Review: The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

Review: The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

by Rich Horton

The other day I reviewed Willa Cather's My Ántonia and mentioned that she and Edith Wharton might be my favorite (classic) American writers. My Ántonia is generally regarded as Cather's best novel -- and so here's a look at what is generally regarded as Wharton's best novel. 

I have discussed Wharton numerous times before:

The House of Mirth

A Backward Glance

Old New York

Major Short Stories: "Roman Fever", "Xingu", "The Eyes", "Autre Temps ..." and "The Long Run", "The Lady's Maid's Bell"

Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones in 1862 (11 years before Cather) to a wealthy New York family. She was raised much in the manner of wealthy young women of her time, plenty of travel, a private education (tutors and governesses), and the expectation of an appropriate marriage. She rebelled to an extent, writing from an early age (she tried a novel at 11, completed a novella when 15, and published a translation of a poem anonymously at 15). She married an older man, Edward ("Teddy") Wharton, when she was 23. The marriage foundered, largely, it appears, because of Teddy's mental illness. They divorced in 1913, but Edith had begun an affair with Morton Fullerton several years earlier. She lived primarily in France from about 1908, and she died in 1937.

Wharton published a few short stories and poems in the '80s and '90s. Aside from a privately printed collection of poems, her first book was non-fiction: The Decoration of Houses, in 1897, which is indeed about interior decoration. Her first book length fiction was a novella, The Touchstone, in 1900. Another novella and a full-length novel appeared before The House of Mirth in 2005, which was her first major success. Her other major novels are The Custom of the Country (1913) and The Age of Innocence (1920). She also wrote a great deal of short fiction, including a lot of ghost stories, and a lot of novellas. Her best work at that length is probably those in the collection Old New York; plus the high school assigned reading warhorse, Ethan Frome. At shorter lengths my favorites are "Autre Temps" and "Roman Fever", but there are a lot more -- she was a magnificent writer of short stories. Many of her stories are ghost stories.

The Age of Innocence is set primarily in New York in the 1870s -- in fact, I think it can be precisely dated to 1875. This was, I understand, a purposeful change of pace for Wharton, as most of her fiction was set in contemporary (to her) times, though that is somewhat lost on present-day readers, for whom New York in around the turn of the 20th Century (as with The House of Mirth) is indistinguishable from New York in 1875. But the difference mattered a great deal to Wharton, and it is crucial to this novel.

The hero is Newland Archer, a man of about 30, a somewhat dilettantish lawyer, of a very good and very wealthy family. As the novel opens, he has just become engaged to May Welland, a very eligible young woman (of about 22), from a similarly prominent family. He is very happy. He has not long before finished an affair with a married woman, and is sure that he is now mature and experienced enough to settle down, and he loves May. At the opera that evening, as he is wondering when their engagement will be publicly announced, he notices a woman in the Welland box. This is the Countess Ellen Olenska, a cousin of May's, who has just returned from Europe, having left her abusive husband (a Polish count.) Ellen is about Newland's age, and he had known her well when they were younger. She had a slightly unfairly rackety reputation even then, due to her mother's scandalous life; and as a result she and her mother had moved to Europe, where she had married. It is only the social standing of May's grandmother, the redoubtable Mrs. Manson Mingott (who appears in other Wharton stories) that allows Ellen to appear in public. The intricate social politics of the situation lead Newland and May to allow their engagement to become public earlier than planned, and soon Newland is somewhat intimately involved in other actions aimed to repairing the Countess' social standing.

The next part of the novel concerns an intricate web of parties, other social events, and maneuvering. Newland presses May to convince her parents to move up the wedding -- at first the engagement was to last 18 months or so. The Countess is introduced in various places, but also takes some steps of her own, which include being seen with a notorious and not much trusted married banker (who is, gasp, an Englishman among other crimes.) She is also pursuing a divorce, which her family and the rest of New York society consider a step too far -- living separated from her husband is fine, and conducting discreet affairs is OK, but divorce? No. And Newland is deputized by his law firm to advise her that a divorce would be unwise. This is a problem for him, partly because he has fallen for her, and, it seems, she for him; but he does his duty, and she acquiesces.

Newland Archer is presented as a slightly unconventional young man in his milieu. He is interested in art and literature (Middlemarch is namechecked as a book he has ordered.) He is -- he would maintain -- less bound by his society's conventions. And as events proceed, he contemplates throwing over May and running off with Ellen -- but she is unwilling to do so many people so much hurt. And so the marriage proceeds, and the honeymoon follows ... and a year later there is another crisis, and another decision.

I think most people know how that ends -- how it must -- and then follows the famous and moving last chapter, set decades later, after May had died, and Newland, along with his son and daughter-in-law, visit Paris, where Madame Olenska retires. Wharton manages this beautifully, and it is an achingly sad but inevitable bit of closure ...

I've brushed over a lot of incident, and a lot of nuance above. (And quite a few comic touches.) This truly is a lovely novel. And it continues to raise questions in me. Newland's character is one thing -- he is by no means as unconventional a man as he'd like to think. And May is by no means the innocent and ignorant woman he thinks. Early on we see him thinking about how he will educated her -- almost as a sort of surrogate father, he wishes to introduce her to his passions. But in many ways she remains a step ahead of him -- she is never as innocent or ignorant as he thought, but she is wholly and dutifully a woman of her class, and she knows she does not want to do what Newland wants -- she doesn't want to read the poetry he likes, she doesn't want to travel, she wants him to be the husband she expected. And she gets all that. And, of course, she knew all about his near affair with Madame Olenska.

This was famously made into a well-regarded movie in 1993, directed by Martin Scorcese, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland, Michelle Pfeiffer as the Countess, and Winona Ryder as May. I saw the movie back then and quite enjoyed it. I need to see it again, and see what I think now.