Rating: 
Summary: "An atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies."
Review: Newland Archer, the protagonist of this ironically entitled novel set in the late nineteenth century, is a proper New York gentleman, and part of a society which adheres to strict social codes, subordinating all aspects of life to doing what is expected, which is synonymous with doing what it right. As the author remarks early in the novel, "Few things were more awful than an offense against Taste." Newland meets and marries May Welland, an unimaginative, shallow young woman whose upbringing has made her the perfect, inoffensive wife, one who knows how to behave and how to adhere to the "rules" of the society in which they live.
When Newland is reintroduced to May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has left her husband in Europe and now wants a divorce, he finds himself utterly captivated by her independence and her willingness to risk all, socially, by flouting convention. Both Ellen and Newland are products of their upbringing and their culture, however, and they resist their feelings because of their separate social obligations. Various meetings between them suggest that their feelings are far stronger than what is obvious on the surface, and the question of whether they will finally state the obvious or act on their feelings constitutes the plot.
Wharton creates an exceptionally realistic picture of New York in the post-Civil War era, a time in which aristocrats of inherited wealth found themselves competing socially with parvenus. Her ability to show the conflict between a person's need for social acceptance and the desire for personal freedom is striking. As the various characters make their peace with their decisions--either to challenge or yield to social dictates--the novel achieves an unusual dramatic tension, subtle because of its lack of direct confrontation and powerful in its effects on individual destinies. This is, in fact, less an "age of innocence" than it is an age of social manipulation.
Wharton herself manipulates the reader--some of her best dialogues and scenes are those the characters never actually have--conversations that they imagine, confrontations which they never allow themselves to have, and resolutions which happen through inaction rather than through decision-making. Filled with acute social observations, the novel shows individuals convincing themselves that obeying social dictates is the right thing to do. Though the novel sometimes seems claustrophobic due to its limitations on action, Age of Innocence brilliantly captures the age and attitudes of the era. Mary Whipple
Rating: 
Summary: wonderful novel
Review: This story is full of old new york imagery and captures the readers imagination immediately.I highly recommend the norton critical edition because the essays in the back were very helpful for further reading on Edith Wharton herself, the society in which she lived as well as other miscellaneous articles.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: She writes the way Samuel Richardson would have if he was fast-fowarded a century or so. Lovely book, and full of the people you always wanted to meet.
Rating:
Summary: surprisingly fluid and entertaining:
Review: Generally I don't care for books written by anyone with an agenda. Now of course most self-serving and overwhelmingly too serious tomes aren't particularly worthwhile, those of partisans attacking their equal and opposite extreme. This book was surely written in a heightened and urgent time of deep disgust for the author. She had recently been divorced, ending a loveless marriage to someone history tells us (now, in hindsight and considering the superior accomplishments of his former wife) was something of a jerk. Edith sat down in those moments of disillusion mired in a confusing, overwhelming state of newfound personal freedom and ranted out this smart, funny and throughly entertaining book about how stupid and petty she believed some of her contemporaries and ancestors to be.
It doesn't matter whether we agree with Wharton's viewpoint or not--that isn't necessary to enjoy this book. One of the criticisms of male authors of this era (and prior as well as today) is that they are unable to represent realistic female characters. In most cases this is true, but it is also true with their male characters--self-serving drones who stand in for self-important authors. It was the rare author who was frequently overpraised for somehow 'understanding' women (I am thinking specifically here of Henry James) as if the author-as-God would be otherwise unable to know the thoughts of their creations. The truth is that someone like James and, more to the point here, someone like Edith Wharton, were wonderful character profilers. Wharton's male characters are very true-to-life considering the limitations of the world they exist in. Her female characters seem more to be like cardboard with the obvious exceptions of the primaries. Wharton's agenda, here, regardless of what various generations of literary types of forced onto the meaning of this novel, appears to be quite simply an attack on the world she grew up in. Now this is of course the usual path for self-conscious and self-important writers struggling over their first or second novels and using the often fragmented premises of their own lives as some sort of baited self-therapy exercise, but with Wharton there is something different in her execution. Perhaps it is because she managed to lose herself in the varying paths of her characters and understood the realities of telling a story that she was able to get away from many of the excesses of this usually annoying genre of self-exposure. Maybe she was just a better writer than all of these whining and silly ladies who worship/imitated her repeatedly and timelessly only in their own vision they supplied a shrill sort of political statement believing that their godmother would somehow approve.
I know that I somehow got off track of reviewing this mostly excellent book--four and a half stars more likely for its constant and beautiful evocation of a world gone by, rounded down, simply, because so many other people attempt to prove the validity of their own inhibitions based on a personal connection to something vague they misread in a book that had nothing to do with them.
Recommended with a huff of enthusiasm and an irritable reply to anyone who imagines they truly understand the rage Ms. Wharton was speaking of--
Rating:
Summary: Hypocrisy of the Age of Innocence
Review: The Age of Innocence is a thought provoking literary piece which I enjoyed immensely. It is written in a simple, accessible style, yet deeply portrays human emotions and interactions in late 19th century New York City. This novel represents an account of high society life of the 1870s. The events of this novel are wrapped around a prevailing lifestyle of jealousy, shame, and excessive pride which colors the main characters. Not unlike many other segments of the society, then and now, the characters of this novel attempt to disguise these feelings through hypocrisy and deception.
