| Title | : | Ethan Frome |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 99 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1911 |
Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.
In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read book.
Ethan Frome Reviews
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“He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of it's frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.”
Our narrator, we never learn his name, hired Ethan Frome to drive him around in a sleigh for a few days. A winter storm necessitates that he spend an evening and a night in Frome’s house. He meets Mattie the cousin and Zeena the wife. The situation existing in the House of Frome is an odd one and his natural curiosity spurs him to start an informal investigation into the life of Ethan Frome.
After the opening chapter we flash back twenty-four years to a man in the process of waking up from a life he has found himself trapped in. When Ethan meets Mattie an internal conflict begins. Mattie reads and she reminds on a daily basis, just by her presence, the part of himself that vanished like smoke years ago when he made the decision to stay in Starkfield and take care of his momma. He borrows books from her and starts to remember that other Frome, that other man, who wanted so much more. He is a reed, long bent, that has suddenly found a way to stretch toward the sun once again.
Mattie is a lost soul as well. She hasn’t found her place in the world. She has been sickly, too delicate to find work, and is basically living off the “kindness” of her cousin Zeena. Truth be known, Zeena just wanted someone to take more of the load of her housework. Mattie tries, but never does come up to the expectations of her cousin. Frome can’t help, but compare the differences in the two women.
”Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light, on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of her hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollow and prominences of her high-boned face under the ring of crimping pins…. He felt as if he had never before known what his wife looked like.”
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”She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child’s. Then, striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edging her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.”
Drawing from the CD cover of the Douglas Allanbrook Opera of Ethan Frome.
It is not an even contest, Zeena is seven years older than Ethan, but a lifetime spent embracing her own illnesses has made her a hypochondriac. As if to justify her state of mind, lines of disapproval and discomfort have etched themselves into her face and withered the bloom of her youth. Ethan exchanged a sickly mother for a sickly wife. He is trapped in a loop and watching his own life through a veil in gray scale. Until:
“They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods”
A man deserves some happiness. After a lifetime of devoting himself to others he is on the verge of taking back control of his own life. There is this poignant moment when Mrs. Hale lets him know that his sacrifice has not went unnoticed.
”I don’t know anybody around here’s had more sickness than Zeena. I always tell Mr. Hale I don’t know what she’d ‘a’ done if she hadn’t ‘a’ had you to look after her; and I used to say the same thing ‘bout your mother. You’ve had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome.”
As Zeena starts to become suspicious of Ethan’s growing feelings for Mattie she takes steps to send her away and finds a new maid to come live in the house.
“She had taken everything else from him, and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for it all.”
Wharton, deftly, has both characters dance around their feelings. Each filled with longing, believing the other feels the same, but unable to tell each other how they really feel until suddenly they are faced with never seeing each other again.
”They had never before avowed their inclination so openly, and Ethan, for a moment, had the illusion that he was a free man, wooing the girl he meant to marry. He looked at her hair and longed to touch it again, and to tell her that is smelt of the woods; but he had never learned to say such things.”
One kiss can change everything.
The Mount
Edith Wharton wrote this book during a time when she was having difficulties with her husband, Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton. She certainly seemed to feel as ensnared by marriage as her character Ethan Frome, even though she was living on her beautiful Lenox, Massachusetts estate called The Mount at the time. Even lovely surroundings will lose their luster if you are unhappy with your circumstances. Wharton was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1927, 1928, and 1930. She never did win the Nobel, but in 1921, for Age of Innocence (1920), she did become the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. This book seems to attract a mixture of positive and negative reviews today much the same way it did when it was first published. Lionel Trilling says it was lacking in moral or ethical significance. The type of criticism that leaves me shaking my head wondering if we read the same book.
One of my favorite pictures of Edith Wharton
Another interest point was the theme departure this book has from the bulk of Wharton’s writing. Most of her books are centered around the elite New York society, but this one was set in rural Starkfield and involved characters of the lower classes. Despite the change in venue Wharton’s signature writing style is on wondrous display.
We have all felt trapped by our circumstances, maybe a stale relationship or an unfulfilling job or a long stint caring for a sick relative. This book is a masterpiece because it is simply unforgettable and those that love it and even those that didn’t like it are going to have moments in their lives when they think about Ethan Frome, and wish they had a sled and a slope of snow that will take them somewhere else.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit
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* Spoilers follow*
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This is a romantic tragedy that culminates in a sledding accident. I will just say a few brief words about that. First, there is probably a reason that sledding accidents don't figure more prominently in tragedies. Shakespeare wrote like 13 tragedies and to the best of my knowledge none featured a sledding accident (I have not read Titus Andronicus, so I can't be sure). If Shakespeare doesn't need to include a sled wreck, then neither do you.
I will also say that I found Ethan and Mattie's attempted double suicide by sledding a little hard to take seriously. I mean, there are probably dozens of reasons that serious people don't rank sled-tree collisions on their Top 5 List of preferred suicide methods, but certainly the fact that adult doubles sledding is inherently ridiculous is one. Another that springs to mind is the unreliability of trying to kill yourself by sledding into a tree. Ethan ends up breaking his legs and paralyzing Mattie, which is pretty much the best you can realistically hope to do if you sled into a tree.
Really, I find it remarkable that Edith Wharton's reputation survived Ethan Frome and his sled antics. It makes me want to read House of Mirth, because it must be REALLY REALLY good.
