Resumo de The Age Of Innocence (2 )

This is thel ast major novel of Edith Wharton (1862-1937). She was a New York writer who moved to France in 1910; and, she wrote six well-known novels starting with"The House of mirth" in 1905. The present novel won a Pulitzer Prizein 1920. The Penguin Classics Red version had the text only and there was no analysis of Wharton or the novel. The red version is slightly cheaper and from what we can determine is the same novel. The near 363 pages are a fairly quick read (in two evenings) . The prose is straight forward and there are not too many characters. It is a well-constructed novel it is medium length, it has a good plot with interesting characters, and it has some mystery. The setting for the novel is a bit reminiscent of Henry James or F. ScottFitzgerald. Wharton's characters are a bit more level headed and easy going and do not seem to go through violent swings of emotion as one sees withFitzgerald. Without giving away the plot, the story is set in post WWI New York, among the wealthy social families. It is a love triangle among three wealthy people: two women and one young man, the protagonist Newland Archer, a young New York lawyer. She describes their balls and dinners and nights out to the opera. We follow them to Boston and out into the country on vacations and weekends off. There are no "common folk" here among the characters. They are all in a few related families. The novel is very well written. It is clear, concise, and it is an interesting and a compelling read. She generates enough interest to keep our attention throughout. Once you start to read, one will look forward to getting back to the novel during breaks. The main three figures are sympathetic characters and mostly an interesting story. Wharton has an easy going and clear style that is easy to read. Most will enjoy this novel.. Once we start one of her books, it will take quite a while before we put it down. Age of Innocence t is like a good Monet painting. It is surreal,interesting and sad, and yet there are so many layers to it. How you interpretit and how you decipher it's layers, is the key to enjoying it. Her verse is also intricate, careful and precise. Note of caution: The movie is much better after you' read the book. There isgreat meaning in the pregnant stares and the social layers of society, something that is not easily expressed in a two hour long movie rules, every one is reasonably happy and theSystem functions. Enter, Countess Ellen Olenska, a married cousin of May who visits her, meets Newland, and sparks fly. It would be perfectly acceptable for Ellen to tacitly cast a blind eye should Newland and Ellen commence a discrete affair, but for that to happen, the unspoken consensus must be that the affair cannot lead beyond the physical level. For if it were to go beyond that, then the rules are threatened and the entire flimsy house of cards come crashing down. Ellen and Newland are tempted to have their affair, but they do not because they know that once they do, feelings take over and neither is strong enough tocarry on with their hearts tugging one way but their bodies another. WhatNewland does do is to place his love for Ellen in an internal shrine and there it stays, year after year, neither growing nor shrinking. Eventually, after May has died and Newland is freed from the Rules, he can pick up the pieces even many years later. He and his adult son travel to Paris to see Ellen, but when the son walks into her apartment, Newland does not. Newland has lived with theshrine of love for so long in his heart that he prefers the image of a youthful Ellen to the reality of an aged one.THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is a novel marked by the clashing of many tragedies, all of which had been erected to allow a rich society to function with minimal fron, but in the crushing of hope for May, Ellen, and Newland, this friction has morphed into a disintegration of all that good people hold dear. For these self-deluding scions of society, the cost is clearlar too high Edith Wharton takes an anthropologist's approach and introduces the reader to the beliefs and behavior of a tribe of wealthy New Yorkers at the opening of the twentieth century. Many of the minor characters are held up to be figures of fun but they are only doing what their society requires them to do. Ellen Olenska, a New Yorker returning from a failed marriage and a scandal in Europe, causes an upset in society and in her family by refusing to live the way they do. The plot turns around with her relationship with Newland Archer, a man who is clearly attracted to her but is engaged to marry another woman. Archer expresses some progressive views on feminism and sexual freedom but one wonders whether he can step outside the rules of the society he lives in to consummate a relationship with her. The denouement, which takes place almost thirty years later, is beautiful and perhaps the best part of the book.

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