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Summary: amazing!!
Review: I read this book for an outside reading book in my Literature of the United States class. I chose this book because I happened to have it and it was on the list of possible books. I am so glad I chose it! Here is an excerpt from my journal on the book:"My favorite passage of the book is when Newland is sending flowers to May. He always sends her the same white lilies, which obviously represents how she is naive yet beatiful. I think of lilies as very beautiful, elegant, yet not romantic. I see them as a flower that you would give to someone you loved but not to someone you were in love with. As Newland is sending flowers to May, these powerful and beautiful yellow roses catch his eye. He first thought of sending them to May but realized they were, 'too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty'(79). So he rashly sent them to Ellen, without signing the card. Roses are the type of flower you send to someone you are in love with, for they are a symbol of romantic love. The reason that Newland sends the roses to Ellen without signing the card is because at this point he is not ready to proclaim his love for Ellen. I also think that this further symbolizes that Newland is never really able to proclaim his love to the world. He wants to step out of the constraints of society, but he is not able to do so. He could never be with Ellen for although he may deny it; it does make a difference what people think of him. I love this passage so much because Wharton so craftily shows us the way Newland truly feels towards Ellen and May without actually telling us. This is just an amazing example of the beauty of her writing."
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Summary: Wharton's Look at 'The Past'
Review: Of course, anything by Edith Wharton IS in 'the past' by now. But pretend, for a moment, that you are living at the turn of the century. Pretend, too, that the social customs and niceties of books such as The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country are still practiced, alive, and somewhat fresh. Divorce is still highly frowned upon but does not constitute complete social ruin. There are still codes that you must follow, but you follow them by habit rather than by any belief in the inherent 'rightness' of them.
Try reading The Age of Innocence in this frame of mind, and the story becomes markedly different. It would be all to easy to confuse the social world of the 1870's with that of the 1900's, because we're looking at it from more than a century later. What is twenty years, after all? Of course, we know very well what twenty years is and what changes are produced in that amount of time. Twenty years is the gap that turns Neil Young into Marilyn Manson.
This makes The Age of Innocence the story of how the world of Wharton's other books was created. If you think the social rules in Wharton's most famous stories are strict, then reading The Age of Innocence will illustrate just how much one society was a product of the other. While reading The Age of Innocence, I guarantee you will feel somewhat stifled by the inevitable predictability of the characters' actions. They are restricted by their society, and their lives are dictated by it. At the same time, however, Wharton gives life to the people in her books, along with enough free will to sway and bend their way into an entertaining and compelling story. In summary, The Age of Innocence gives us a look at an earlier New York, one whose social mores relaxed into social folkways thirty years later.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book with a bad ending
Review: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton was a well-written book. The descriptions of New York society made the story jump off the pages. I also learned a bit of history through these in-depth details. Although Wharton does get a bit carried away at times, the detail brings the story alive.
My favorite character was May Welland Archer. She showed a lot of character throughout the novel. Knowing what was going on between her husband, Newland Archer and her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, I felt a sense of pity for May. Although Newland remained faithful to May, his heart was not truly with him.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes history, drama or romance, but I warn the reader that the ending is disappointing. After finishing the book, I asked myself what the purpose was of the novel. Due to an inconclusive ending, I felt sad and depressed after reading the last page. Although The Age of Innocence is a good book, the conclusion is disappointing.
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Summary: A sumptuous New York of a bygone age
Review: This is a story set in the stifling atmosphere of upper-class turn of the century New York, where everyone does what they think others expect of them, and are more worried about appearances and 'tradition' (though really, the city is till so young the traditions are relatively new) than what is right or good. Newland Archer is engaged to marry May Welland, a young woman from the same social strata as himself. He then meets May's cousin Ellen Olenska, and falls in love, which is a major problem - not only is Newland expected to marry May, but Ellen is a married woman, who did the wrong thing and left her rich European husband. The story explores the attempts by Newland to break out from the expectation of society to be with the woman he loves, and how society and his own beliefs keep him reined in. This story is a joy to read, not only for its narrative, but also because of Wharton's lush descriptions of the locations and rituals of New York life - she can make you feel that you know a house inside and out just by the way she writes about it. This book reminded me a lot of Anna Karenina - the same stifling societal rules that kept people from doing what they wanted in life, the same sumptuous settings. Only Age of Innocence is a lot shorter, and I have to say a lot more readable!
Rating:
Summary: Age of Innocence
Review: I did not expect to find this book as good as it turned out to be. But, Pulitzers aren't given out to just anything, and Wharton's book deserved it. This is a story where nothing happens and everything happens; where the emotional underpinnings ultimately surface and swirl the reader away in tears. It is a "must read" for anyone who lives in or knows New York City, or for anyone who finds human relationships a good way to better understand himself.
