Sunday, 20 September 2015

The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton



If I had no actual reason to be interested in the swinging lives of Scott Fitzgerald’s aristocrats in the 1930s, I surely also didn’t have any reason to be interested in the boring lives of Wharton’s aristocrats in the 1870s.

Yes, The Age of Innocence is beautifully written, but it’s just so incredibly boring! Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century there were surely more pressing problems (see the post above) than the forbidden love between Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer.

Like Byatt’s Possession (although separated by pretty much a hundred years) this is a feuilletton I struggled with, but in both cases the last page made it (maybe?) worth it and gave the books worthy finales.

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