August: Reading Edith Wharton

off to consult the TBR list....

I'm thinking either The Reef or Madame Treymes as I've already read Age of Innocence and House of Mirth.

I'm definitely reading The Buccaneers I've watched the BBC miniseries quite a few times so I'm really looking forward to reading the book.

I'm reading Madame de Treymes which, in my copy, is a collection of four short stories: Madame de Treymes, The Touchstone, Sanctuary (which I've already read), and The Bunner Sisters.

I have two unread Edith Wharton books on Mt TBR - The Buccaneers and Fighting France. The latter I got through the ER program, so it's definitely going to be read this month! (Matter of fact, I should have read it some time ago, but I was saving it up for this. *blush*)

Edited because I can't spel.

The only unread Wharton I own is The Children -- so I shall try to get to that one in a week or two.

I'm pretty "booked" up for August already, but if I have time I'll read either Ethan Frome or Roman Fever.

I'll be reading The Custom of the Country, which I have in a Virago Modern Classic edition so it satisfies my "read one Virago a month" goal as well. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to it, because I have my current read plus 3 more library books to read first.

This is great, I've been wanting to read Wharton lately. I think I'll go with The House of Mirth.

Going to start a short story collection called Tales of Men and Ghosts. I've never read anything by Edith Wharton before. But this book looks promising.

Jane--I'll be interested in what you think of The Children. I read it a few years ago, and was intrigued by the similarities (although it is much more Victorian) to Lolita.

I'm going to read The Reef.

I actually just finished House of Mirth. It wasn't that long, but it was sort of repetitive.

I'm about 1/3 through The Buccaneers. The book is sooo similar to the tv series (which is by BBC so I don't know why I'm surprised they are pretty much faithfull to texts. But it's like seeing an old friend again and I'm savouring it more as a book.

Just finished Buccaneers.

There were two big scenes that was in the TV series which were not in the book yet did not alter the overall plot. Which isn't surprising as the scenes involved rape and homosexuality which doesn't seem to be Wharton's style. I guess they added them in to the TV series to make a certain character more dislikeable, to create a situation to be more unbearable for today's modern audience?

The book did not have the dramatic ending as the TV series but was more satisfying.

I'm surprised as the other books by Wharton (Age of Innocence and House of Mirth) focused on NY's elite society and yet in Buccaneers Wharton brushes aside NY and calls London the 'centre of world' so much so that an American woman jilted by an English peer after the wedding dress was ordered would choose to remain in London rather that return to America. (This happened to a minor character I haven't just spoiled the book!) Several of the American characters express horror at the idea of leaving England and return home no matter how unahppy, miserable, cold they were. It's an odd attitude for a patriot to have of ones country?

#15> Edith Wharton was mostly an ex-patriate, living in Paris, from what I've recently read (blurbs for Fighting France, which is what I read). Maybe that gave her some extra insight into the British mindset?

I do have The Buccaneers on Mt TBR, not sure if I'll get to it this month, but I'll try!

Well, Fighting France took far longer than it should, given it was such a slim volume! It was good, but definitely veered towards propaganda: all the French soldiers were noble, brave, wondrous; the conditions at the front showed a remarkable "can-do" attitude; those left behind mucked in and didn't complain.

I muttered darkly that she was there during *summer* and it would have been a whole different kettle of fish in winter, or after four years of war.

But it was a great contrast having this devastating war occurring during a wonderful European summer (buzz of insects drowned out by shelling, etc). And I did like the descriptions of the villages set up by the soldiers behind the front lines, it was something I hadn't considered before. (And she had many a luncheon with the officers in these makeshift villages!) And some of the descriptions were breathtaking (don't have book to hand, or I'd copy some out).

I just started Old New York and love the writing so much! I recently read House of Mirth and year ago, Ethan Frome. Wharton is fabulous. Reviews to come...
P.S. When will we discuss/vote on September authors?

Finished the short story collection Tales of Men and Ghosts by Edith Wharton. This turned out to be a far more complex read than I had anticipated. The book totally lived up to my expectations.

My review is here,

http://www.librarything.com/review/59825648

Or my 50 book challenge thread,

http://www.librarything.com/topic/94041

I sat up until 1:30 last night reading The Children -- quite different from other Whartons I've read, but very interesting.

I'm starting The Custom of the Country tonight!!

For those that like audio books--The Reef is available on BBC7 in ten 15-minute episodes (for listening online). Just in time for Edith Wharton month!

Thanks for this, christiguc!

I finished the first of the Old New York stories "False Dawn". Great writing and has the same biting social commentary you'll see in House of Mirth. The last half was different though. It had an almost surreal quality. I don't know if I'll get to the other stories anytime this month, but I wanted to jump into this group and see what it is like. I'm looking forward to Sept/Oct selections.

The Children: Martin Boyne encounters the children, a disparate group of seven siblings, halfs, and steps, as they are being shepherded aboard the first-class deck of an ocean liner sailing from Algiers en route to Venice to meet their parents. Their shepherd is the eldest of the Wheater children, Judith, who at 15 has taken on the role of mothering the tribe with some help from Miss Scopes, an ineffectual governess, and a nurse, Susan, who cares for the infant, Chip. These are Jazz-age hotel/yacht children, shuffled from one destination to another, at the whim of their parents' states of marriage or divorce or their search for pleasure and diversion.

