Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.31 AVERAGE
3.31 AVERAGE
As noted by everyone in the world, this is a very unhappy story, and the telling of it is also unhappy. What is most remarkable to me is that somehow it is written in a way that makes you feel just as trapped and claustrophobic as if you were living the story yourself. The first-person narrative it begins with is a bit difficult to get into, but the flashback just flies by. I think I might have been more satisfied with it if it had been characterized as a short story and nothing more, because I do wish we had had more time to explore the relationships and characters a bit more.
Possibly my favorite short story ever read. An amazing story. Absolutely loved it. A tragic love story.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Kind of having a heart attack over this cover art.
I didn't like this book in high school? But I want to reread.
I didn't like this book in high school? But I want to reread.
Found a copy of this on the street in Brooklyn. Next to a garbage can, but nonetheless. I see more books laid out in Fort Greene than anywhere ever, I swear.
So, should we talk about how everybody seems to have read this in high school? And how, according to everyone I've ever heard from and everyone I went to school with, we hated it? Even I hated it, and I was the only person who ever liked the books from class. I didn't mind. I remember being kind of grateful to Ethan Frome for giving me a way to relate to my peers! What a joyful week this was! Also we watched the Liam Neeson movie in class, and that was funny.
All I can think of is that this gets assigned to students simply because it is 80 pages long. That is its single recommending trait for a teenager. The things I enjoyed about it now are all rather different than the things I enjoyed about books when I was younger. The book is so slight that its surface scenario -- solemn adults full of regret, bitterness, and cold -- is pretty much what you get. Wharton brings a lot to the table, but I'd never buy this for a teenager for Christmas, and I'd prefer not to assign it to one either.
To my surprise, though, I liked it so much this time. What you're basically walking into in this book is an examination of the epic stuckness of Ethan, and the surprise that wrests him into turmoil over it. I found I had a lot of sympathy for this. It's something, watching him struggle to form a plan at the end of the book, and finding that you agree with him, and then he turns his decision around, and you also agree with him.
I like that the book jumps right in. When the backstory finally begins, Ethan is already in love with Mattie, his wife's cousin, and everyone already almost knows. (By the end they still just almost know.) And it's strange, as a love story, to explore the ways that a person who's fallen in love inside a trap will still seek tender moments and blare beams of feeling from his eyes. It's oddly romantic nonetheless, and emotionally at least, these parts are written with an immense realness I could recognize. I loved those moments and felt them through, though you know it's indulgent for you both. One wants the night that Zeena's away to last forever the same as they do, just to see what happens, just to see. The restraint is almost damnable.
There is a very large dose of heavyhanded symbolism throughout this whole book, and I kind of just decided to glide past it. The points get made well enough in the setting and characterization. The frame structure is also somewhat heavyhanded, though it allows us to know the story's real ending. I wondered a bit too if Wharton was trying a little too hard to write "down," the everyman tragedy of the country poor. The language, professions, and possessions of all of Starkfield's residents are written with the extreme precision that sometimes can come from being very authentic in an "up with people!" kind of way. I get a whiff of this, too, from Wharton's own introduction. I must read more of her soon, and I may alleviate that concern by doing so, but I can't be sure.
But from what I know of Wharton's usual choices, driving characters to the bleakest possible conclusion is not unusual. Though I'd read this before, I'd actually misremembered the ending, and assumed from the foreshadowing that Mattie dies in the accident. Indeed, what happens is worse. Wharton's portrayal of frigid Zeena is pitiless from the start, and Ethan shows more than a few flashes of dark selfishness throughout for all his earnest hopes. (His excitement for "mastery" is particularly unappetizing). But having everyone pretty much end up the same way is as bleak as can be. The book's moments of joy are so very dim.
(If we want to be honest about heavyhanded symbolism, I actually liked noticing the realistic emphasis on how, like, one single candle is ever lit in a room at a time. They are always in the dark and the cold. That'd be bad enough if you're happy, jeez.)
