Summer by Edith Wharton

Described as the 'hot' Ethan Frome, Summer is Edith Wharton revelling in the "euphoric and depressed, confident and abjectly vulnerable" feelings that her real life love affair with Morton Fullerton engendered in her, according to Elizabeth Ammons in her Introduction to my Penguin Classic edition.

Summer features all of Wharton's trademark themes - class consciousness, the double standards that restrict and control the behaviour of women, sexual repression, change and nostalgia all mixed in with her literary snobbishness and Eurocentric cultural superiority. (It's curious how you can love an author but struggle to like them as a person!)

It has been suggested that thanks to the timing of this book (written during WWI) that Summer can also be read as an allegory of Western Imperialism, with Royall representing the crumbling, under threat patriarchal imperialism and the wild folk of the mountains represent 'the other' - the uncivilised, dangerous and mysterious, living outside the normal rules of society.

Although it's hard to know which side she is ultimately on, as small town America comes off as being a stultifying, backward, even embarrassing alternative to the mountains. While big city life is decadent, commercial and soulless.

Maybe we should all just move to Paris, like Wharton did!

An interesting read, with some glorious pastoral descriptions but not one of my favourite Wharton's in the end.

#WhartonReview #XmasinSummer and Womens Classic Literature Challenge

Wharton Review

January is Wharton Review month where we can come together to celebrate and enjoy the writings of and about Edith Wharton.

Edith Wharton was born on the 24th January 1862 in New York City.

She was the first women to win a Pulitzer prize for Literature in 1921 for Age of Innocence. She was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1927, 1928, 1930.

The Pulitzer is awarded for "distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life."

Many of Wharton's books fit this criteria. But she also spent a lot of time in Europe, particularly, in Paris during WWI, which meant that many of her books had a fascinating Continental flavour as well.

Wharton's Goodreads author page can be viewed here if you need help getting started.
There is also a dedicated webpage called The Edith Wharton Society.

Spread the word about The Wharton Review by using #whartonreview on facebook, twitter and instagram.

There is no pressure or expectation with this month long review. Simply read, blog or comment on all things Wharton at your leisure.

I'm planning on reading Summer as well as knocking off some more chapters in the huge chunkster that is her biography by Hermione Lee.

I hope you can join us with a Wharton or two. We'd love to hear from you.
You can approach this anyone you like.
You can write an Introductory post, ask questions, provide background information about Wharton or her books and of course, review her wonderful books.
The main thing is to have fun and to spread our love for Edith Wharton's stories.

I hope that this months linky will become a great resource for anyone looking for recent reviews and thoughts about Wharton and her books.

A Motor-Flight Through France by Edith Wharton

I was so excited when my beautiful copy of A Motor-Flight Through France turned up in time for Wharton Review month.

The look and feel of the cover, the premise (a road trip through France pre-WWI), the paper, even the size of the book - perfect!

First published in 1908, this edition came with a thoughtful and enticing introduction from Mary Suzanne Schriber. Mary, along with her friend Lynne Waldeland, embarked on a five week roadtrip in 1980 with Wharton's Motor-Flight as a guide.

What a delightful thing to do!

As Schribner describes it:

Wharton's flight to France, however, was much more than a move away from America and its lack of interest in intellectual matters and intellectual women. It was a positive flight as well, toward stimulation and expansion.

A Motor-Flight Through France is stimulating and intellectual and full of the joys of the open road.

It's obvious that Wharton loves France and the French way of life:

...everything speaks of long familiar intercourse between the earth and its inhabitants; every field has a name, a history, a distinct place of its own in the village polity; every blade of grass is there by an old feudal right....

Coming from another country with a small recorded history, I understand this desire to fall into the long history of Europe.

Like Wharton, I also like to read extensively (before, during and after) about the places that I visit. I like reading their histories. And I love reading the well-known stories as well as the contemporary authors.

Wharton & I should be besties! The perfect travelling companions.

But something went wrong.

Despite the occasional phrase, beautifully wrought, the fascinating black and white photographs and the all too rare gorgeous description, I began to realise that my high expectations were souring. Not because of what she was writing, but how she was writing it.

I became aware of a smugness, an intellectual superiority and at times, a snobbery towards people not like her.

I recall that I also had a similar response to A Backward Glance, her autobiography that I reviewed last year.

