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A review by oashackelford
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
3.0
In an age where honor and propriety are king you get a lot of individual trapped between their desires and their sense of duty. Newland Archer is an eligible bachelor and he has all of the things in life that should make him happy. He is wealthy, he has a job that does not really require anything of him, and his fiance, May, is young and innocent. Unfortunately she is too innocent and good mannered, because she has no opinions of her own and she only seems to be able to parrot back, and reflect what society wants her to be. She is nice, but boring. Enter Madame Ellen Olenska, May's cousin who has left her abusive marriage to be with her American family. Ellen has seen too many things to pretend to be innocent anymore, and is too "foreign" to keep her opinions to herself. So, of course, when Newland finds himself falling in love with Ellen he feels trapped between her, and his duty to follow through on his marriage with his fiance.
This book is a very interesting look at a kind of societal pressure that we don't really feel in the same way anymore, and yet it is still familiar to us. The challenges that the characters face between doing what is right, and doing what they want, feels like it deserves our empathy, but you do get the feeling that this book is from a time gone by, because at some point you want the characters to shirk their duty and ignore the scandal in order to be happy.
I read this as a way to fill a category in my library's 50 in 50 challenge, but I don't think I would have finished this book otherwise. I think that it is a good commentary on duty, honor and sense of self, but since we don't see things that way anymore, it got frustrating. I personally thought that May deserved a lot more than she was given, and so did Ellen. I know that in the past they both probably settled for what was the best course of action for them to survive and be comfortable, but I think that they deserved better. May deserved a man who actually cared for her, not just one who was duty bound. And Ellen deserved to fully leave her husband and find happiness somewhere else.
This book is a very interesting look at a kind of societal pressure that we don't really feel in the same way anymore, and yet it is still familiar to us. The challenges that the characters face between doing what is right, and doing what they want, feels like it deserves our empathy, but you do get the feeling that this book is from a time gone by, because at some point you want the characters to shirk their duty and ignore the scandal in order to be happy.
I read this as a way to fill a category in my library's 50 in 50 challenge, but I don't think I would have finished this book otherwise. I think that it is a good commentary on duty, honor and sense of self, but since we don't see things that way anymore, it got frustrating. I personally thought that May deserved a lot more than she was given, and so did Ellen. I know that in the past they both probably settled for what was the best course of action for them to survive and be comfortable, but I think that they deserved better. May deserved a man who actually cared for her, not just one who was duty bound. And Ellen deserved to fully leave her husband and find happiness somewhere else.