Tag Archives: Edith Wharton

Reading in Public:  Edith Wharton and Kiran Desai

Posted on by
Reply

In the fall, we like to read in public.  On the veranda of a popular bicyclists’ watering hole, you will see artists tattooed with snakes (Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man), a weary physician’s assistant (Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People), a disheveled lawyer on the take (John Grishim’s The Firm), a very old congressman (Advise and Consent), and a teacher whose colleague was arrested by ICE (Isabel Allende’s In the Midst of Winter).

I have chosen two remarkable books to read in public this fall: Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever and Other Stories and Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.  You can savor one of Wharton’s short stories in a sitting and muse on the perfection of style and structure.  I am a fan of  “Xingu,” her short story about the “cultured” women of a Lunch Club who are excited about meeting an author. Funnily, it is the member who has not read the book who creates an impression. 

Kiran Desai’s new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, shortlisted for the Booker Prize this year, is a poignant, charming, funny family saga. Kiran writes about two families in India, centering on Sonia and Sunny, two young people who have lived in the U.S. and traveled widely. The two have an affair in India, travel to Italy, adore each other, and yet fail to marry.  Over the space of 670 pages, we are increasingly fascinated by their parents’ choices but we don’t forget Sonia and Sunny. Will they marry? 

Short stories vs. humongous family saga?  Your choice!

Tracking the Locution: The Edith Wharton Mystery

Posted on by
2

I very much enjoyed Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s whimsical new novel, Mutual Interest, the story of three queer misfits who build a business empire based on soap and perfume (later they add scented candles). Set in Manhattan at the turn of the century, it examines business from a queer point-of-view.

Mutual Interest is not just about work: it also explores loneliness, queer love, and the imaginative branding of “personal care products.” Wolfgang-Smith is in-our-face about some of the less attractive details of gay culture, including Oscar’s cruising in a sailor suit. Vivian loves to giggle and mock high society with her upper-class girlfriends, but she also visits lesbian clubs that are slightly seedy.

Vivian understands the rich – she used to live with an Italian singer, Sofia, who took her to all the glitzy parties – but she is unemployed and desperate, so her meeting with Oscar, director of the Manhattan branch of an Ohio-based soap factory, is providential. She helps him turn the business into a thriving national conglomerate. Soon they are invited to high society dinners and balls. And when Vivian finds an opportunity to make another valuable contact, she grabs the chance: at an inaugural exhibition of the walrus pond at the Aquarium, she brings together Oscar and Squire, a science nerd and heir to a vast fortune. (She pushes them into the walrus pool.)

Vivian is Cupid for everyone but herself. Soon the men are a couple, and spend their leisure traveling in search of antiques (Oscar collects hatpins), while Vivian stays behind and oversees the factory and the finances.

Oscar and Squire are contented, but Vivian steals the show. Yet she has no real friends, let alone lovers. After years of toil, she has morphed into a lonely, manipulative harridan. She has missed the chance of love and relationships through her obsessive work and tyrannical management of all details.

And then everything goes awry: she attempts to arrange a date with Sofia who has a singing engagement at a theater in California, and is devastated when Sofia doesn’t answer. Then a guerilla theater wrecks her stilted industrial film, and the acrobat/actress who plotted the disruption rejects her advances.

Throughout the novel, the narrator alludes to the three main characters as “pins in the map.” Pins and hatpins, and possibly sharper pins, but Vivian is the main pin. There are some very sad scenes, but, fortunately, whimsy is never far away, and authorial asides help us accept an unacceptable ending.

HOW I CAME TO READ THIS

I read this likable book for all the wrong reasons. In a splendid review at The Washington Post, the critic compared Wolfgang-Smith’s Mutual Interest to Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. I’ve read The House of Mirth three times. I’ve read all of Wharton’s novels. Naturally, I had to read this book. But Vivian and Wharton’s Lily Bart have nothing in common: the former is obsessed with business, the latter with the hunt for a husband and an income.

So where did the reference to Wharton come from?

Perhaps it started with a review at Kirkus. There is a blurb from Kirkus Reviews on the cover: “Edith Wharton or Henry James, with more camp and a winking tome.” But the reviewer actually says, “Wolfgang-Smith approaches historical fiction as a costume ball, affecting a fizzy, omniscient narration: At the book’s most fun, it’s Edith Wharton or Henry James, with more camp and a winking tone.“

Less highbrow publications have a more down-to-earth take on this smart historical novel

Olivia Wolfgang-Smith

Bookpage calls Mutual Interest “a high-drama romp through wealthy New York society in the early decades of the 1900s. With witty asides and tongue-in-cheek philosophical rambles, larger-than-life characters and vivid, melodramatic scenes, it reads a bit like a dishy soap opera.”