And now I'm left wondering if this will affect my future rereads of her novels? Can you love and adore a book when you're no longer sure you like or admire the person who wrote it?

As an aside, I believe that A Motor-Flight Through France is dying for a modern make-over. Schriber missed a great opportunity to layer her 1980 road trip over Wharton's. Perhaps Michael Palin (or me!!) could undertake to follow in Wharton's tyre treads. We could compare her views to the modern day view. What buildings and scenes were destroyed during the wars? What has been built up, built over or lost?

A travelogue complete with touring maps, sumptuous photographs and George Sand quotes sounds very appealing to me.

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Sadly life has got in the way of my good intentions for Wharton Review month this year.

The only Edith Wharton books that I have completed this month are short story collections...and Roman Fever was one I started last year!!

Oh well, something is better than nothing....

I do enjoy a good short story and Wharton can certainly write some beauties. (Although I have to confess that I don't believe that she writes them as well as William Trevor or Alice Munro.)

Throughout Roman Fever it was curious to see hints and shadows of Wharton's fuller stories and characters appear in these shorter versions of her well-known and loved style.

There was the tantalising familiarity of themes - the constrictions of New York society, the American abroad, unhappy marriages, the fading glory of fin de siecle New York and hidden, unspoken desires.

Cynthia Griffin Wolff summed this aspect up in her introduction far more succinctly that I did:

All bear her unique stamp - a scrupulous attention to the interplay between individual characters and the society that works to shape and constrain it.

One of Wharton's devices is to make her characters struggle to understand each other, even as she gives us enough information to see things clearly. Compromise and ambiguous endings are also a feature of Wharton's stories.

All of these features are on display in this short story collection.

My reviews of the first few short stories in Roman Fever are here and here.

Souls Belated tells the familiar tale of unhappy marriages and the consequences of flouting society's rules as Lydia and Gannett struggle to find a place that will accept their love. The tension and compromises gradually strain their original fervour:

We neither of us believe in the abstract 'sacredness' of marriage; we both know that no ceremony is needed to consecrate our love for each other; what object can we have in marrying, except the secret longing to work our way back gradually - oh, very gradually - into the esteem of the people whose conventional morality we have always ridiculed and hated?

The Angel at the Grave is a poignant tale of memory and the passing of time.
Paulina devotes her whole life to sustaining the memory of her famous grandfather. Duty and obligation are writ large as her life is subsumed by her quest to give her grandfather's life a higher purpose and meaning, and therefore, her own.

The Last Asset reminded me a little of The Reef. Maybe it was the Parisian setting? Or the unlikeable characters?
Certainly Mrs Newell is a very unpleasant person - on the threshold of losing her deeply treasured spot in society thanks to her disagreeable behaviours and actions of old. She sees her daughter's sweet romance with a young French man of family as the perfect opportunity for her to manouever herself back into society's good books.

After Holbein is a sad tale of aging, memory loss, faded glory, self-deception and the relentless forward march of society.

Autres Temps...finishes off this collection back where we started with unhappy marriages, misunderstandings and strict societal mores.
Mrs Lidcott feels the full force of New York society disapproval when she divorces her first husband to run off with her new lover. The strain of being shunned eventually has a detrimental effect on her new relationship. Years later when her daughter announces that she too is newly divorced and remarried, sad memories and anxieties return. But New York society has changed during the intervening years, but has Mrs Lidcott?

The success or failure of the deepest human experiences may hang on a matter of chronology.

Overall, Roman Fever provides a lovely snapshot of the Wharton oeuvre.

How did you fare this month?

I love seeing all the Wharton love out there - thank you for taking the time to write reviews & leave comments on each others posts.

Hopefully I will squeeze in one more post this weekend about my attempts to read Wharton's non-fiction.

But for now, goodnight and happy reading!

The Reckoning by Edith Wharton

I can't believe it's 20 years already since Penguin put out their last batch of special little classic books.

Back then it was 60 Penguin classic books (with black spines) and 60 Penguins (with an orange spine). I loved them.

I quickly collected my own smaller hand-picked favourites from the two sets. I also discovered many new favourite authors as the bite-sized excerpts at a fabulous price encouraged me to try the great unknown.

Sadly, these little gems did not survive my last move. I gave them to a friend who I knew would love and adore them too.

