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Edith Wharton

"Pussy Jones " is one of my favorite authors.

Known for- The Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, The Reef, and The Decoration of Houses.

Let's discuss her, her work, and her life.

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by Anonymousreply 69July 15, 2023 9:40 PM

The Age of Innocence is my favorite novel

by Anonymousreply 1July 5, 2022 6:17 PM

No one has anything to say?

by Anonymousreply 2July 5, 2022 8:34 PM

I'm currently reading the House of Mirth! It is so good!

by Anonymousreply 3December 8, 2022 3:38 PM

She terrorized Henry James! Very difficult for him to deal with.

by Anonymousreply 4December 8, 2022 3:42 PM

R4 No, they were good friends

by Anonymousreply 5December 8, 2022 3:49 PM

She was undoubtedly a gifted writer but she is most appreciated for [italic]recording[/italic] her experience more than contextualizing it. I enjoyed Age of Innocence and House of Mirth, but found them both lacking in a searching exploration of contemporaneous America as a society. Her POV thus her characters, were exclusive and predominant, the setting of her cloistered enclave and her place in it. Her minor characters were two dimensional and only of passing importance.

Every writer is encouraged to start by “write what you know” but the best don’t stop there. Seminal writers are humanists as much as story tellers. They go in search of the things they don’t know after they refine their voice. She didn’t, in as much as she was capable. But she was great for what she was.

by Anonymousreply 6December 8, 2022 3:55 PM

R6 I disagree. I think her lead characters are very three dimensional. She knew them.

Her descriptions of the scene are very telling. They paint a gorgeously elegant picture that mean absolutely nothing.

by Anonymousreply 7December 8, 2022 3:58 PM

R7 her lead characters were three dimensional. Her minor characters weren’t. I understand they were minor but she wrote caricature. Even non principals have humanity and good writers pay them that dignity even if they aren’t central to the story being told.

by Anonymousreply 8December 8, 2022 4:05 PM

I completely disagree with r6 from beginning to end. At her best, her novels are superb anthropological studies of a vanishing way of life.

And it's not true that writers are all encouraged to 'wrote what they know." That was popular among some (lazier) schools in the mid to late 20th century, but Toni Morrison told her writing students at Princeton, for example, NOT to write about what they knew. "I don;t want to hear about your little lives," she would tell them.

by Anonymousreply 9December 8, 2022 4:09 PM

R9 Respectfully, I’m completely surprised by you identifying yourself as an English professor. You don’t seem to even understand what I wrote.

Regardless, they are my opinions of her writing, nothing more.

by Anonymousreply 10December 8, 2022 4:13 PM

CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY is an underrated masterpiece. I don't know why it isn't more popular. Has it ever been made into a film?

And her unfinished novel THE BUCCANEERS is definitely worth a read.

And, of course, there's always THE HOUSE OF MIRTH and ETHAN FROME.

Oddly enough, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE left me cold.

by Anonymousreply 11December 8, 2022 4:24 PM

Well she certainly was a handsome woman. I've never read any of her shit.

by Anonymousreply 12December 8, 2022 4:27 PM

Every character in The Age of Innocence has depth:

Newland, May, and Ellen for sure.

Mrs. Mingott is slowly watching family, and her death rapidly decline.

Newland's sister and mother and completely dependent on him.

The Van Schuylers are not as influential as they think. The Emperor has no clothes.

Sillerton Jackson is a "confirmed bachelor"

The French tutor fell madly in love with Ellen and still loves her.

Lawrence Lefferts is envious of Newland.

Julius and Regina are cash poor. They hide it well.

I'm sorry, but I do not under stand HOW these characters come off as two dimensional?

