Ethan Frome

Rating:
Summary: The most boring book that I have ever read in my entire life
Review: Trust me on this one folks, this book is so boring it puts you to sleep. I had to read it for summer reading, and I HATED it! I would give this no stars if I had the chance. All it is about is a guy who's going through a midlife crisis and to releive himself, has an affair with his wife's cousin. never read this book if you don't have to. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT!

Rating:
Summary: A great novel, full of imagery
Review: I had to read this book for my English class, and I can honestly say that it was the only novel that I read with interest the entire year. Ethan Frome draws the reader into the tragic life of Ethan Frome, a man bound by the demands of his unproductive farm and his sickly wife, Zeena. His true love is for Mattie, Zeena's cousin. However, Ethan is a prisoner of his own poverty and his wife. He cannot run away with Mattie, because he does not have the money. Furthermore, Ethan, while he does not like Zeena's tyrannical behavior, feels he owes her in some way because she had taken care of his parents before they died. He also feels compassion for her being sick. This and many more uses of discrepancy are used by Wharton in this novel. The ending is very ironic: Mattie and Ethan's decision to leave Zeena ends up in them being bound to Zeena for the rest of their lives. You'll have to read to book to find out what they do. Although slow moving in some parts, this novel does use many symbols and images, and I would recommend it only to readers who can analyze novels and comprehend them in the manner in which the author intended.

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Summary: Love Is an Obstacle
Review: A classic tale of love and woe from early in our century. A typical cold, dreary winter in the Northeast is the setting for this tale of twisted emotions and allegiances. Wharton does an excellent job of setting the mood with her apt descriptions of the winter and the characters' moods. The unexpected love discovered by Ethan for Mattie causes his wife to become an obstacle to their happiness. An obstacle he tries to break through as it is symbolized in the tragic turn of events at the end of the novel. This haunting tale of lost love will hang with readers after finishing the novel.

Rating:
Summary: ethan frome-jeni
Review: Ethan Frome was written by Edith Wharton. I thought the bool was slow going at first and i did not think i was going to enjoy the book to much. The author had teh book moving slow, because the first part of the book was coming from the narrators point of view and mind. The narrator took his time telling us who this man Ethan Frome was and why he was important in the story. ethan was a quiet and odd man to me. He had a smashed up face and was not very sociable if you were to pass him on the street. Ethan had a hard life as a farmer and where they lived farming was not a big part of life, so why he was a farmer wa unclear to me. I did not enjoy te book as much as i had inticipated. I heard the book was good so i was expecting something different out of the book. Zeena was quite crabby so when she was in the parts of the book i did not enjoy it to much either. this is because she seemed to make the other characters around her crabby as well. I did not mind the book once it got going ad had developed more of a setting and inttoduced more characters. Ethan fell in love with Mattie and I was disappointed that they did not end up together. I thought it would have been a good ending. The way the book ended made me mad because it went from them drivig to the flats to them all living miserable together. It was wierd that Mattie went along witj attempting suicide because it was nto of her nature usually. overall the book was not the worst but I expected more of the book. I was suprised too that Zeena was not ill and that she ended up taking care of Ethan and Mattie as well. I guess if nothing else came out of this ending, at least Zeena realized how hard it was to look after someone and that they all survived. Even though they all were miserable, I enjoyed the book when it was faster paced. Ethan Frome was not my favorite book but the ending had a twist that was unexpected. i would have liked it to end with them all finally being happy with their lives.

Rating:
Summary: ethan frome
Review: Ethan Frome is a very good tragic novel about the challenges love can create when an obstacle is placed in its path. Edith Wharton does a great job of characterization and with the telling of the story. The story takes place in New York in a small town of the western part of the state. This sets up most of the actions and conflicts throughout the novel and fits the plot very well. The novel, Ethan Frome, is a very good story about the struggle of a man who is torn between his wife who is sick and needs attention and care and a young woman who comes to help and he falls in love with. Zeena, his wife, knows about his secret but is helpless to do anything and focuses all her energies on trying to recover from her illness. Mattie comes to the house innocent and falls for Ethan just as he does her. Through out the book there are many times where they find themselves in a situation where they do not know what will happen next. In Ethan Frome, the characters used are very believable and fit their parts well. The characters, Mattie, Zeena and Ethan fit together and contrast each other enough to create the right amount of conflict. All of the town's people fit the story just as good as the main characters. Mattie seeming innocent and Zeena being all-knowing gives an interesting combination that leaves Ethan to fill in the open areas. New York is the perfect placement for the novel. The weather and climate creates conflicts for Zeena and her medical condition and sets up the ending of the story for Mattie and Ethan. The cold weather and snow create an environment that makes for slow and tedious travel that allows Ethan and Mattie spend a good deal of time together. The conflicts created are very good and follow through the whole story. The story is very well described and never left a question about why something happened or how it did. Edith Wharton describes the story very well and gives us characters that we can relate to and understand. The setting she used is also described to help us relate to what it was like. In all it is a very good book that most people will probably not want to put down.