Shelf Awareness says: “This is a novel of families won and lost, love, envy, and betrayal told in a remarkably fresh and entertaining way, with immersive period detail and compelling emotional stakes. Mutual Interest is essential reading for lovers of historical and accessible literary fiction.”

We wondered what the author, Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, might say. In an interview at Daily Nerd, she reveals that she loves to read novels of manners by Edith Wharton and E. M. Forster. And she seems to want to emulate them.

But more important, we think, is her use of history.

But the biggest single historical inspiration for Mutual Interest—a tidbit of trivia with which I took enormous liberties—comes from the origin of Procter & Gamble. William Procter and James Gamble were initially rivals, a candlemaker and soap maker in competition for their industries’ common raw materials. They happened to marry into the same family, however, and were thus persuaded to form a partnership. Among many other changes, I escalated things into a true love story and invented the character of Vivian, as a mastermind to orchestrate it all—but there’s a seed of historical enemies-to-partners truth there.

A Tragedy with a Happy Ending:  Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence”

Posted on by
4

Yes,” said [William Dean] Howells, “what the American public wants is a tragedy with a happy ending….”— Edith Wharton’s French Ways and Their Meaning

One of the most marvelous things about rereading is the consciousness of a changing perspective over time.   On my first reading of The Age of Innocence, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1920, I was an enraptured 19-year-old who loved everything about it:  the depiction of the characters,  their code of manners, the women’s clothing (May’s wedding dress!), the menus,  the tennis and the archery, and the library where the hero retires in the evening to read. 

Certainly The Age of Innocence is a classic, though as a Woman of a Certain Age I no longer read it as a romantic novel. Set in the 1870s, it is an elaborate study of a restricted society of New York aristocrats (whose ancestors were Europeans with titles)  and well-established wealthy families with very good names and manners.  

The novel focuses on the illicit but unconsummated love affair of Newland Archer, a handsome, smart, restless lawyer,  and Madame Ellen Olenski, a charming woman who has fled from a cruel European husband and returned to New York after many years abroad. Archer falls for her when they are introduced in a box at the opera: they are instantly attracted.  There is a problem:  Ellen is the cousin of Archer’s fiancée, May Welland.  But Ellen invites Archer to visit her the next day after 5. He fumes a little over her unconventional directness but of course pays the visit.

And this  is the beginning of his inner conflict:  he no longer wants to marry May Welland, a charming, beautiful, very conventional younger woman, but he doe not break it off. And he fancies himself in love with Ellen, a sophisticated, free-spirited, tolerant bohemian woman who is European in the eyes of the New Yorkers and receives exotic flowers from many men, including Archer, who resents the other men’s attentions.

And if you’re thinking this sounds  rather like a mini-Anna Karenina, you are absolutely right.  Ellen is like Anna, and May is a bit like Kitty, only shrewder.  Archer, however, is no decisive Vronsky.. He does not pursue Ellen beyond hand-holding and sweet talk, because he feels guilty and is afraid of breaking the rules of Old New York.

What surprised me is Wharton’s adoption of a male point of view. So often these thwarted love stories are told from a woman’s perspective. Much as we like the gentlemanly Archer, we cannot help but notice that he treats both May and Ellen horribly, and that makes his musings fascinating and upsetting.  Whenever he expresses his feelings too clearly to Ellen, he moodily contemplates them and then runs away to May.  He does not break off the engagement to May, and if he thought of marrying Ellen, he put an obstacle in their way:  he  persuades Ellen not to divorce her husband, who is a “scoundrel,” but there would be a scandal, which, in his opinion as a lawyer, would make her an outcast in New York.

Every time he and Ellen have an incipient passionate encounter it draws him closer to May.  At one point, he is so frightened that he travels to Florida to visit May, who is wintering there with her parents.  He presses her to marry in the spring instead of waiting till next fall.  And belatedly, when her parents agree to it, he regrets it, but goes through with it.  He is a gentleman.

Archer is a bit like a suave dithering Hamlet, if you can imagine a suave slightly older Hamlet.  It is left to May and Ellen to deal with their problems and make arrangements to separate Ellen from Archer.  Actually, it is mostly May, who is much shrewder than Archer gives her credit for.

Anyway, it is a splendid book. I love reading about society in Old New York. There are operas and balls, dinner parties and archery contests, yachts and gambling.  The women have less fun:  they are in charge of the household and the children, pay visits to each other, attend lunches, solve social problems, and order lovely clothing. 

Ellen is the most interesting character, but I can’t say she is the most vivid.  We mostly see her through Archer’s eyes.   Ellen has  “sub-society” friendships:  she visits an outrageous woman who gives entertaining parties on Sunday nights, socializes with witty men of old New York who are known womanizers , and is the sole comfort of a cousin who is shunned even by her relatives after her husband’s bank fail.

