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Summary: Ethan Frome is a good story and easy to read
Review: Ethan Frome is the sad story of a hopeless marriage worsened by the blossoming of star-crossed love. Ethan and his invalid wife Zeena resent their loveless marriage and life together. When Zeena's sickness requires additional attention, Zeena's cousin Mattie is invited to Starkfield. Mattie's lovely and warm personality contrasts Zeena's cold character, revealing to Ethan how much is missing from his life. He and Mattie immediately fall in love, but with Zeena's constant presence their love is doomed from the start. All of the characters are well-defined, especially Ethan. Although her writing style is hardly complex, Wharton, a woman, demonstrates an amazing skill in creating a believable sensitive and stern main character. Her vivid descriptions of nature throughout the book create an environment that is chillingly beautiful and captivate the reader. Wharton creates a sense of isolation and regret, often countered content and happiness. Ethan Frome is a classic. Wharton writes a novel that is both easy to follow and sophisticated. The ending is extremely suspenseful with a surprising result. This novel is recommended for anyone who wants to read a short, simple love story.
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Summary: Ethan From, an excellent novel!
Review: This story portrays the life of an unfortunate man whose unhappiness, depression and weakness causes him to become a helpless prisoner and a lost soul that will continue living in the lonely village of Starkfield, Massachusetts forever.
Edith Wharton's, Ethan Frome begins by introducing the narrator as a character. The story then proceeds to go back in time, which takes over the bulk of the book. She also includes, within her story traces of foreshadowing and irony, which keeps the reader focused and interested. Wharton distinctly describes the environment with imagery and diction in order to sufficiently create the mood and tone of the story for the reader. Wharton's writing style attracts the reader and successfully develops an unexpected ironic twist, which makes this story one of a kind.
The tragic story of Ethan Frome takes place in the dull and isolated village of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Ethan From, the central character in the story, and his unhealthy wife, Zeena, live in quiet and sorrow, which puts an end to their marriage. Due to Zeena's illness, her cousin Mattie Silver is called to take over the responsibilities of the house. Mattie's bright and happy presence attracts Ethan immensely, causing a spark to ignite in his nonexistent life. Mattie's youthful appearance and her energetic personality contrasts with the dark and wicked characteristics of the evil sister, Zeena. Mattie and Ethan's unspoken love creates the foundation of Zeena's jealousy and rage. Her need for attention and sympathy allows her to dominate and control the lives of Mattie and Ethan. The combination of fate and Zeena's imposing power contributes to Ethan and Mattie's forbidden and unperceivable love. Ethan's constant pursuit of happiness and attempt to escape from Zeena's restraints and the confinements of the village inevitably cause unwanted results.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. It is one of the few that I have read more than once. It is a short novel, but it is 81 pages of dynamic work. The story moves along quickly at a great pace so a reader can read it in an afternoon.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about a forbidden love between two individuals that would do anything they could in the world to be together. It is a tragic love story, but so is life in its most unusual way. Wharton's best work in this story is definitely the catastrophic twist she gives it at the end. The outcome is overwhelming and tear-jerking. Edith Wharton's description of these pressures and the longing love Ethan has for Mattie makes this a story that immediately holds the attention of the reader. It pulls the reader into an invigorating tale of the one true love finally found that is at the same time torturously, maddeningly beyond all hope of attainment.
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Summary: DONT READ!!!!
Review: This book is the downer of the century. Just when you think something is going to happen BAM!!!! the book is over. I accidently finished the book. Thats pathetic! Most fiction has a rising action that is not present in this book. Its a great book about nothing.
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Summary: It's Snowing, It's Snowing!
Review: Once in a while you have to put down those current novels, and read some classic literature. And Edith Wharton is one of the best. This story takes place in the cold, bleak winter farmlands of Massachusetts. Ethan Frome, a poor farmer, has a hard life tending to his land, trying to make a meager living, and also taking care of his ungrateful, demanding, sickly wife, Zeena. When her cousin, Mattie, comes to help her, Ethan's life changes completely. He falls deeply in love with Mattie. This being the 1800's, he must endure the stifling conventions of that era's society also. There love for each other proves to be a fascinating story. I loved this book. This is a story that will definitely take you away. You'll actually feel you are there. Edith's detail description of the scenery and landscape of that time are truly vivid. I found myself pausing from my reading to look outside to see if it was actually snowing. I highly suggest you find time to read "Edith Wharton's books, you'll be grateful. I certainly was!
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Summary: CM says: YAWN...-A dull book that fails to interest
Review: For a person who desires excitement, this book fails to give any. Set in the remote countryside of western Massachusetts, Ethan Frome explores the effects of isolation from society and social settings in general. Ethan Frome struggles to decide whether to stay with his bland wife or leave with the younger Mattie. In the end, all that Ethan Frome amounts to is a sappy soap opera that ends with a failed suicide attempt. An utterly boring book that I found hard to get through.
