The Age of Innocence (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) Paperback – Unabridged, July 11, 1997

When asked about his movies, Director Martin Scorsese said this was the saddest story he ever filmed. This book is perfect , and very sad. So many of us live our lives as Newland Archer did ... upholding ... values to, sometimes, our detriment. Sometimes we withhold romance from ourselves, other times we withhold intellectual and other joys. "Innocence" does not make a case for this, but depicts it realistically and compassionately. I recommend this book to those who are caught, or who seek, with all my heart. Edith Wharton is wise and compassionate.

A classic story about privileged people in United States. I liked reading this one, and now I have to look for the second book.

This was my first experience reading a book by Edith Wharton. Her writing style is truly masterful. Whether a week passes or decades pass between chapters, Wharton paints the scenes so vividly. For me, the story read as a commentary on the things we communicate without words. As much is communicated in the blank spaces as in the words we say.The Age of Innocence felt like an American cousin to a Jane Austen novel. It’s very easy to read. At first, there were a lot of names to keep straight, but the same crowd of characters remains throughout. There were themes that challenged some of my personal morals and beliefs — I’m not sure I could say Newland Archer is a hero. Overall, it was an enjoyable story with a few gentle twists and turns along the way.

Wharton won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Age of Innocence making it the first novel written by a woman to do so. It is set in upper class New York City in the 1870s. That set was relatively small in number at the time, "The New York of Newland Archer's day was a small and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gained."Newland is the lead character, a man torn between the old and new, the conservative and the progressive. These are represented in the two women in his life. He marries May as society and family expects. All the while he pines for Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic cousin. Newland soon finds that his beautiful wife lacks imagination and adventure. She becomes tedious to Newland to the point that he fears "his tendency to dwell on the things he disliked in her."Yet, he stays faithful and tries to communicate with May as to his needs and wants. She humors his dreams and he pushes back, "But why should they be only descriptions? Why shouldn't we make them real?" In the end, May cannot see a life or way of life outside of the circle she is most comfortable.This makes Ellen even more desirable to Newland. She is unconventional and alluring seemingly born a generation before her time. He continuously warns Ellen of how complex New York society is and she retorts, "Is New York such a labyrinth?" Ellen believes it is quite predictable likening the upper crust to the city's street grid system.Wharton provides great observations of human behavior that resonate today. Early in the novel she says that livery drivers recognized "that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it." She was referring to opera but if you have seen fans leaving a National Hockey League game you know of what she writes.The author possesses a biting sense of humor that is best exhibited in the descriptions of life in New York. The novel is set when it "was peculiar to live above Thirty-Fourth Street" and when attending a party "hot canvas-back ducks and vintage wines" were preferred over "tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and warmed-up croquettes from Philadelphia." Descriptions of people's homes along Madison Avenue are incredible. One possesses a ballroom used just one day a year.Wharton ends the novel beautifully by fast-forwarding through the years. Newland observes how liberal society has become for his grown children. He has lived long enough to see innovations including long-distance telephone calls, electric light and five-day voyages across the Atlantic. He too has been born a generation too early and upon reflection laments, "The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else."

For a long time, I was puzzled that The Age of Innocence had won the Pulitzer for fiction in 1921, because Edith Wharton sucked.When I was an undergrad I had to read a different, more obscure Edith Wharton novel (I won't say which one), and it was horrid. I looooathed it. The plot was feeble and uninteresting, the female protagonist vapid, the male supporting characters even more repulsive. In fiction, I read primarily for human drama and interaction, and if I don't feel that the characters are well-developed and have verisimilitude, I don't feel like reading on. I don't have to like a character or want them as a neighbor, but they have to be interesting. Well, Ms. Wharton's characters in that other, weaker novel were neither likable nor interesting. I was required to finish that novel, but then I was done with Edith Wharton forever.Since then, otherwise literate people have suggested that I read The Age of Innocence. I always declined. Recently, though, a writer friend hounded me enough that I accepted the loaner copy she pushed into my hands and promised I would at least try it. Thirty pages or so, I promised.Less than ten pages in, I was hooked. Remember what I said up there about the character-driven novel? Here it is, in spades. If you aren't familiar with the story (no spoilers, I promise), it takes place in New York in the 1870s and centers on a young upper-class attorney, Newland Archer. Though narrated in third person, the reader is privy to Newland's thoughts, ideas, emotions, conflicts. He is engaged to a reputable young woman, but becomes infatuated with her cousin, who is not so reputable. This unfortunate triad (can you feel the tension?) exists in the social minefield of high society, scandal is avoided at all costs, appearances are everything and therefore hypocrisy is the norm. Newland detests his social matrix, but he also benefits from it and it's where he's generally comfortable, so he plays the game. May (his fiancée) and Ellen (her exotic cousin) each have a complicated relationship with society, as well. Their relationships, their choices (or failures to choose) and the consequences drive the action of the novel, and that was all well and good, but I kept reading because Newland and May and Ellen were so very, very real. They were complex, and the choices presented to them were not black and white (hey, just like real life). Newland's interior conflicts constitute the bulk of this luscious reading; however, without getting right into their heads, Wharton portrays both May and Ellen so sympathetically that we, the readers, pick up the cues that Newland misses in order to understand what they're experiencing, too.This novel is often cited as a masterful portrait of the high society of that time and place, most notably of its shortcomings. Yes, it is that, and yes, it's so well written that you feel yourself needing to step out for air because you're suffocating in that byzantine system of propriety. More than that, though, this novel is about human beings and how they behave when they have to make difficult choices. All the great novels are.

Lo compré porque es un clásico americano pero no logré engancharme, lo terminé lo más rápido que pude puesto que en ningún momento me atrapó. Hay algo de escandaloso en la trama para la época pero me resultó algo tedioso y lento.

Un romanzo bello e amaro che descrive lucidamente l'alta società di New York a fine '800, il conformismo e l'ipocrisia che vi imperano e condizionano gli individui.

Fina descrição social e psicológica de uma eraUm prazer .Recomendo a quem goste de literatura de qualidade e não só de bestseller

Necesario para resolver pequeñas dudas sobre el idioma.Aunque el nivel de inglés sea elevado, hay ciertos aspectos, gramática, vocabulario, usos que necesitan revisión.

First of all, I am not English native speaker. I don't know therefore or not, but, to be honest, this book require quite a effort. Edith Wharton , author's particular structure of sentences, figurative and unique expressions. Although it was hard for me to complete this reading, I could enjoy enough this worthwhile art.This book contains 27p of introduction and 31p of explanatory notes. They are very helpful.Considering the author's background as a garden and interior designer , there are a lot ofterminology- like vocabularies in the story ( architecture, plants,cloths etc...) . From this view ,I strongly recommend the combination of the book and the film .In terms of the plot, this is a story of love and life, not only of one protagonist and heroin, but also their families.There are many love stories which set in upper middle class society in 19th century in English literature.Although I am afraid to state that the plot itself is not especially outstanding among them,if the readers focus on Edith Wharton's very original literary - camera work, it may enough satisfy us.In large hall, its ornaments ,people's dress , what is the out side of the window like? ( in details) , thenit is absorbed into one person's inside. I mean, emotion.When I was able to feel these scenes, I could find it very gripping!