaps Delafield style just suits me a little better. Perhaps I treated The House of Mirth unfairly by constantly comparing it to the books I had previously read. It is not that I did not enjoy The House of Mirth, or that I did not absolutely love parts of it. By the end it had wholly convinced me. It is just that it would be unfair not to mention my complicated relationship with other parts of the book.

Lily Bart does not lack agency like some might complain Alex Clare and Monica Ingram lack it. She does not subdue to circumstances, or at least, she holds out a little longer. She makes a lot of choices, for herself,for what she believes are her own best interests. Perhaps this is where Lily became a complicated character to like for me. So often she makes decisions that you, as a reader, realise are not for her own good, that at times it becomes hard to believe in her naivety, and to not fall into the trap of condemning her like the society surrounding her might (but which is also always from hindsight, knowing more than Lily does because you have seen this type of story before). The story is written in a way that, for a long time, makes you question whether or not Wharton is condemning her as a “silly” girl, that shouldn’t have been allowed to make these decisions in the first place.. Of course, deep down there were challenges to that socially condemning narrative, and possibly the fact that it makes the reader uncomfortable to be – almost – pushed into the camp of society is what is meant to happen. The fact is: I did not always feel sympathetic towards Lily. And I wanted to feel more sympathetic towards her. Which for part of the story just left me feeling very very conflicted.

On top of that, I felt the story dragged a little in the middle part. In part, this might have been due to my own circumstances, as I had a very difficult time reading anything beyond 10 pages a night at the time when I read The House of Mirth. When I finally settled down and made myself read more than those 10 pages, I quickly fell into the pace of the story again. Nevertheless, I do think it was not all me. Some episodes of circumstances, of choices made that might have been better left undone, were a bit heavy on the details, might have been just a tad shorter to my taste.

But then the latter third of the story happened. And it shook me so deeply. I do not think I will be giving away much when I say that this is a tragic story. Because of that tragedy, being witness to the disintegration of Lily’s life out of prejudice, circumstance, unforgivingness.. my feelings of empathy suddenly leaped and made up for what I had felt was lacking through parts of the story. It cast The House of Mirth in a very different light for me. And whereas previously I feared having to come on here and proclaim to the online world that I knew I should have loved The House of Mirth, but couldn’t, I knew that I might face a much more difficult task: namely admitting that I couldn’t like parts of it, but that I irrevocably loved the ending, and that that ending made me reconsider much of what I felt had been lacking in some other parts. I can see how perhaps the very ending might turn others of (too melodramatic for some, perhaps?), but for me, the last third made the book.

I know, this post lacks any coherent exploration of themes, or any meaningful criticism. But I think Edith Wharton is famous enough, and probably discussed in many a high school, that I need not bother doing that (or perhaps I dare not? – I feel bad enough about saying that I felt some parts of the book dragged a little). If the themes in the first paragraph interest you, if fiction exploring the position of women at the beginning of the twentieth century is of interest to you, if you like books that critique social circumstances, I think you should probably read this. I won’t say you’ll definitely like it, because I know my own feelings about it are all over the place, but I definitely think it is worth a try.

Other Opinions: So, so many.

Cross-posted to the Project Gutenberg Project blog.

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