This is without a doubt dear Mrs. Wharton's masterpiece, a captivating tale about a man whose sense of duty and fear of challenging the status quo keeps him in a state of perpetual staleness and regret. While very little transpires through the course of the novel, it is for a good reason. Archer, the protagonist, is a stuffy New York lawyer, who is entranced by his mysterious wife's cousin Olenska, a married countess who has spent a great deal of her life in Europe. The story is about their relationship or what it could have been, had he been more willing to challenge the status quo and follow his real desires. He lives in a world surrounded by the moralistic and the prudish, a world which by the end of the novel vanishes into a distant memory, and all he is left with is his regret. In the sense, the story could be viewed as a tragedy, but not the same kind of tragedy as Ethan Frome, who had so much less in life to look forward to! Archer's world is essentially limitless and is only held back by his own failure to think outside the Victorian box.
While little goes on in Archer's life, we are left to wonder about his true love Madame Olenska. Wharton leaves it to the reader to decide what they think about Olenska. She is not unattainable as Daisy Buchanan is in The Great Gatsby; she shares feelings for him and is eager to separate from her husband. Still, her relationship with Archer never comes to fruition, even after Archer's wife passes away. Her world is too rich and Archer, in his narrowness, can never wrap his head around it.
There are also a host of interesting characters that surround them, from the first Mrs. Manson Mingott to the conniving Beaufort, and , however limited their roles, they lend a great deal of insight to the "age of innocence," which serves as the setting. It is an age of hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness, which is quickly superseded by the generation of Archer's son Dallas, who dispels all the mystique behind Archer's lack of action. Dallas represents the dream which Archer could not attain. By the end of the novel, it is too late for him and his only hope is for his son to live this dream for him.
The novel is full of rich detail and is well worth reading, even though the plot is at times rather slow. Without doubt, it belongs in any list of the greatest novels of the 20th century!
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Reviews with images
A love story which won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, the first such prize for a female
I'd always wanted to read this classic work of fiction, which somehow I missed earlier in life. This book was worth the wait! I'd read Ethan Frome in college, but this was even better. It's a subtle love story whose characters live in the rarified world of the "old rich" in late 19th c. New York City. Wharton, who pays exquisite attention to seemingly every detail and nuance, wrote authoritatively, as her family was part of this wealthy world; therefore, the book serves sociologically to document the time period. That documentation does slightly slow the pace of the book at times; it's almost necessary to put your mind and imagination to work to pretend you're in that time period.The love story is a classic, but I don't want to give away the ending because it would spoil the book. Trust me, this book was worth the wait and worth the occasional effort required to read it. My only regret is that the book ended!This edition of "The Age of Innocence is the definitive 1920 edition which was personally reviewed by Wharton. Her editing skills are also sharp. For example, I couldn't find a single typo in the entire book.
Top reviews from other countries
Marmalade
Thought-provoking!! Relevant even today!
Reviewed in Canada on January 3, 2020