Earlier this year I was delighted (and slightly dismayed) to learn that Penguin were about to celebrate their 80th anniversary (where did that last 20 years go?) by releasing 80 Little Black Classics.

"Woman at the Window" (1822) by Friedrich

The cute little bite-sized books have lured me in once again.

And once again, I have hand-picked a few from my favourite authors (that I don't already have) as well as selecting a few authors that I've been meaning to try for a long time. One of my delights has been two new (to me) short stories by Edith Wharton - The Reckoning (1902) and Mrs Manstey's View (1891).

Two little gems for the price of one inside Little Black Classic No. 48:

From the great writer of turn-of-the-century New York, two devastating portraits of lonely widowhood and an unconventional marriage.

By the by, my personal preference to describe the end of one century and the beginning of the new is the lovely French phrase fin de siécle. It sounds so much more glamorous, exotic and, well, French! And also seems more in keeping with Edith Wharton's proclivities.

Mrs Manstey is a lonely, almost house-bound elderly widow. Her main joy is the view from her window. She watches every tree and shrub for changes in the season and she knows the inhabitants of every backyard. When her view is threatened by a neighbour's renovation, her response is unexpected.

The Reckoning is a curious tale of a younger married couple. They advocate for the rights of couples no longer in love to have no-fault divorces.
This is, in fact, her second marriage and these radical new ideas allowed her to leave her first husband with very few qualms.

But as time has gone by, she finds that she no longer embraces these ideas. She is deeply in love with her new husband, feels that they are perfectly suited to each other and that supporting such radical ideas is no longer something that reflects their love.

Both stories are lovely examples of Wharton's attitude towards women's rights and society life in New York.

Wharton personally struggled with the narrow confines of a married women's role in American society, especially that of an intelligent women who wrote. She felt so strongly about this, she eventually moved to Europe permanently.

Most of her short stories and novels highlight and compare life for women in Europe versus America.
Sadly, America fell short, in her eyes every time. However, this didn't stop her from feeling nostalgic about certain aspects of American society or from seeing the faults of some European behaviours.

Wharton's description in MMV of the New York seasons was written with genuine affection:

In the very enclosure did a magnolia open its hard white flowers against the watery blue of April? And was there not, a little way down the line, a fence foamed over every May by lilac waves of wisteria? Farther still, a horse-chestnut lifted its candelabra of buff and pink blossoms above broad fans of foliage; while in the opposite yard June was sweet with the breath of a neglected syringa....

I have always loved Wharton's writing - I hope you are enjoying your time with Wharton this month too.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Monday, Monday - what will I be reading this week?

Hopefully more than last week!

I've been in a bit of a mood lately (third book down might explain why!) so I only managed to complete one book last week *sigh*.

I've also been very lax about checking in on my favourite blogs (sorry! I hope to get on top of things again soon).

But I did read a few of fabulous Zola posts from fellow Zoladdiction particpants:

O @Behold the Stars wrote a post that listed all the characters to be found in the Rougon-Macquart series with a helpful timeline.
Ruth @A Great Book Study has convinced me to try Virginia Woolf again with her review on The Voyage Out.
And Ali @Heavenali has helped bump My Beautiful Friend higher up my TBR pile with this lovely review.

But for now I am focused on finishing my readalong books - more Wharton's and Gone With the Wind.


The Reckoning (Little Black Classic #48) by Edith Wharton

'If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature.'

Two moving stories of love, loss, desire and divorce, from one of the great chroniclers of nineteenth-century New York life.

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1921, for her classic novel The Age of Innocence. She was also a remarkable short story writer, publishing more than seventy-two stories in ten volumes during her lifetime.

The best of her short fiction is collected here in Roman Fever and Other Stories. Her subjects range from erotic love and illegitimacy in "Roman Fever," to a ghost story with a wry twist in "The Angel at the Grave," to the aftermath of divorce explored in three very different and intriguing stories, "Souls Belated," "Autres Temps..." and "The Last Asset," Wharton emerges as a superb satirist "skilled in dissecting the elements of emotional subtleties, moral ambiguities, and the implications of social constrictions," as Cynthia Griffin Wolff writes in her introduction.

Roman Fever & Other Stories is a surprisingly contemporary volume of stories by one of our most enduring writers.

You're Still Hot to Me by Jean Kittson

A fact-filled conversation starter on menopause by comedian and health campaigner Jean Kittson.