Rating:
Summary: its a good book
Review: I thought that Ethan From was a very good book. I was very interesting and suspenseful. Even though it was a shorter story I thought that the character were developed well and I thought the plot was very good. It was a good tragedy. I like the characters in Ethan Frome. Edith Wharton does a good job of developing the characters. The characters were very compelling and real to me. You feel sorry for Ethan because he can not get away from his farm and his life. Wharton make the characters like Ethan and Mattie very sympathetic characters. She does a good job of making you feel connected to then and sorry that things were so tragic for them. The plot of Ethan From was very good. It was very sad and ironic especially at the end. Wharton wrote in my opinion a good tragedy. I thought it was very beautifully written. It was full of symbolism though some of it was hard to catch. I found that the story was very interesting you kept reading to see what would happen next in the story. It was a sad tale. The book deeply affected me. I found it so sad and ironic I especially was affected by the scene where Ethan and Mattie go down the hill in the sled. You know they will not succeed but you still hope it will happen for them and that thing will work out. I believe that Ethan Frome is a good book. I would recommend it to any one who like and emotional tragedy. The characters and plot are bother very good. Wharton proves why she is known for being such a good author. At the end of the book I felt truly sad for Ethan and every thing that had happened to him.

Rating:
Summary: Tragedy - movingly and beautifully written
Review: I was so disappointed to see the negative reviews of this novel by other readers, but I found Ethan Frome to be beautifully written and moving. Edith Wharton writes a haunting tale of one man's inability to gain a more fulfilling life because his integrity will not allow him to escape from the duty and burden of caring for others who depend upon him. While this novel lacks the verbal gymnastics and the twists of plot that might attract a younger and more modern audience, the simplicity of the story is one of the novel's strengths as it powerfully evokes Ethan's powerlessness to change his fate, reflected in the stark and overpowering winter landscape. The story does not rely on plot and action to move the story forward but relies on the development of mounting inner tensions both within and between the few characters that populate the book. The difficulty in this novel is that the climax - which depicts the full scope and depth of Ethan's tragedy - occurs decades later, in the outer shell of the story as told by the narrator rather than in the tale of Ethan's young love for Mattie, which may be why some readers were disappointed with the book. A sensitive reader should not fail to be hit by the longing, the powerlessness, the stillness, and the tragedy depicted in this short and simple but elegant book.

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Summary: why on the curriculum?
Review: I have to admit, I found this book a slow go when I had to read it as a Freshman in prep-school. But the fact that it was set in New England and that it dealt with a depressing winter landscape and a remorseless cast of characters, such as I was then encountering made it unbelievably relevant at the time. I can relate, however, to the preponderance of young readers at this site who have expressed their displeasure at having to read it. I would not wish this vision on a young audience unless I were trying to impress them with the bleakness of a snow-bound, New England existence circa 1900. This is a pretty unrelenting picture of the region, outdoing Frost or Hawthorne or even H.P. Lovecraft for that matter. The sledding scene is probably one of the most famous set-ups in modern literature. Wharton is definitely at her most masterly here. She was an exceptional writer. The question remains, what is the authorial voice saying in terms of adressing the existential questions raised here? Even the bitterest denunciations of cosmic forces have some kind of address of reply from 20th century authors. What is Wharton's here? There is very little mirth in this house.

Rating:
Summary: Possibly Hawthorne's Runnerup.
Review: Hawthorne will always be my favorite American Writer. I only had a brief exposure to Wharton in Women's Writing. But if her "Ethan Frome" is a typical indication of her abilities, she could very well be Hawthorne's closest runnerup. Her images are beautiful. The love triangle has been a subject of literature since literature began, and yet Wharton seems to present it in such a memorable fashion. The icing on the cake is the ironic, but realistic ending. If you like this book, you MUST see the movie where Liam Neeson does Ethan.

Rating:
Summary: Just lovely
Review: If you've read other Wharton works, you suspect her denouement in a case of forbidden love, but nonethless, "Ethan Frome" is compelling to read. Wharton's characters are deep and sympathetic, unless your're not supposed to like her, and, then, you don't. She takes you to New England in the winter of a simpler time and tells a small story transcendently. So good.