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Summary: For the Love of Ethan Frome
Review: In Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton , the world is simple, yet confusing. Throughout the book Ethan struggles with the forbidden love for Mattie, while also trying to love and support his sick wife, Zeena. Wharton's detailed depitction od a struggling male mind is phneonmenal and unusual. Wharton goes down to the essence of Ethan's feelings.
The book starts out with a hint of sexual tension and gradually escalates to Ethan finally grabbing Mattie in his arms and saying he feels deeply for her. Once Mattie declares her love for Ethan a reader will finally feel serene and content and will predict a typical ending. Wharton however does not right a conventional ending, and I think readers may be disapointed.
I feel that the book is well thought out and, for the period it was written, very sandalous. The book really impressed me except for the ending. I feel it ends abruptly and that I did not have time to fully understand and realize the severity of what had happened. Overall, however, the book was fabulous.
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Summary: A Required High School Book That's Actually Good!
Review: I was required to read this book in my sophomore AP English class, and I was reluctant at first but then began to fall in love with this book. The book, although seen as depressing, is uplifting in its truth to life. Life is not perfect, so why should stories be anything different from life? The Greeks created two genres - the tragedy and the comedy - and although tragedies will make us cry and leave us with a saddened heart, they bring us a sense of accomplishment. Afterall, our lives are not as bad as our friends who are living the story of a tragedy. Wharton's book is a quick and easy read that tells so much about actual life and forbidden love and the tragedies that ensue.
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Summary: Depressing and boring
Review: This book sucks. If this was the first book by Wharton that someone has read, they probably won't read any of her others, which is totalluy wrong, because she is a great author. This particular book however, is far to depressing and boring to be on the top of anyone's list. It is so boring that sometimes you can be reading the boo, yet not taking any in, and when you "wake up" you find yourself lost, not knowing where you are in relation to where you left off. It is my beleif that this book probably loses most of its readers after the first few chapters.
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Summary: Extremely depressing
Review: The book is so depressing it makes me retch. Though I must admit it has an interesting theme, as well as a good moral, and Wharton's foreshadowing skills are superb. But this book is still extremely depressing. It is also rather boring at times, and one can find oneself reading the book, yet finding yourself lost, because it became so boring that, even though you were reading it, you weren't taking it in, and when you stared to get back into the book, you found yourself lost, not knowing how far away you were from where you left off. Overall this book loses most of its readers after the first few chapters, and therefore shouldn't be on the top of anyone's list.
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Summary: Different from other Wharton' s novels, but still very good
Review: Considering Edith Wharton's works, this is virtually an alien among her books. Instead of setting the novel in her beloved and well-known New York, with the wealthy people, the action happens against a bleak New England background, and portraits the life of a very poor man. But, this issue aside, 'Ethan Frome' has the same virtues of other Wharton's books, like the Pulitzer Prize Winner 'The Age of Innocence' and 'The House of Mirth', that too many experts is her masterpiece. Ethan Frome is a young man who quits his studies to take care of his father. Later on, when he mother dies, he marries his cousin Zeena, who took care of his mother. He marries her because he doesn't want to be alone --and not for love. Only after their marriage does Frome realize that Zeena is a hypochondriac, and leads an existence claiming to be sick all the time, and visiting doctors, spending most of their money with medicines. Some time later, her cousin Mattie moves to their house, to nurse Zeena and do the house chores. Mattie is the opposite of Frome's wife: she's beautiful, young and full of life. They fall in love. But Ethan's story won't have a happy ending. Telling it is no spoil, because we know from the first chapter that something tragic happened in his life. The novel begins with a nameless narrator telling how he met Ethan Frome and that a tragic event happened to this man's life. By using this device, Wharton only increases the tension in the novel, because we do know that something will happen, and the more we read, the more curious we grow, to find out what had happened. The novel is set in the Wintertime, and Wharton is very gifted to describe the environment and characters. We can feel the cold weather during the whole story. It feels as if we were there with the characters, 'freezing' together. Of course, the coldness is much more than only in the weather --it affects the characters too, their hearts and lives. 'Ethan Frome' was published almost a century ago (1911), but it is a very modern book. In the narrative, Wharton uses devices that became common only throughout the 20th century --like irony and flashback. Ethan marries a woman that keeps him from realizing his potential and being a fulfilled human being --and it is a question that became very popular in the late 20Century. 'Ethan Frome' is a great novel written by a master who has made wonderful books. This is another jewel that should be read for centuries to come.
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