When Jean Kittson hit menopause, she was amazed at what she didn't know. Given that 1.5 million Australian women are menopausal at any one time, why, she wondered, was menopause so little discussed and then only in hushed tones?

So Jean set out to write the sort of book she felt she needed to read: 'An easy-to-read book full of useful information that didn't make you want to put on an old chenille dressing-gown and a pair of comfortable slippers and throw yourself under a marching band.'

You're Still Hot to Me is a chatty - sometimes robust - conversation between women and with some of Australia's top experts. Discover how to recognise symptoms (would you like hot flushes with that chocolate?), get the medical attention you deserve, and the lowdown on which treatments really work. You will learn about combining menopause with work, sex and parenting, and how to emerge at the other end still talking to those you love.

Candid and frequently hilarious, this is your starter kit on how to cheerfully embrace and confidently manage this momentous time of life.

I'm also hoping to read and review a few more of this year's CBCA shortlist books including a few picture books and...

Coming of Age: Growing Up Muslim in Australia by Amra Pajalic and Demet Divaroren

In this refreshing and fascinating collection, twelve Muslim-Australians - some well known, some not - reveal their candid, funny and touching stories of growing up with a dual identity.

Muslim people in Australia come from over seventy countries and represent a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences. Yet we are constantly bombarded by media stories feeding one negative stereotype. What is it really like to grow up Muslim in Australia? In this book, famous and not-so-famous Muslim-Australians tell their stories in their own voices.

The beard, the hijab, the migrant - these are all familiar images associated with Muslim people. But delve deeper and there are many other stories: the young female boxer entering the ring for her first professional bout; a ten-year-old boy who renounces religion; a young woman struggling to reconcile her sexual identity with her faith. These honest and heartfelt stories will resonate with all readers, providing different snapshots of Muslim life in Australia, dispelling myths and stereotypes, and above all celebrating diversity, achievement, courage and determination.

'Coming of Age is the kind of book that will change how readers look at the world... Coloured with many shades of humour, warmth, sadness, anger, determination and honesty, it will resonate with readers from all backgrounds and beliefs.

What will you be reading this week?
Follow other It's Monday posts on twitter with #IMWAYR

It's Monday....

...and I'm finally caught up on all my half-finished novels!

I still have a few out-standing non-fiction titles by the bed, but it usually takes me months to read non-fiction anyway (biographies are the exception to this rule).

Perhaps if I could just read one book at once, I would get through more, but my reading is very much mood based. Some days are non-fiction and some days are not.

So what does this, the first week in May hold for me and my groaning bookshelves?

First up is the start of my month-long Wharton Review.

I will be rereading The Age of Innocence this year in the hope of knocking my Classics Club challenge into a higher gear.

Set in old New York, this novel details the thwarted romance between Newland Archer, a young dandy, and the beautiful, unconventional divorceee Countess Ellen Olenska. The cast of characters includes Newland's docile - and calculating - fiancee, May Welland and the lordly Mrs Manson Mingott.

In fact May will be the month of reread's for my Classic Club list.

The Great World by David Malouf is my Classic Club Spin this month. I first read The Great World in 1997, which also marks the beginning of my lifelong love affair with all things Malouf.

Every city, town and village has its memorial to war. Nowhere are these more eloquent than in Australia, generations of whose young men have enlisted to fight other people's battles - from Gallipoli and the Somme to Malaya and Vietnam. In THE GREAT WORLD, his finest novel yet, David Malouf gives a voice to that experience. But THE GREAT WORLD is more than a novel of war. Ranging over seventy years of Australian life, from Sydney's teeming King's Cross to the tranquil backwaters of the Hawkesbury River, it is a remarkable novel of self-knowledge and lost innocence, of survival and witness.

During May & June I also plan to join in Corinne's Gone With the Wind readalong @Pursuit of Happiness.

Margaret Mitchell's epic novel of love and war won the Pulitzer Prize and one of the most popular and celebrated movies of all time.

Many novels have been written about the Civil War and its aftermath. None take us into the burning fields and cities of the American South as Gone With the Wind does, creating haunting scenes and thrilling portraits of characters so vivid that we remember their words and feel their fear and hunger for the rest of our lives.

