- Hardcover
- Publisher: Random House Inc (T) (April 1960)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0394602293
- ISBN-13: 978-0394602295
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
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Somewhere in this book, Wharton observes that clever liars always come up with good stories to back up their fabrications, but that really clever liars don't bother to explain anything at all. This is the kind of insight that makes The Age of Innocence so indispensable. Wharton's story of the upper classes of Old New York, and Newland Archer's impossible love for the disgraced Countess Olenska, is a perfectly wrought book about an era when upper-class culture in this country was still a mixture of American and European extracts, and when "society" had rules as rigid as any in history.
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
edition.
Review
"Is it—in this world—vulgar to ask for more? To entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?"—Katherine Mansfield
"There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska. . . . Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature."—Gore Vidal
"Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?"—E. M. Forster --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
"There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska. . . . Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature."—Gore Vidal
"Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?"—E. M. Forster --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Less than her best!,
By
This review is from: The Age of Innocence (Paperback)
They say that novels must make sense, because life doesn't. And perhaps this is the draw of the book. Unrequited love, which doesn't make sense in the novel although it is a piece of life. This may be a slice of life, but was not all that convincing for me, and did not make me care for the characters. Perhaps the problem is that I felt so much for Lily Bart in The House Of Mirth, written 15 years previously, that these characters just didn't materialize for me in comparison.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Masterpiece,
This review is from: The Age of Innocence (Paperback)
Since it is almost ten years ago that I saw Scorcese's movie adaptation of this book, I thought that enough time had passed to read this book without preconceived notions and entirely on its own merits. I am glad I did, since the book clearly outshines the flick.Because so many reviews have been written on this novel and it has found its ultimate validation by justified inclusion in the list of hundred best books of the 20th century, there is little need for any additional endorsement. Yet, some of the reviews might scare some potential readers away and require some debunking. This book is no soap opera. This book is not for women only. By juxtaposing elements like self versus society, mind versus heart, practical versus desirable The Age of Innocence offers us with an awful lot in a small number of pages. Add to that I supreme writing style, that couples the female eye for detail with Dickensian wit in portraying New York's high society, and follow the beautiful archetypes from Paris and Helena, the original doubter and femme fatale, respectively, and you end up with a true masterpiece. On top of that, this book has one of literature's best final chapters with bitter, sweet and sarcastic undertones. Just having Welland sit in Paris on a bench close to the Dome des Invalides is priceless!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect cure for insomnia,
This review is from: The Age of Innocence (Paperback)
At the risk of offending the literary world, this is the slowest piece of fiction I have ever read. The story is about New York, circa 1880, and the stuffiness of the elite class. The author descibed her characters succintly in Chapter 33 when she wrote " It was the old New York way of taking life " without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than scenes, except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them". The plot centers upon a engaged lawyer, Newland Archer. From one of the finest families in New York, he falls for an exotic beauty with a scandalous past, the Countess Olenska, who also happens to be his fiance's cousin. The young man struggles with whether he settles into the staid and boring life that his family name and status have earned him surrounded by people he despises, or does he follow his heart. He defends the charcter of the mysterious and exotic Countess Olenska, who is scorned by both family and friends. The Countess, equally in love with Archer, makes the hard decision to let Archer go so he can fulfill the life that has been planned for him. Beautifully written but dreadfully slow.
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