The Age of Innocence was the first novel written by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Edith Wharton’s novel centers around 1870’s New York society, scandal and social structure.Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes
The Age of Innocence
By edithwharton
The Age Of Innocence is a story the will really pull you into the world Newland Archer inhabits with its rules and customs that keep you interested from the first page to the last, it a book full of riches that hasn’t lost its quality as the years pass because it weaves quite a spell that will keep you intrigued to find out what happens next.
I’ve been trying to read some of the well-known authors of the 19th and 20th century whom I’ve neglected. Or totally ignored. I was on a long flight and discovered “Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton on my Kindle. Probably there because it was free. I didn’t think I would like it, but I was wrong.
I didn’t know that it had been made into a film back in 1993, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Michele Pfeiffer. That’s exactly how I would have cast the book too, so I’m planning to actually rent the film from Amazon, as I’m anxious to see the film version.
It’s a simple story. A young man of society (Newland Archer) falls in love with the wrong woman, (Countess Olenska) – not the woman he is supposed to marry. He thinks he can overcome the will of his society and be with the Countess, but she knows better. In the end he conforms, she is sent away and he lives out his life – a good, decent, boring life. Not the life he wanted, but more than he deserved (in my opinion).
The story didn’t break my heart. The Countess deserved better than Newland Archer so I was glad they didn’t end up together.
Wharton paints a very detailed, believable (but really unbelievable) picture of life in high society New York in the late 1800s.
The Age of Innocence is a beautifully-written and entertaining read, mostly set in New York’s high society, in the 1870s. The details were intricate, as were the descriptions. The humour and the clever wit is so absorbing. It liberates the soul as one reads.
The details about the furniture and the clothes may be too much for some, but the fact that the author is so intelligent and clever in her writing excuses this from the onset. I honestly felt like giving up when reading the first chapter, because there were so many introductions — names I couldn’t keep up with. I am so glad I didn’t. My first thought was that this author must know a lot about design — she must have worked in the field. I did some research and discovered that I was correct in my assumptions. Her knowledge of wealthy New York society at the time also led me to believe she was part of this “refined” and “trendy” group of people. My research revealed that she was part of it — but also that she was, in fact, a member of a very influential and wealthy family — with the name Jones. My immediate thought was that the family must have something to do with the phrase: “Keeping up with the Joneses’.” To my astonishment, I was correct. Many say that this is the case, although there are other theories as well.
Overall, this was such a rich, enjoyable reading experience about etiquette, and the struggle between expectations and desire. I thoroughly recommend any work by this author as I have heard high praise for her other books as well. I am not surprised that she won the Pulitzer Prize.