In the two main characters, the white-shouldered, irresistible Scarlett and the flashy, contemptuous Rhett, Margaret Mitchell not only conveyed a timeless story of survival under the harshest of circumstances, she also created two of the most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet.

I first read GWTW during my uni days. I loved how Mitchell picked me up & swept me along in her wake. It was one of those books that made real life seem dull by comparison. I can't wait to see if it has the same effect on 40-something me!

What will you be reading this week?

Are you joining in any of the above readalongs or challenges?

Do you enjoy rereading old favourites?

If you'd like to add your It's Monday URL in your comments during Sheila's absence, I will try to pop by and visit. Or follow on twitter #IMWAYR

PS Can anyone see the column on the RH side of my blog? When I view the whole blog, the column seems to have disappeared from view. But when I open a post...there it is! Are any other blogger uses having weird format glitches?

The Wharton Review 2015

Welcome to the second Wharton Review!

During the month of May, I take a break from my regular reading schedule to fit in a Wharton or two.

In 1921, Edith Wharton was the third person & the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with The Age of Innocence.

The Pulitzer is awarded for "distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life."

Many of Wharton's books fit this criteria. But she also spent a lot of time in Europe, particularly, in Paris during WWI, which meant that many of her books had a fascinating Continental flavour as well.

My plan this month is to reread Age of Innocence. I adored this book when I first read it about 15 years ago. I hope to rekindle the love affair (& watch the movie starring Daniel Day Lewis & Michelle Pfieffer again)!

Wharton's Goodreads author page can be viewed here if you need help getting started.
There is also a dedicated webpage called The Edith Wharton Society.

If you'd like to join in please add your blog or goodreads URL to the linky below.

Spread the word about The Wharton Review by using #whartonreview on facebook, twitter and instagram.

Copy The Wharton Review badge to add to your posts or sidebar.

There is no pressure or expectation with this month long review. Simply read, blog or comment on all things Wharton at your leisure.

It's Monday.....what am I doing?????

Suddenly my blogging & reading worlds have gone crazy.

I've agreed to write a contribution page on the Australian Women's Writers blog starting this month. I'm thrilled but a little daunted about trying to fit it into my current crazy schedule.

And I've just signed up for another Dewey's Readathon, even though we have visitors this weekend with several outings planned. Despite all the interruptions I usually find the readathon to be a great motivation for me to get stuck into or finish a couple of books, even if it's just for a few hours.

What will I be reading?

I hope to start my Classic Club spin book, the Australian modern day classic, The Great World & I'd like to finish Germinal by the end of the Zoladdiction month.

At work, lots of fabulous new releases and ARC's turned up this week, tempting me with their untold stories & pristine pages but I'm trying to be strong and finish all my half-started (or is that half-finished?) books first!

These include, the books mentioned above, and One Life by Kate Grenville & Something Special, Something Rare, an anthology of short stories by Australian women.

The merry month of May is the Sydney Writer's Festival. 
I'm booked into four events already and hope to fit in a few of the free ones as well.

In a fit of madness I signed up for the Gone With the Wind readalong which starts in May. The reading schedule is very relaxed, but there's no denying that GWTW is a chunkster!  

I also want to reread Age of Innocence in May for my very own Wharton Review.

This is my second year hosting the Wharton Review. It's a no pressure author readalong. Simply read, blog or comment on all things Wharton at your leisure throughout May.

Wharton's Goodreads author page can be viewed here if you need help getting started.
There is also a dedicated webpage called The Edith Wharton Society.
 
You can spread the word about The Wharton Review by using #whartonreview on facebook, twitter and instagram.

Copy The Wharton Review badge to add to your posts or sidebar.
I will create a master post on May1st for review links.

Until then, 

Happy Monday and Happy Reading! 

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Hosting The Wharton Review has been a lovely experience this month.

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading reviews and opinions from other bloggers, but the best part has been immersing myself in Wharton's world once again...something I haven't done for over a decade.

Even though some of my experiences with Wharton have been a little hit and miss this month, there is no denying her pulling power & her way with words.

Getting to know her via her memoirs and bio has given me a richer understanding of her works and her times. It has been fascinating and rewarding.

This past week I've been enjoying some of her short stories in Roman Fever, including the title story.

Set in Rome, Mrs Slade and Mrs Ansley, two old friends sit side by side overlooking the Forum, watching the sunset.