Remember, this is 1870's New York City. Nobody discussed their true feelings. It was bad manners. You have to read between the lines.

by Anonymousreply 13December 8, 2022 4:28 PM

R13 her health, not her death

by Anonymousreply 14December 8, 2022 4:29 PM

R5 Yes, he came around after ten years or so. But he was suspicious of the socially grand and excessively rich milieu she came from.

by Anonymousreply 15December 8, 2022 5:10 PM

R15 that is funny, considering they both were friends with the Vanderbilts and visited Biltmore frequently

by Anonymousreply 16December 8, 2022 5:23 PM

I love her, too. The House of Mirth is just a wonderful novel. Great character development and a true word-lover's artistry with English. Like Jane Austen, Edith Wharton wrote perfect sentences.

by Anonymousreply 17December 8, 2022 5:34 PM

[quote] The Van Schuylers are not as influential as they think. The Emperor has no clothes.

I think you mean the van der Luydens, but I'm not sure what you mean here.

The omniscient narrator is quite clear that they have authority over all of Old New York: "The van der Luydens were morbidly sensitive to any criticism of their secluded existence. They were the arbiters of fahion, the Court of Last Appeal, and they knew it, and bowed to their fate."

They are the ones that throw the big dinner party to teach Lawrence Lefferts "a lesson" in badmouthing Ellen (and of course he attends and stops badmouthing her), and they are also the ones who engineer Ellen's removal from New York at the end so she will no longer be a threat to newland and May's marriage.

by Anonymousreply 18December 8, 2022 5:39 PM

House of Mirth was my favorite! Poor Lily Bart.

by Anonymousreply 19December 8, 2022 5:42 PM

R18 but Ellen bluntly puts it: They do not show up a lot because if they did they would lose their power

by Anonymousreply 20December 8, 2022 5:55 PM

R18 I am that omniscient narrator.

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by Anonymousreply 21December 8, 2022 5:58 PM

Love her. Love her.

I think I've read everything by her. Ethan Frome is my current favorite.

by Anonymousreply 22December 8, 2022 6:55 PM

Ellen Olenska is an ungrateful whoar, and she deserved to be cancelled. When she bitched about the Vander Luydens, who went out of their way to help her, I wanted to slap her accross her whore face really hard.

by Anonymousreply 23December 8, 2022 6:59 PM

I'm not big on short stories, but Wharton's "The Bunner Sisters" is well-written tragedy.

by Anonymousreply 24December 8, 2022 7:04 PM

Pussy Jones?

by Anonymousreply 25December 8, 2022 7:26 PM

Her parents owned a magnificent property in Newport (still private). She and her husband lived nearby at Pencraig Cottage. Must have been nice.

by Anonymousreply 26December 8, 2022 7:33 PM

R25 Pussy was her childhood nickname.

by Anonymousreply 27December 8, 2022 7:47 PM

Good but never achieves the finesse of Flaubert or the range of Nabokov. And then there's Dostoevsky. I snorted at the Toni Morrison cunting remark at R9. Good writer but Lordy her grande dame act in life was de trop.

by Anonymousreply 28December 8, 2022 7:57 PM

[quote] Good writer but Lordy her grande dame act in life was de trop.

Mary!

by Anonymousreply 29December 8, 2022 7:59 PM

She was a spitfire

by Anonymousreply 30December 8, 2022 8:02 PM

I love The Buccaneers and re-read it often.

by Anonymousreply 31December 8, 2022 8:22 PM

Having once found myself broke, recently dumped and all alone wandering the cold streets of New York, Lily Bart’s demise struck very close to home.

by Anonymousreply 32December 8, 2022 8:55 PM

Did you shoot yourself in your own foot out of pride, delusions of lofty mission, and misguided good morals? Lily Bart's is a cautionary tale.

by Anonymousreply 33December 8, 2022 9:42 PM

Has anyone else been to Edith's estate The Mount in Lenox, Mass.? The house isn't necessarily that spectacular but the grounds are gorgeous. I remember acres of ferns, growing in the shade.

by Anonymousreply 34December 8, 2022 9:44 PM

Fern?

I know her.

by Anonymousreply 35December 8, 2022 9:46 PM

No, but I've thought about it, R34. I'd love to see it.