In a time where keeping appearances is everything, the protagonist, Newland Archer, is at conflict with himself. He is engaged to May Welland, who represents stability and the traditional high society life. He begins to fall in love, however, with May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska. After seeing Ellen and her freedom and spontaneity, he begins to question his life and why he feels the need to conform. He realizes how dull his life is and how materialistic and fake the high society aristocrats are. He loves May, but cannot stand the idea of living such a predictable life with no deeper meaning. In the end, he must choose between living the life he is expected to live with May, or being happy with Ellen, yet ruining the family name.
Rating:
Summary: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Review: This book was well written. A little confusing at times because of the manner of the characters speech, but seemingly true to the time period. Edith Wharton is a great author, but through out the book there is a sense of hope that is dashed in the end. For that reason I give it 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful portrait of old New York high society
Review: This book paints a fantastic portrait of the tightly controlling high society of the late 1800's New York and it's repression of individuality. Wharton tells the story of Newland Archer, a young man raised in this society, but who possesses a unique ability to question the rules. During his engagement to May Welland, he meets a woman of questionable background who knocks down the beliefs embedded in him through his upbringing. The story of their relationship and its effect on his marriage show the tensions in this society and how its members worked to preserve their culture. Early in the book, the abundant details of dress and decoration of the times become tedious, but Wharton's portrait of individuals, their thoughts, and how the society affected their life choices is masterful. An enjoyable and educational read.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Breathtaking
Review: On a 5 star scale, this is a 7. The Age of Innocence is about New York society in the late 1800's. Wharton's fast paced dialogue is unequivocally the best I have ever read. The reader is not only pulled in immediately but comes quickly to understand the nonverbal communication inherent in the interchanges. This is the heart of the story - the things that are not said, the things that are not done in New York society at that time and how the rigid rules of that society were enforced without ever explicitly saying any of it. In Mrs. Wharton's words: "It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave them. " This is as much a story about the mores of New York society as it is a bitter love story of two people caught up in it.
Newland Archer represents New York society as a young man of high society blissfully engaged to equally prominent May Welland. The reader comes to know him and the story is told through his eyes. It is through him that we come to understand "the rules". When Countess Ellen Olenska returns from a ruined marriage abroad, everything in Newland's structured view of society is challenged. It is as if a veil is lifted from his eyes and he can suddenly see the big picture from multiple points of view. However, one of the facets of "the rules" is to be blind to these angles and once empowered to see, he belongs neither to New York or to the world at large. He has only the choice of destroying all that he knows in pursuit of the mysterious woman who has brought about this change or living a life whose values for him have lost their luster. She, on the other hand, has come to see the value to the ideas that have had Newland so rigidly encased. Together they are a ringing disavowal and endorsement at the same time.
This is not an indictment of that society. Ms. Wharton had condemned it early in her life but eventually found a value in the way that things were done and reflects that sentiment in Madame Olenska who, having had her eyes opened could never fully return.
"... if it's not worthwhile to have given up, to have missed things, so that others may be saved from disillusionment and misery - then everything I came home for, everything that made my other life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took account of them - all these things are a sham or a dream. "
This is not your typical love story and there have been no spoilers given here. In the end, you will feel that the characters have done what is right; however, in this book, it is the definition of right that is being questioned.
Rating:
Summary: Totem and taboo in old New York.
Review: The reading public must have been taken by shock when, in 1920, Wharton published this novel. Written off by most of the critics and audience of her time as having her best literary years far behind her, she produced what is arguably her most important work. Her story of New York City in the 1870s, where family name and propriety counted as much as accumulated wealth, resonated with readers who were just beginning to catch hints of the looming social revolution that would come later in the decade - and once again shatter time tested institutions. Wharton's looking back to the time of her youth (she was 57 when the book was published) is neither too sentimental nor too critical, but simply a fond remembrance of the time and place in which she lived and, like Madame Olenska, eventually escaped.However, it is not with Madame Olenska but with Newland Archer that Wharton is closest associated. Belonging to similar social castes, both the author and Newland are able to see the foibles in their social milieu but in no way are ready to discard it totally. Whereas, in the end, both are ready to follow their individual paths from Old New York they are fully aware of what is expected of them as members of this society, and act accordingly. This is the central theme of the novel: individual desire vs. collective propriety. In the hands of a lesser author, this conflict could have resulted in a quite heavy and didactic work - and as interesting as an evening at a needlepoint demonstration. By clothing her novel in the time tested mantle of a love story, she is given rein to employ her talents to the fullest. In short, she re-creates the New York City of the 1870s and peoples it with characters that seem to be historical, not just based on historical models. The characters of Madame Olenska, Newland, May Welland and, especially, Mrs. Manson Mingott are wonderfully drawn and never become stereotyped nor trivialized; in fact, they are so lifelike that the reader (as if knowing them for years) is able to anticipate their thought patterns and actions. And of course, there is the city itself - before the Holland Tunnel, Grand Central Station, subways and telephone, where 39th Street was considered the hinterland. Wharton treats the city with affection as well as with the critical eye of the archaeologist attempting to reconstruct some long past civilization. Especially fine is the final chapter in which Wharton (in less than twenty pages) summarizes the life of Newland from the time of his parting with Madame Olenska to his life in early twentieth century New York. The economy of her prose in this final chapter combined with her justaposition of sentimental reflection and historical fact are first rate. Particularly moving is the final scene in which the reader leaves Newland sitting on a bench outside of Madame Olenska's apartment in Paris unable (and unwilling) to abrogate both his loyalty to his now deceased wife, May, nor the unrequited love that he still has for Madame Olenska.
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