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itsmeashleygee 's review for:
Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton
The moral of this story is that Ethan Frome turns every woman he touches into a shrunken bitter old crone. Don’t go near Ethan Frome.
But seriously am I supposed to feel any kind of sympathy for Ethan? Am I supposed to be cheering for him, hoping he can desert his wife and run away with her nymph-ingenue hybrid cousin? If I’m supposed to see Ethan as some kind of martyr or victim, it didn’t work, I’d like my $2.50 back.
Not that I’m rooting for any other character all that much either. Zeena? Why aren’t you plotting your exit? Your jabs at your wish-he-was-cheating husband aren’t subtle or actually doing anything for you. Mattie? Girl open your eyes, the world is big and this cannot be your only option.
Actually I take it back, I’m rooting for Ned and Ruth, the couple that makes out in the woods behind the church. Get it, y’all. Let’s hear more from Ned and Ruth, who like kissing.
To sum up: we have Ethan Frome, a lecherous daydreaming dude lusting after his wife’s cousin. We have his wife, Zeena, who fully knows what’s up but does nothing. And Mattie, the girl the whole town is nuts for despite the fact that all she does is laugh and flutter her eyelashes and break expensive dishes.
But even with these absolute train wrecks of human beings this book is solid gold. It is complex in its structure, the prose is sparse but evocative, and rich in meaning. I want to go back to high school and write about the symbolism of flowers and color, I want to research how much Edith Wharton was into witchcraft and familiars (because her girl Zeena is fully a witch, don’t @ me), and let’s talk about vampirism shall we? Ethan might as well be sleeping in a coffin (oh wait, he does, he just calls it his study, ALMOST GOT ME THERE, BUDDY).
And let’s talk about this New England landscape, okay? Unnamed character here that has more agency than any one human being in the novel. Mother Nature is driving this entire bus and she is stopping for nobody. She will make you get married and she will make you talk to strangers and she will cripple your leg and mess up your face just to remind you of what a crappy human you’ve been.
In short Wharton packed so much good writing into these 100 pages that I’m about to read it again just to see how she did it. Bravo, Edith, bravo.
P.S. Somebody wrote some fanfic of this book but entirely from the cat’s perspective, okay? I want to read that book.
But seriously am I supposed to feel any kind of sympathy for Ethan? Am I supposed to be cheering for him, hoping he can desert his wife and run away with her nymph-ingenue hybrid cousin? If I’m supposed to see Ethan as some kind of martyr or victim, it didn’t work, I’d like my $2.50 back.
Not that I’m rooting for any other character all that much either. Zeena? Why aren’t you plotting your exit? Your jabs at your wish-he-was-cheating husband aren’t subtle or actually doing anything for you. Mattie? Girl open your eyes, the world is big and this cannot be your only option.
Actually I take it back, I’m rooting for Ned and Ruth, the couple that makes out in the woods behind the church. Get it, y’all. Let’s hear more from Ned and Ruth, who like kissing.
To sum up: we have Ethan Frome, a lecherous daydreaming dude lusting after his wife’s cousin. We have his wife, Zeena, who fully knows what’s up but does nothing. And Mattie, the girl the whole town is nuts for despite the fact that all she does is laugh and flutter her eyelashes and break expensive dishes.
But even with these absolute train wrecks of human beings this book is solid gold. It is complex in its structure, the prose is sparse but evocative, and rich in meaning. I want to go back to high school and write about the symbolism of flowers and color, I want to research how much Edith Wharton was into witchcraft and familiars (because her girl Zeena is fully a witch, don’t @ me), and let’s talk about vampirism shall we? Ethan might as well be sleeping in a coffin (oh wait, he does, he just calls it his study, ALMOST GOT ME THERE, BUDDY).
And let’s talk about this New England landscape, okay? Unnamed character here that has more agency than any one human being in the novel. Mother Nature is driving this entire bus and she is stopping for nobody. She will make you get married and she will make you talk to strangers and she will cripple your leg and mess up your face just to remind you of what a crappy human you’ve been.
In short Wharton packed so much good writing into these 100 pages that I’m about to read it again just to see how she did it. Bravo, Edith, bravo.
P.S. Somebody wrote some fanfic of this book but entirely from the cat’s perspective, okay? I want to read that book.