Although Boyne is on his way to Switzerland to meet with long-time friend and newly-widowed Rose Sellars, he determines to first accompany the children to Venice. Touched by their plight, and especially Judith's determination to keep the brood together, he thinks he may have some influence with their parents as he had gone to Harvard with the father and was acquainted with the mother.

Wharton draws the reader in with great sympathy for Boyne, Rose and the children accompanied by disdain for the reptilian lives led by most of the adults who should be responsible for them. But as usual with Wharton, idealism faces a fierce adversary in hard-headed reality.

The novel has moments of lyrical beauty, subtle psychological insights and is quite fascinating. By no means a tragedy, it does, however, leave the reader with a feeling of sadness and lost possibilities.

The Mother’s Recompense was written when Wharton was in her 60s. It tells the story of Kate an American expat living in France until she is recalled eighteen years later to New York by the daughter she abandoned at the age of three. Kate finds a more relaxed New York society with sexual morality eased and less rigid social conventions. However, Kate is not altogether comfortable in this new society and is greatly disturbed to discover that her daughter plans to marry Chris, not realising that Chris is Kate’s ex-lover who deserted her. Wharton has set up an unusual love triangle, a twisted version of Oedipus as Kate realises she still loves Chris and is jealous of her daughter. Kate struggles to keep the knowledge of her prior relationship with Chris a secret as she attempts to stop the marriage. The Mother’s Recompense is a coming of age novel, albeit middle age. Kate is not a heroine - she abandoned her child and husband – and must live with the guilt and consequences of her earlier actions. Another wonderful Wharton read!

Oh please please somebody read Summer -- I think it is one of Wharton's masterpieces, neglected because of being so far ahead of its time and the subject being a bit shocking and distasteful for the time .... I am dying of curiousity whether it will strike anyone else the way it did me.

I've been loving The Custom of the Country, and wrote about it on my blog today. There's also a poll so you can help me choose which Wharton I should read next (>26 sibylline: Lucy, I think I know how you'll vote ...)

Check it out here.

I finished The Custom of the Country and it is now one of only two 5-star reads for me this year. You can find my review on LibraryThing & on my blog. Here's an excerpt:

The Custom of the Country features one of literature's more memorable characters: Undine Spragg. Beautiful, vapid, self-centered, ambitious, money-grubbing ... need I say more? She's thoroughly despicable, but so well-drawn that I loved this book.

When the story opens, our heroine and her parents have just moved from Apex, Kansas to New York City, where Undine is to make her way in society while her father's business ventures satisfy her every need. Undine asks her father to buy her a box at the opera. He grumbles about how expensive it is, but he buys it. We soon come to understand the long-standing pattern: what Undine wants, Undine gets. In fact, her insatiable desire for the finer things was the impetus for the family's move to New York.

...

In The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton was largely satirizing the concept of the American dream, and the social climbing typical of New York's "new money." But Wharton also offers an important lesson that is still relevant today: there's more to life than material possessions, and possessions alone cannot and will not make you happy.

26> I read Summer years ago and remember liking it very much, but I don't remember much about it except that it struck as very different from any other Wharton I had read. If I can find my copy, I'll take a look at it this weekend.

Sibyx -- I brought Summer to bed with me (earlyish) last night and read until I finished it. Years ago, I thought it was a really atypical Wharton, chiefly because of the setting in rural New England and the protagonist who doesn't belong to wildly privileged class that Wharton emerged from. Those observations remain (though Ethan Frome falls into a similar category), but what struck me this time through were a couple of things -- the nature descriptions and a very typical Wharton-theme of the protagonist getting stuck in a dead-end situation from which there is no real escape. Charity is a much more sympathetic protagonist than many of Wharton's characters; she doesn't lust after material possessions -- just wider experience and love.

Better late than never...I started House of Mirth on Aug. 30 and I'm determined to finish it sometime this month! :)

I lost track of this thread, somehow -- I know what you mean, that Summer does still follow the dead-end situation theme -- but I found the setting and situation to be different enough from the privileged one to have unexpected resonance.

Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Digital audio narrated by C M Hebert
4****

From the book jacket: Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.

My reactions:
I love Edith Wharton’s writing. I love the way she explores relationships and unfulfilled desires. The tension is palpable, the yearning almost unendurable.

She’s a little heavy-handed with the allegory / metaphor in this case. The setting is Starkfield, Massachusetts, in winter; as if the reader needs a reminder of how depressing and lacking in color Ethan’s life is. Though I was reading in the midst of a summer heat wave, I felt chilled. And then I felt that spark of attraction between Ethan and Mattie. Felt Ethan’s heart soar with the possibilities, only to sink with the realization that he was trapped in a device of his own making.

C M Hebert does a fine job narrating the audio book. He reads at a fine pace, and his tone is suitable to the material. After listening, however, I also picked up the text and read through several passages. I think I prefer the text so that I can savor Wharton’s writing.

>33 BookConcierge: What a lovely review. This book has been on my TBR pile for ages; maybe someday I'll finally read it...