There is a tension sitting between them too.

As the sun goes down, personal revelations begin to slip out. It becomes a dangerous game of one-up-manship. The reader is forewarned about the ultimate revelation & even though we can see it coming, it still provides a delicious little shock when it's delivered.

The Other Two describes the tightrope walked by a newly married couple, as they both come to terms (socially and emotionally) with her twice divorced status.

The story is told from the third husband's point of view about how he manages to accommodate the two ex-husband's into their life. However, at the end, you are left feeling the wife's awkwardness as she once again tries to live her life by another man's rules.

Thank you to everyone who popped by to say hello and a special big thank you to all those who read and reviewed Edith Wharton books this month. I would like to give one more plug to Miss Bibliophile's link of The Mount - her photographic journey through Edith Wharton's home.

The link on the masterpost will be live for two more days to give you a chance to finish off final posts.

I hope to see you all again next May for The Wharton Review 2015.

Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee

I had grand plans to start and finish this extraordinary biography about Edith Wharton during May & The Wharton Review.

Grand plans indeed!

The book has 756 pages with another 66 pages of notes at the end. The font is the smallest font allowable to still be legible!

There are three sections spaced evenly throughout the book with four pages of photos each.
I am still 70 pages shy of the first group of photos!

I have been reading this book in conjunction with Wharton's autobiography A Backward Glance, which helped to make ABG a more palatable read.

Lee strikes the right balance between revealing Edith's story (in her own words) and making informed comments.

Many of Wharton's comments in ABG appear snobbish & snooty, but Lee sympathetically reveals the class based prejudices that Edith grew up with.
From the great aunt Joneses' (who it is claimed the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" was coined for) to

"no greater service can be rendered to children than in teaching them to know the best 

and to want it." (from The Decoration of Houses).

Lee also reveals many of the complex relationship details that Wharton carefully avoids in her memoirs including lovers & mental health issues.

All this in just the first 150 pgs! 

Anyone interested in getting to know Edith Wharton and the world she grew up in will delight in this majestic chunkster. It is thoroughly researched & conversational in tone.

I will leave the last word to Lee,

"This, then, is the story of an American citizen in France. 

She was a European on a grand scale who left her old home and made new ones for herself...

but who could never be done with the subject of American and Americans. 

Over and her over again, in a spirit of complex contradictions, 

she returned to the customs of her country, and to versions of herself 

as the daughter of her family and her country....

In almost every one of them (her books) there is a cultural comparison or conflict, 

a journey or a displacement, a sharp eye cast across national characteristics."

A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton

I've been putting off writing this review for Wharton Review month, because I love Edith Wharton's books and I don't want to write something negative about her!

A Backward Glance is her autobiography first published in 1934 - only three years before her death on the 11th August, 1937.

Wharton's strong control of the story of her life is very evident. We only know what she wanted us to know.
Part of this is her (valid) concern for privacy, but I also think it is partly her ability or inability to stop telling stories.

Stories are at the centre of her life, according to this book.
Each event & each relationship is discussed only as it helps or hinders her on her (inevitable) journey to be a writer.

Wharton spends whole chapters listing friends and acquaintances in a gossipy manner.
She relates "delightful little tales" that they've told. Given the famous nature of some of these people and the times they all lived through together, these anecdotes should have been fascinating.
Instead, we found ourselves skating very close to name-dropping boredom!

One of the things I love about Wharton's stories is how they delve into the deepest motivations and complex feelings of her characters. However, her personal stories were, disappointingly, all surface fluff.
The nuanced insights & revelations that Wharton revels in in her novels, were sadly missing from her life story.

The only positive from this reading experience, is that I have been reading Hermione Lee's Biography at the same time.

Lee fills in all the gaps as well as showing the discrepancies between Wharton's 'glance' and the messier facts (as they've come to light in later documentation).

We all spend our lives writing and rewriting our stories; Wharton was no different in that regard. I had just hoped for more perception & penetration from such a wonderful novelist.

The cover of my book is the one at top right...perhaps if I'd had the book with the cover on the left, I might have enjoyed it more :-P

Xingu by Edith Wharton

Well, isn't Xingu a wonderful little surprise package?

I first heard about this Wharton short story earlier in the year when there was a run of reviews for it out there in blogger land.