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Summary: Now I understand the reason for Edith Wharton's title
Review: I live in New York City and just happened to be reading this Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Edith Wharton on the subway on my way to work on September 11. Walking through Grand Central Station to my office I was thinking about the central character, Newland Archer, and his thoughts that he could see his whole life laid out in front of him with all its boring details. Fifteen minutes later the World Trade Center was attacked, and even though I was several miles north of the disaster, I knew that life would never be the same again. And I suddenly understood the reason for Edith Wharton's title. Written in 1920, Wharton (1862-1937), a divorced upper class American woman who had lived through the carnage of the War in Europe, had just returned to the United States. With artistic subtlety and mastery of understatement, she casts a critical eye on the New York social scene of the 1870s, creating complex and memorable characters whose lives are ruled by the cultural restraints of their time. It is a rigid and restrictive world, its social mores so constricting that every detail of their circumscribed lives must be adhered to rigidly or they will experience the fate of the outcast. Here we meet Newland Archer, a young man torn between his seemingly perfect wife and the exciting appeal of her cousin, a divorced Countess whose very presence challenges the very narrow world surrounding her. This is a world where talking about anything unpleasant is forbidden, and yet the skill of the author makes the reader understand all those unspoken thoughts that live behind the words that are never said. All the characters live a life of luxury, fill their lives with trivia and are trapped in a gilded cage. To some, it is more difficult than others and Newland Archer is one of these, struggling to conform and yet glimpsing other possibilities. There is a constant battleground between this strengths and weaknesses and, at the end, we are saddened but yet understand the inevitable conclusion. Ms Wharton has done an outstanding job of taking her readers on a voyage into the hearts and minds of these characters of a bygone era. Highly recommended.
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Summary: I loved this book
Review: The Age of Innocence is one of my favorite movies. So I felt inclined to read the book. It is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. I was also amazed at how closly the movie kept with the book.
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Summary: reality is cruel, and desire is self-thwarting...
Review: i love this book. absolutely. positively. it really illustrates the bewitching power of mystery and subliminity, and how the what-ifs and if-onlies of life can cloud your judgement and draw you into self-woven webs of contradictory desires. newland archer's predicament is a perfect example of how idealism and gentle rebellious tendencies converge to form a potent and dangerous hallucinogen - the kind that makes the grass always seem greener on the other side of the fence.
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Summary: Too short!
Review: The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton's novel of New York high society in which she examines the social codes of 1870s Manhattan and their effects on the lives of her three main characters, Newland Archer, his fiancée May Welland and her cousin, the Countess Olenska. Archer is a young man of impeccable breeding, who lives the life of the amusedly detached gentleman, assured of his place at the very highest level in society. He is engaged to the equally well-bred May Welland, a society beauty who is described throughout the novel as 'virginal' and frequently likened to a goddess. At the start of the novel Archer is looking forward to marriage and the freedom that it will bring, convinced that his will be different from the respectable boredom that seems to drive the marriages of his peers. He is aware that May is young and inexperienced, but is relishing the prospect of 'educating' her. His complacent views on life begin to crumble however when he meets Ellen Olenska, May's older cousin and the estranged wife of a European count ('European' is equated throughout the novel with a vague sense of unprincipled debauchery). Ellen's reputation precedes her and because she left her husband, rumour has it, for the affections of another man, her position on returning to New York is that of an outcast. She is seen as exotic, unpredictable and oblivious to the strict code of conduct that New York society operates under. However, because she is the product of another respectable family, circumstances contrive to see that she is welcomed, albeit grudgingly, back into the fold. Archer sees himself as an open-minded and forward-thinking individual but he is not prepared for the effect Countess Olenska has on him. Because she is not governed by the constricting laws that the rest of his social circle abides by, he rapidly forms an intimate, if inappropriate, bond with her and this leads to the disintegration of his former prospects of happiness as he sees how shallow and inhibiting they really are, and how he can only be free by breaking out of the life he now sees is imprisoning him. The Age of Innocence is the first Edith Wharton novel I have read, and to be honest I'm not wholly convinced by all the accolades thrown at this celebrated American writer. I did enjoy and appreciate the novel, but am convinced that if Wharton had allowed it to develop at a slower pace, it would have been a more satisfying read. At times her elegance and insight are remarkable, but I often found the dialogue, particularly between Archer and Ellen, unconvincing, and some of the decisions that Archer takes, although not necessarily out of character, seemed at odds with what has gone before. More insight into the agonising soul searching that he must have endured would have lent greater truth to the situation. It seems that Edith Wharton is a novelist in the tradition of Jane Austen and George Eliot (although for me The Age of Innocence had more parallels with The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles than any book by these two brilliant authors), but with this novel she falls just short of the standards set by Austen and Eliot in that there is a slight unnaturalness to the progression of the story and the themes she explores are not explored as meticulously as they might have been. That said, The Age of Innocence still remains an interesting and moving novel and probably not the last I will read by Edith Wharton.
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Summary: American Middlemarch?
Review: This is a stunning masterpiece of American literature. Wharton reaches the heights achieved by England's George Eliot in Middlemarch. Age of Innnocence is considered one of the top 100 novels in the English language and I heartily agree. The novel is set in the Golden Age of New York high society in the 1870's. Like Middlemarch, manners and rigid conformity assure success. Love is an anomaly. Newland Archer, rich and well-connected, is poised to marry May Welland. She is beautiful, suitable and pure. In fact she is compared to a Diana, goddess of the hunt. This is the virgin archetype, untouchable, pure and only desirable from a distance. Archer meets her scandalous cousin, the Countess Olenska. Olenska has committed the unforgivable and left her husband for another man. She is taboo. She is also older, wiser and sexual (more taboos.) Archer is irrestibly drawn to her and thus forms the conflict for the rest of the novel. No one of her era writes of toxic marriages better than Wharton; she had her own tragic marriage to a man who used her fortune to set up a house for his mistress. And don't forget Wharton's equally famous novel Ethan Frome, about another toxic marriage that ends in grief. Good news,by the way; Wharton's home in Lennox, MA, the Mount, is being restored. It's home to a resident theater that does some brilliant Shakespeare. If you have a chance to go, do so. It's a wonderful experience.
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