Archer cannot possibly fit in with the free-spirited Ellen, though he believes he would be able to – if society would let him, if May would let him, and, most important, if he wanted to.

A fascinating, brilliant book.  I cried over the ending, but I do feel I understand Archer’s weakness.  I used to think he was a romantic figure.  As a woman of a certain age, I rolled my eyes (just a little).  And I’m sure that Wharton deliberately showed his weakness. How can a charming man be so weak?

I will be haunted by these characters until I settle down with a witty Jane Austen book, which is surely the antidote for sadness! 

Reading in a Heat Wave: Edith Wharton’s “The Mother’s Recompense” & Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”

Posted on by
8
Edith Wharton

Saturday was the last  hot day.  That’s what  the Weather Channel said.  You’d think we’d accomplish a lot indoors when it’s 100 degrees outdoors – finish writing that novel, learn to play the guitar – but in fact there is a lot of lolling around.

I did, however,  reread two short novels, Edith Wharton’s The Mother’s Recompense and Jane Austen’s  Persuasion.

I wonder if Edith Wharton is still in fashion.  I don’t see her mentioned much online. The last time I saw an essay on Wharton was in The New Yorker in 2012, by Jonathan Franzen, who is never adverse to being obnoxious.  He said that Edith Wharton wasn’t pretty.  He adds, “Edith Wharton might well be more congenial to us now if, alongside her other advantages, she looked like Grace Kelly or Jacqueline Kennedy.”


I was exasperated by this non sequitur.  Actually, I think Wharton  is pretty enough, but what does it matter?  What do Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy have to do with it?  Would anyone have said of Henry James or James Joyce, “He isn’t pretty”? 


Before I go on to The Mother’s Recompense, let me say that my favorite Wharton heroine is Lily Bart in The House of Mirth.  Every time I reread it, I am indignant and distressed over her tragedy, as well as in awe of every elegant word Wharton wrote.  How can charming, intelligent Lily fall not just a few rungs, but right off the social ladder?  Lily is desperate: she believes she should marry a rich man to support her life-style, but bungles her chances because she doesn’t like the available bachelors.  The spell of drugs (laudanum) is her only relief as she falls into debt and deeper unhappiness.  Here’s what we learn from Edith Wharton:  No Prince Charming will save Lily Bart.  People like Lily – but not enough. The mystery of fiction is our identification with characters like Lily from Old New York.
                      

I’ve made my way through most of Wharton’s work, and last week I took The Mothers Recompense (1925) off the shelf, because a writer in one of those short interviews at The Guardian or The New York Times called it an underrated classic.

The fact that I had read The Mother’s Recompense, and didn’t remember it, might have been a portent that I would not rate it highly.  If I were a Roman augur, I would have watched some chickens or examined an animal’s entrails and then announced:  “This is not a good day to read The Mother’s Recompense.”

But even though it is far from Wharton’s best, I was riveted by this slight, tragic novel. Plot-wise, it is a page-turner. The 45-year-old American heroine, Kate Clephane, has lived on the Riviera for years, ever since she ran away from her rich husband in New York with another man from whom she soon parted.  Kate has survived in comfort, living in slightly shabby hotels, and dividing her days into periods of aimless social life, taking long drives with the elderly Mrs. Minty, dining with friends at the casino, attending a Ladies’ Guild meeting at the American church, and buying new hats.  And she often muses about her second lover, Chris, a much younger man who eventually left her, but who was the love of her life.

Kate considers herself permanently severed from her family.  And then her daughter, Anne, sends her a telegram, inviting Kate  to return to New York and live with her.  Kate’s mother-in law, the dragon lady who had forbidden Kate to visit Anne for the last 18 years, has died. 

Kate’s reunion with Anne is touching, and their relationship almost perfect, until Anne announces she is engaged to Chris.  This is a tragedy for Kate, who doesn’t know what  a mother should do in this situation. Should she tell Anne about her own relationship with Chris? Can she scare Chris away from Anne?  Either Kate or Anne will break. 

Wharton is usually a great stylist, but here we simply race through the book, not noticing that it’s less elegant than some of her best work.

A good read, not a great book.

As for Jane Austen’s Persuasion, is it not her best novel?  It is less complex than Emma and Mansfield Park, but it is stunning.

These days I read this as a sublime comedy about loneliness and the reinvention of self.  Anne Elliott has lost her bloom:  she is a lonely woman in her late twenties, who some years ago refused  Frederick Wentworth’s proposal of marriage, because her mentor, Lady Russell, said it would be unwise to marry a navy officer with uncertain prospects. Anne has never gotten over the disappointment; she still loves Frederick.  When chance brings Captain Wentworth and Anne together during her visit to her very funny, hypochondriac younger sister, Mary, the two try to avoid each other. But Anne blooms in the admiration of others, and reinvents herself, and there is, of course, romance.