Actually, I worry that this in fact is the real reason students have to read this book all the time. It might look like an easy teach, and some English classes have a way of ripping out a significant wisp and nailing it to a wall. The abandoned copy that I found has three students' names written inside the cover, and one of them -- Patti! -- also underlined and wrote notes for her class throughout. Patti definitely tried, but sometimes they are as blunt as underlining a phrase about colors and writing "SIGNIFICANT!" in the margin. It just made me glad that I never had Patti's teacher.
(My little sister's succint review from high school: "LEAVE YOUR WIFE AND STOP SLEDDING.")
I'm very glad I reread this, though, with a taste for existential romance. It works, it really does.
And, ok. I kind of want to watch the Liam Neeson movie again.
So, should we talk about how everybody seems to have read this in high school? And how, according to everyone I've ever heard from and everyone I went to school with, we hated it? Even I hated it, and I was the only person who ever liked the books from class. I didn't mind. I remember being kind of grateful to Ethan Frome for giving me a way to relate to my peers! What a joyful week this was! Also we watched the Liam Neeson movie in class, and that was funny.
All I can think of is that this gets assigned to students simply because it is 80 pages long. That is its single recommending trait for a teenager. The things I enjoyed about it now are all rather different than the things I enjoyed about books when I was younger. The book is so slight that its surface scenario -- solemn adults full of regret, bitterness, and cold -- is pretty much what you get. Wharton brings a lot to the table, but I'd never buy this for a teenager for Christmas, and I'd prefer not to assign it to one either.
To my surprise, though, I liked it so much this time. What you're basically walking into in this book is an examination of the epic stuckness of Ethan, and the surprise that wrests him into turmoil over it. I found I had a lot of sympathy for this. It's something, watching him struggle to form a plan at the end of the book, and finding that you agree with him, and then he turns his decision around, and you also agree with him.
I like that the book jumps right in. When the backstory finally begins, Ethan is already in love with Mattie, his wife's cousin, and everyone already almost knows. (By the end they still just almost know.) And it's strange, as a love story, to explore the ways that a person who's fallen in love inside a trap will still seek tender moments and blare beams of feeling from his eyes. It's oddly romantic nonetheless, and emotionally at least, these parts are written with an immense realness I could recognize. I loved those moments and felt them through, though you know it's indulgent for you both. One wants the night that Zeena's away to last forever the same as they do, just to see what happens, just to see. The restraint is almost damnable.
There is a very large dose of heavyhanded symbolism throughout this whole book, and I kind of just decided to glide past it. The points get made well enough in the setting and characterization. The frame structure is also somewhat heavyhanded, though it allows us to know the story's real ending. I wondered a bit too if Wharton was trying a little too hard to write "down," the everyman tragedy of the country poor. The language, professions, and possessions of all of Starkfield's residents are written with the extreme precision that sometimes can come from being very authentic in an "up with people!" kind of way. I get a whiff of this, too, from Wharton's own introduction. I must read more of her soon, and I may alleviate that concern by doing so, but I can't be sure.
But from what I know of Wharton's usual choices, driving characters to the bleakest possible conclusion is not unusual. Though I'd read this before, I'd actually misremembered the ending, and assumed from the foreshadowing that Mattie dies in the accident. Indeed, what happens is worse. Wharton's portrayal of frigid Zeena is pitiless from the start, and Ethan shows more than a few flashes of dark selfishness throughout for all his earnest hopes. (His excitement for "mastery" is particularly unappetizing). But having everyone pretty much end up the same way is as bleak as can be. The book's moments of joy are so very dim.
(If we want to be honest about heavyhanded symbolism, I actually liked noticing the realistic emphasis on how, like, one single candle is ever lit in a room at a time. They are always in the dark and the cold. That'd be bad enough if you're happy, jeez.)
Actually, I worry that this in fact is the real reason students have to read this book all the time. It might look like an easy teach, and some English classes have a way of ripping out a significant wisp and nailing it to a wall. The abandoned copy that I found has three students' names written inside the cover, and one of them -- Patti! -- also underlined and wrote notes for her class throughout. Patti definitely tried, but sometimes they are as blunt as underlining a phrase about colors and writing "SIGNIFICANT!" in the margin. It just made me glad that I never had Patti's teacher.
