The Age of Innocence

Oh Edith Wharton, how I love you.

The Age of Innocence is pretty classic Wharton: amazing characterization, a love story that goes awry, heartrending sadness mixed with satirical observation. Set in high society in New York in the 1870s, The Age of Innocence tells the story of Newland Archer, an up-and-coming young lawyer, who was recently engaged to the fair, serene, and always proper May Welland, and May's cousin, the dark, complicated, and rarely proper Countess Olenska.

Newland Archer was a bit wishy-washy as a main character for my tastes, I thought the two women were much more interesting characters. But by far my favorite parts of the book were the descriptions of May and Ellen Olenska's obese grandmother, old Mrs. Mingott, which were strikingly vivid.

For example, these sentences are taken from a scene where Newland Archer goes to visit Mrs. Mingott shortly after she has had a stroke.

"She merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of her obesity; and, in the fluted mob-cap tied by a starched bow between her first two chins, and the muslin kerchief crossed over her billowing purple dressing-gown, she seemed like some shrewd and kindly ancestress of her own who might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the table.

She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a hollow of her huge lap like pet animals, and called to the maid: “Don’t let in any one else. If my daughters call, say I’m asleep.”"

How can you not love someone who can write like that? I feel quite happy that Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer for this book. I must say, so far so good with catching up on the classics I've missed; I've really enjoyed both The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence.