edith wharton’s “the age of innocence” was a joy to read – the language is sumptuous, her focus relentless. she fleshes out her characters so that they stand out in sharp relief yet she never weighs down her writing with irrelevant fluff.
i love the clarity with which she explores newland archer’s innermost thoughts. we recognize the split b/w how he views the world or the people around him and how he mostly behaves in accordance with good social programming. that disconnect is made all the more dramatic by how the story is located in upper-crust new york society, at the end of the 19th century. everything had to be done just so, based on a litany of what often seemed like preposterous rules related to good form and good taste. in this complex milieu we are regaled with a private tour of archer’s mind.
wharton’s keen assessment and description of late 19th century new york society:
“in reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs…”
wharton is not shy about exposing the need for old new york to be more british than the british. it’s reminiscent of the kalaa sahib phenomenon in the indian subcontinent. such is the destiny of all colonies perhaps. it’s also fascinating to see how new york has changed, from a time when family scandals could be tolerated (albeit with much aggravation) but NOT “business irregularities,” to wall street having become the essence of financial chicanery.
wharton’s sensitive articulation of what goes on in the human mind:
“but when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. untrained nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defenses of an instinctive guile. and he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.”
“since there had been no farther communication b/w them, and he had built w/i himself a kind of sanctuary in which she throned among his secret thoughts and longings. little by little it became the scene of his real life, of his only rational activities… outside it, in the scene of his actual life, he moved with a growing sense of unreality and insufficiency, blundering against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view as an absent-minded man goes on bumping into the furniture of his own room.”
“their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of a duty; lapsing from that it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.”
finally, wharton’s mastery of language:
“archer hung a moment on a thin thread of memory, but it snapped and floated off with the disappearing face, apparently that of some foreign business man looking doubly foreign in such a setting.”
“archer reddened to the temples, but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock about it if it were left undisturbed.”
the film:
the first time i saw martin scorsese’s “the age of innocence,” many years ago, i came away with the feeling that it lacked heart. i saw it again a couple of days ago, after reading the book, and it all made sense. scorsese’s film is a visually lush, impeccably choreographed tableau, complete with narration (by joanne woodward). like the book, the film highlights the precedence of form over substance, of artificial perfection over uneven reality, of meaningful looks over “unpleasant” words and actions. it’s apt.