(My little sister's succint review from high school: "LEAVE YOUR WIFE AND STOP SLEDDING.")
I'm very glad I reread this, though, with a taste for existential romance. It works, it really does.
And, ok. I kind of want to watch the Liam Neeson movie again.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this classic tale about a man married to a shrew who longs for something better. The ending, although anticipated, was also a surprise. Highly recommend.
I first read this book when I was a junior in high school. It was one I remember liking, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. Rather than re-reading one of my favorites such as The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye, I decided to give this one another chance as I wasn’t sure I had fully understood the story at 15 years old.
I’m really glad this is the one I chose.
This is a book that requires some life experience to truly understand the themes. Ethan Frome is a poor man who lives in Starkfield, MA. If you’ve ever experienced a New England winter, you understand the brutality of it. The snow gets so tall that you can quite literally step from the roof of your house onto a mound of snow. Now, imagine being stuck in that in 1911 with no power, no transportation other than a horse and buggy, and a hypochondriac wife.
To be honest, I didn’t remember much of the book from the first time I read it. I don’t know if that’s because it’s been so many years or because it just didn’t leave an impression on my adolescent brain. There are a few twists in the book that I won’t spoil here, but my initial reaction toward Frome during my re-read was that he was, quite frankly, an asshole. How could he think ill thoughts of his sick wife while he takes her cousin as a mistress?
As I got to the end of the book, I realized he’s a victim of circumstance. He’d taken care of his sick mother during his teenage years and, despite the help of his wife, Zeena, his mother had died during a brutal winter only to join the headstones in the Frome graveyard that seemed to taunt Ethan. He never wanted to end up as just another headstone with an engraving that detailed his many years stuck with his wife in that house. He wanted to move to a big city to become an engineer, but poverty and desperation caused him to act on emotional impulses. Now he’s just a man with a limp stuck in the cold winters of Starkfield, MA.
If you haven’t read this classic, I highly recommend it. Edith Warton put together such a volatile story in a short amount of pages. It only took me a couple hours to re-read, and I’m sure it will now have a lasting impression on me. I’m thankful for the back to the classics challenge for inspiring me to read this, and I’m excited to dive into more classics as the year goes on.
I’m really glad this is the one I chose.
This is a book that requires some life experience to truly understand the themes. Ethan Frome is a poor man who lives in Starkfield, MA. If you’ve ever experienced a New England winter, you understand the brutality of it. The snow gets so tall that you can quite literally step from the roof of your house onto a mound of snow. Now, imagine being stuck in that in 1911 with no power, no transportation other than a horse and buggy, and a hypochondriac wife.
To be honest, I didn’t remember much of the book from the first time I read it. I don’t know if that’s because it’s been so many years or because it just didn’t leave an impression on my adolescent brain. There are a few twists in the book that I won’t spoil here, but my initial reaction toward Frome during my re-read was that he was, quite frankly, an asshole. How could he think ill thoughts of his sick wife while he takes her cousin as a mistress?
As I got to the end of the book, I realized he’s a victim of circumstance. He’d taken care of his sick mother during his teenage years and, despite the help of his wife, Zeena, his mother had died during a brutal winter only to join the headstones in the Frome graveyard that seemed to taunt Ethan. He never wanted to end up as just another headstone with an engraving that detailed his many years stuck with his wife in that house. He wanted to move to a big city to become an engineer, but poverty and desperation caused him to act on emotional impulses. Now he’s just a man with a limp stuck in the cold winters of Starkfield, MA.
If you haven’t read this classic, I highly recommend it. Edith Warton put together such a volatile story in a short amount of pages. It only took me a couple hours to re-read, and I’m sure it will now have a lasting impression on me. I’m thankful for the back to the classics challenge for inspiring me to read this, and I’m excited to dive into more classics as the year goes on.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This might be one of the weirdest books I've ever read.