When I decided to host The Wharton Review this month, I had The Reef, A Backward Glance and the Hermione Lee bio on my pile and thought that was more than enough to tide me over.

Until yesterday that is.

Yesterday, Mr Books & I were out driving getting a few jobs done.
When we were done, we stopped at Bondi for a coffee break.

Gertrude and Alice, Bondi

We found a sweet little second bookshop/cafe up the hill from the beach called Gertrude and Alice.

Initially if felt too crowded and hemmed in for my tastes, but after relaxing with my peppermint tea, I began to explore...and to my delight I found Roman Fever and Other Stories by Edith Wharton tucked away on the bottom shelf!

Serendipity! Without any fuss or bother, I suddenly had a hard copy of Xingu in my hands!

It seemed fitting somehow - A Backward Glance was discovered 4 years ago in Mr Pickwicks secondhand bookshop in Katoomba and The Reef was unearthed during our recent family holiday to Port Douglas in its secondhand bookshop, The Book Lounge.

Xingu is satire at its best, from start to finish.

Wharton brilliantly describes a very snobbish bookclub - "indomitable huntresses of erudition"- whose views on books and reading range from Mrs Plinth's

"Books were written to read; if one read them what more could be expected?"

to Mrs Ballinger's

"For my part, when there are so many books one has read, 

I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely amusing."

Mrs Roby is the odd one out.
She reads for pleasure if she reads at all.
The bookclub is seriously thinking of letting her go in light of her "hopeless unfitness to be one of them."

The climax arrives with the celebrated authoress Osric Dane. She throws the entire group into disarray with her pompous, elusive, evasive attitude "There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others."

The day is saved by Mrs Roby and Xingu...or is it?

If you're looking for a good Edith Wharton starting point, Xingu is a quick, funny way into her world.

The Wharton I've discovered (from reading her bio and memoir this month) is a book & intellectual snob herself which makes this short piece written in 1911 ironic as well as satiric.

When I started researching this novella, I was delighted to see that it had been turned into a play that is regularly performed at The Mount - Edith Wharton's home.

(If any of my North American blogger friends have ever been to The Mount or seen a version of the play and would like to write a post about it this month, I would be eternally grateful.)

Later:
The lovely Miss Bibliophile has provided a link to her blog post. She visited The Mount in 2012. Please take the time to visit - her photos are wonderful.

The Reef by Edith Wharton

I'm not sure how I'm going to review The Reef without revealing spoilers, so read ahead at your own peril.

Firstly, I'm not even sure if I enjoyed The Reef!

I read The Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, Custom of the County and Ethan Frome in my twenties. I remember loving them, especially TAOI. I loved the angst, the tortured social niceties, the scruples, the rumours, the temptations & foibles of an age long gone.

Somehow The Reef seemed to just miss all these marks.

I found it difficult to get into. I struggled to truly empathise or feel for any of the main characters. The main love affair felt contrived; the young lovers were obviously all wrong and the shocking affair that stained all the characters by the end simply felt ridiculous!

I also didn't get that sense of time & place in The Reef, like I did with her other novels that were based in New York & the US. The French countryside around Givré somehow felt Americanised, although maybe that was a deliberate comment on the American influence of Anna on her environment?

So why did I read it all the way through?

Hope - that I would find a connection or a way in.

Memory - of how much I had loved Wharton's previous works.

Faith - in the pulling power of Paris.

Trust - the main theme of the book and also my trust in Wharton.

Writing - it's impossible to describe how wonderfully Wharton writes. It's just that this time, I loved the writing, but felt that it missed heart and soul. Maybe I was too busy admiring the writing to properly engage with the story?

But the ending? What was with that ending?

I knew that Wharton liked to leave her endings open & ambiguous from old. I also knew that happy endings were not her forte.

But Jimmy Brance again at the end? The young man who was tied up with Darrow, Sophy and Lady Ulrica at Mrs Murrett's place before the novel begins.
How did he become attached to Sophy's sister at the end?
What is Wharton trying to say by reminding us of the early chapters where Darrow explains his experiences with different types of ladies?

I'm all confusion and a mess of unresolved story lines.

I'd love to know what you, dear reader, thinks of all this.
What did you make of The Reef?
Can you clear up my muddle?

Wondrous Words Wednesday

I'm reading The Reef by Edith Wharton as part of my Wharton Review month.

