❤️ loved this book because...
I confess to have been completely seduced by The Age of Innocence—its presentation in Edith Wharton’s novel and in Martin Scorsese’s award-winning film version. While it’s true that the only article of clothing that actually comes off is a glove, the erotic charge of that moment is unforgettable. I also admit to being fascinated by stories of hopeless love and mute renunciation that conceal its agonies below the surface, where alluring characters collude in their own unhappiness by refusing to follow their heart even when they are free from social restraints to do so. The title of an article in The Guardian, “The Age of Innocence is a master class in sexual tension,” is spot on. Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence’s portrays desire and betrayal in high-society New York.
According to Scorsese, The Age of Innocence is a brutal gang story governed by its own strict codes of tribal loyalty and honor. Threats of punishment are ever present. He likens New York society in the 1870s to his own subculture of Little Italy where when somebody was killed, there was a finality to it. But Wharton’s milieu was perhaps even more cold-blooded.
In my books, I write letters to the male and female writers who have marked me. In preparation for the one I wrote to Wharton, I was extremely excited to handle her own letters recently at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. I loved seeing her words in her own handwriting, and like many authors, she reveals herself differently in her letters. She is full of surprises!
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🐇 I couldn't put it down
6 authors picked The Age of Innocence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Edith Wharton's novel reworks the eternal triangle of two women and a man in a strikingly original manner. When about to marry the beautiful and conventional May Welland, Newland Archer falls in love with her very unconventional cousin, the Countess Olenska. The consequent drama, set in New York during the 1870s, reveals terrifying chasms under the polished surface of upper-class society as the increasingly fraught Archer struggles with conflicting obligations and desires. The first woman to do so, Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for this dark comedy of manners which was immediately recognized as one of her greatest achievements.