I saw Dickinson's homestead in Amherst. That was pretty cool.

by Anonymousreply 36December 8, 2022 9:53 PM

Interesting that her childhood nickname was Pussy. I read her short story, Beatrice Palmeto and saw another side of a favorite writer. It concerns a father/daughter incestuos relationship. Everything but before, preserving her virginity for her wedding night. Afterwards they consummate their love. There is much more to the story, but I'll not spoil it.

Here is an excerpt.

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by Anonymousreply 37December 8, 2022 9:57 PM

What are those sleeves called? Mutton-chops?

by Anonymousreply 38December 8, 2022 10:00 PM

Yes, r38.

by Anonymousreply 39December 8, 2022 10:04 PM

More like Turkey Drumsticks.

by Anonymousreply 40December 8, 2022 10:06 PM

She should have shot her milliner.

by Anonymousreply 41December 8, 2022 10:11 PM

I've been to The Mount several times. My grandmother loved Lenox and liked the programming and cafe at The Mount.

And when I was young, I had a Wall Street banker suitor who loved everything old and WASP (he was entirely NEW and catholic) and would helicopter me to gilded age watering holes for the weekend. It was very strange. We went to the opening of Canyon Ranch for example. It was obvious to everyone what was going on. But I was impeccably turned out ivy leaguer so I was a classy young squire, that's for sure. I took him over to The Mount and up to The Clark to talk to him about literature and art. He loved that and destroyed my ass every night, with his huge latin cock, which I loved, in plush frauish rooms in mansions converted to hotels. This was before my own Dim Age, when I traded the bankers for gangsters and trannies and a cold loft on the river in Dumbo.

by Anonymousreply 42December 8, 2022 10:18 PM

Were Buster Keaton & her ever seen in the same room

by Anonymousreply 43December 8, 2022 10:20 PM

Good times and bum times, r42...

by Anonymousreply 44December 8, 2022 10:22 PM

'Twas the best of times, 'twas the worst of times.

by Anonymousreply 45December 8, 2022 10:23 PM

She used to shove her porcelain figurines in her pussy

by Anonymousreply 46December 8, 2022 10:42 PM

Odd looking dog faces.

by Anonymousreply 47December 8, 2022 10:49 PM

The Mount is quite lovely because it's not Gilded Age excess. Wharton hobnobbed with the new money and was a guest in their palaces and chateaux but she was old money including Dutch patroon money. Old. Similar house would be FDR's Springwood in Hyde Park, which offers a striking contrast to the Vanderbilt palace up Route 9.

by Anonymousreply 48December 8, 2022 11:00 PM

I read (and loved) Wharton's Custom of the Country earlier this year. Undine Spragg -- what a name! What a character you love to hate. (She only wants the best, you know.) I can't believe it hasn't been made into a movie or miniseries. That is a delicious part for an actress. And while it could easily be updated to today's Gilded Age (well, Gilded for a few), I'd love to see it as a period piece.

Terrence Davies' The House of Mirth is now available to stream (Showtime, Prime Video, Paramount+). It's been unavailable for years.

by Anonymousreply 49December 8, 2022 11:06 PM

R48, you're right about The Mount. A lovely home of proportion for entertaining just a few close friends. Edith designed the home after setting up a large Newport estate with and for her no-good husband. BTW, R48, another wonderful, family home from the Gilded Age is Naumkeag in Stockbridge - built by a [art of the Choate family.

by Anonymousreply 50December 8, 2022 11:14 PM

Jay Leno bought Land's End a few years ago. Next up, Cardi B at Hammersmith Farm.

by Anonymousreply 51December 8, 2022 11:21 PM

R16 James visited Biltmore once, in 1905. Do your homework, dear. Naturally I don't mean to suggest that the Jameses were of the lower orders socially, but he expressed numerous times his wariness of "the great ones of the earth." His letters are available to be read.