I've just passed the half way mark and so far, Edith has thrown up a few curly words that I thought I would share on Wondrous Words Wednesday.

Today I have used The Oxford online dictionary for my definitions.


"but these traces of his passage had made no mark on the featureless dulness of the room, its look of being the makeshift setting of innumerable transient collocations."

1. The habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance:
eg. 'the words have a similar range of collocation'

• 1.1 A pair of words that are habitually juxtaposed:‘strong tea’ and ‘heavy drinker’ are typical English collocations

2. The action of placing things side by side or in position:
eg. 'the collocation of the two pieces'

"From the escutcheoned piers at the entrance of the court a level drive, also shaded by limes..."

1. A shield or emblem bearing a coat of arms.
2. escutcheon plate A flat piece of metal for protection and often ornamentation, around a keyhole, door handle, or light switch.


"There's the whole pusillanimous truth of it!"

Showing a lack of courage or determination; timid.


"Through the crepuscular whiteness the trees hung in blotted masses."

• 1Resembling or relating to twilight.
• 1.1Zoology (Of an animal) appearing or active in twilight.

"Arguments, expedients, palliations, evasions, all seemed to be slipping away from him..."

VERB

• 1 Make (a disease or its symptoms) less severe without removing the cause:treatment works by palliating symptoms pharmaceutical drugs palliate, they do not cure
• 
  
• 2Disguise the seriousness of (an offence):there is no way to excuse or palliate his dirty deed
• 2.1Allay or moderate (fears or suspicions):this eliminated, or at least palliated, suspicions aroused by German unity

Palliation

NOUN

"in the ladylike and lachrymal sense of the term"

• formal or • literary Connected with weeping or tears:that hysterical, then lachrymal, then guilt-ridden hour
This ended up being a lengthier post than first anticipated, but I think that crepuscular could become my new favourite word as I sit on my front verandah watching the sunsets.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

For Wharton Review month I am reading a Wharton biography (by Hermione Lee) and autobiography (A Backward Glance).

Both books have provided a lovely excursion into the language usage of the time, both in New York and Paris.

On pg 8 of the biography, Lee writes about Wharton receiving the Légion d'honneur and being described in France as...

une des personnalités les plus connues de la colonie américaine

one of the most famous personalities of the American colony

And on pg 32, we find out about the possibility of 

"an intramural affair between Lucretia (Edith's mother) and her sons' cultured young English tutor".

According to google intramural means "situated or done within the walls of a building."

Edith then talks about her time in Paris as a child on pg 39 of A Backward Glance.

"The carriage, of the kind called a daumont, (below) was preceded by outriders, and swayed gracefully on its big C-springs to the rhythm of four high-stepping and highly-groomed horses, a postilion on one of the leaders, and two tremendous footmen perched high at the back. But all I had eyes for was the lady herself, leaning back as ladies of those days leaned in their indolently-hung carriages, flounces of feuille-morte (dead leaves!!) taffetas billowing out about her, and on her rich auburn hair a tiny black lace bonnet with a tea-rose above one ear."

I can imagine a little girl being thrilled by such a splendid spectacle driving by.

I also imagine the 'dead leaves' taffeta was like the dress, second from right, below.

The Wharton Review May 2014

Welcome to the inaugural Wharton Review!

During the month of May, join us in celebrating the life and times of Edith Newbold Jones (24th January 1862 - 11th August 1937).

I first read The Age of Innocence in my early twenties ... and fell in love.
I loved her exquisite use of language, I loved her tortured souls, I loved her social observations and I loved learning about old New York.

I then went on to read (and mostly love) The Custom of the Country, Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth & Summer.

I watched the movie of The Age of Innocence with Daniel Day Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer several times & I enjoyed the BBC production of The Buccaneers.

I have The Age of Innocence as a reread on my Classics Club list & I recently found an old copy of The Reef in a second hand bookshop.

When I decided to host a Wharton related event last week, I also found her memoir A Backward Glance and Hermoine Lee's biography from 2007 on the bottom of my TBR pile!

I highly recommend that you check out the The Edith Wharton Society webpage here and consider following them on facebook and twitter.

This is the masterpost that has the linky below for your reviews and Edith Wharton related posts throughout the month of May.

Spread the word about The Wharton Review by using #whartonreview on facebook, twitter and instagram.

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