by Anonymousreply 52December 9, 2022 1:15 AM

Custom of the Country's Undine Spragg would have been a perfect role for a young Lana Turner in a great old-fashioned Hollywood film produced by MGM with all of its expertise and excess and a grand supporting cast of its roster of character actors.

by Anonymousreply 53December 9, 2022 4:54 AM

In this book it gave a history of one block in New York from the ice age to present day on West 23 6th Ave. to 5th Ave. Though at one point in time it was where the early Gilded Age lived in mansions, during Edith Wharton’s childhood much of the crowd had moved up to the Upper East Side. The Whartons were one of the last families remaining on the block along with another prominent family. What’s really fascinating is that a hundred plus years later it’s the same block that Robert Mapplethorpe will have his loft financed by Sam Wagstaff. So Edith Wharton and Robert Mapplethorpe are connected through time.

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by Anonymousreply 54December 9, 2022 5:05 AM

In present day, her home’s first floor is now a Starbucks.

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by Anonymousreply 55December 9, 2022 5:09 AM

The Mount is gorgeous

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by Anonymousreply 56May 29, 2023 10:40 PM

She sho is ugly

by Anonymousreply 57May 29, 2023 11:30 PM

[quote] Every writer is encouraged to start by “write what you know” but the best don’t stop there.

She did [italic]not[/italic] stop there. You don't know what you're talking about.

ETHAN FROME and SUMMER, two of her best books, are not about the wealthy at all.

by Anonymousreply 58May 29, 2023 11:34 PM

[quote] "What are those sleeves called? Mutton-chops?"

Leg-O-Mutton, R38.

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by Anonymousreply 59May 29, 2023 11:57 PM

OP, thank you for this thread.

Wharton is, IMHO, among the finest of all American novelists, equaled only by Melville and Fitzgerald. She deserves to be read, remembered, and revered.

I highly recommend Hermione Lee's biography. Wharton's discipline as an artist was extraordinary. Fitzgerald, not incidentally, was a great admirer of her work.

by Anonymousreply 60May 30, 2023 1:07 AM

R60 thank you

Wharton has excellent prose.

by Anonymousreply 61May 30, 2023 1:17 AM

[quote]And it's not true that writers are all encouraged to 'wrote what they know." That was popular among some (lazier) schools in the mid to late 20th century, but Toni Morrison told her writing students at Princeton, for example, NOT to write about what they knew. "I don;t want to hear about your little lives," she would tell them.

R9, thank you, today I learnt. Perhaps Josh Hawley had her as a tutor at some point which would explain him writing about Manhood then!

by Anonymousreply 62May 30, 2023 11:55 AM

She pings. Was she one of us?

by Anonymousreply 63May 30, 2023 12:34 PM

The opening scene of the 1995 miniseries The Buccaneers reminds me of a scene from Anne Of Green Gables.

by Anonymousreply 64May 30, 2023 12:50 PM

[quote] She did not stop there. You don't know what you're talking about. ETHAN FROME and SUMMER, two of her best books, are not about the wealthy at all.

I was at The Mount yesterday and purchased a book containing both "Ethan Frome" and "Summer." I began reading "Ethan Frome" last night.

by Anonymousreply 65July 15, 2023 8:44 PM

[quote] Has anyone else been to Edith's estate The Mount in Lenox, Mass.? The house isn't necessarily that spectacular but the grounds are gorgeous. I remember acres of ferns, growing in the shade.

Yes, R34—just yesterday. I agree with what you say about the house and grounds.

On the walk up to the house from the stables, there are lots and lots of ferns growing. So spectacular.

by Anonymousreply 66July 15, 2023 8:48 PM

"Stop bothering me, Edith!"

by Anonymousreply 67July 15, 2023 8:56 PM

Plain as a mud fence, poor thing.

by Anonymousreply 68July 15, 2023 8:56 PM

Love her work how she used her characters to act againt societys norms and then slayed them in utmost delight.

by Anonymousreply 69July 15, 2023 9:40 PM
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