As a side note, this is *exactly* the kind of ridiculous melodramatic bullshit I always had to read in high school. Teachers getting all worked up about the symbolism of the New England winter and failing to understand why 16-year-olds don't respond to the tragedy of star-crossed lovers doubling each other into a tree on a sled. Please. -
It is a plaintive story of a poor farmer, Ethan Frome, a man with thwarted desires and meagre resources. His entire life (past, present and future) is allegorical of hardship, austerity and distress!
I was expecting it to be focused around passion (as from the blurbs), but I found it to be everything else but passion. Maybe had I read it a few years ago, then I might have exultantly and emotionally rated it high, but a mindset smacked with experiences, derives loopholes, and studies books with a different lens!
The synopsis -
A poor farmer (Ethan Frome) of meagre resources,
Of bleak and stiffened appearance,
Frozen by his tragic past,
Imprisoned in a forever mortal silence,
Having accumulated the cold,
of many Starkfield winters!
Living in a mute melancholy,
Having lost his parents,
Expecting a brief reprieve post marriage with Zeena,
But both fall into a forever ghastly silence,
No love, no communication,
Just doctoring his sickly wife!
The birds start twittering, and love is foretold,
When pretty, sensitive, natural beauty, Zeena’s cousin, Mattie, joins the family,
To help her!
Ethan starts falling for Mattie!
Zeena forces upon a smothering silence on her too!
A day comes by, when the 2 are alone,
Savoring every moment.
Zeena returns back home, with a medical report full of complications,
The wife confronts the two,
Catching them red-handed,
basking in a pleasure perverse!
Ethan’s sense of responsibility to his wife,
outweighs his love for Mattie,
So drives Mattie to the station, to bid her adieu.
A change of heart occurs,
When the 2 take a detour,
both reminisce about the fleeting moments of happiness shared,
Desperate, both plan a final sled ride down the hill(sledding),
Just to join each other forever in death!
But a horrendous turn impends,
Their plan is impeded, and
Both are left brutally injured,
Zeena, changes her mind/outlook post the accident,
Accepts Mattie in the household,
Story fast-forwards 20 years,
With the two slovenly women,
Huddled together in cold,
In a poorly furnished room!
My views stand tangentially opposite to what it is supposed to be construed!
For me Ethan Frome suffuses silence, isolation, self-flagellation, living in a hard-rule-bound society, and finally irrationality! But definitely, I couldn’t find a tinge of real passion/love, as it professes!
Throughout there is a silence – emotional, mental, physical
There is an eternal silence in Ethan’s life, Zeena too resorts to horrendous silence post her marriage, there is an evident lack of communication between the husband and wife.
Finally, when Mattie joins in the household, silence is enforced on her by Zeena, and finally Ethan and Mattie, both abandon rationality as they decide to commit suicide, just to enter a forever hell of silence.
For me they were already living a silent hell, suicide wasn’t a solution!
Ethan Frome is emblematic of silence & isolation, post losing parents, getting married, adoring Mattie and yet not getting her!
The imprisonment and enslavement to society rules hold the centre stage in the novel! Ethan doesn't leave his wife because he feels bound by his marriage avowals. He dreams about being married to Mattie; he writes his goodbye letter to Zeena, but subsequently his conscience does not allow him to execute his wishes. Instead, the rules of society govern his life and stays ensnared in a loveless marriage!
If I have to define the 3 characters my way, I would say-
Ethan Frome - Epitome of self-flagellation
Mattie- metaphor for the ephemeral joys of life, transience of life and joy!
Zeena- the sickly kind-hearted wife, who accepts Mattie back, post the accident, irrespective of their affair!
It is defined as a tale of adulterous passion, but honestly, I found it to be a tale of poignancy, silence and isolation. Where an isolated being, finding love and pleasure, still couldn’t get it due to society rules and self-flagellation, and finally when he loses all his rationality, he ends up making the rest of his life as the worst of his life!
Did the irrationality in Ethan sprung-up due to his love for Mattie or the abomination towards his life? I presume the latter is true.
There is no effrontery but only submission!
“The return to reality was as painful as the return to consciousness after taking an anaesthetic. His body and brain ached with indescribable weariness, and he could think of nothing to say or to do that should arrest the mad flight of the moments”
I was restive and had a queer feeling throughout the read.
A queerly 3.5 stars! -
Because March is women's history month, I made it a point to only read women authors over the course of the month. As the month winds to a close, I have visited many places and cultures, learning about historical events from a female perspective. Yet, to observe women's history month, it would not be complete with paying homage to classic authors. In this regard, I decided to read Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton's tragic novella.
Ethan Frome of Starkfield, Massachusetts has known much tragedy in his life. First his father grew ill, leaving young Frome to move back to care for the family farm. Then his mother grew sick, and a young relation named Zenobia Silver came to live with the Fromes to care for her. Without much of a future besides the farm in his possession, Frome falls for Zenobia, and they marry. Yet, Zenobia is not a country girl, and Frome hopes to sell the farm so that he can move his wife into town.
Tragedy strikes again as now Zenobia grows ill. Frome is unable to sell the farm and is isolated in the country. Zenobia'a relations suggest that a young cousin Mattie Silver come and care for her in the manner that Zenobia had cared for Frome's mother. While Zenobia is ailing and supposedly on her deathbed, Frome starts showing feelings toward Mattie. What ensues for the rest of the novella is his conflicted feelings toward both women, as he considers his future.
Wharton paints a picture of a grim reality for Frome. That the story occurs in winter in a town named Starkfield is no coincidence. Her witticism as she debates whether Frome should honor his wife's feelings or leave her and elope with Mattie are uncanny. Even though Starkfield appears as a depressing town to life in, Wharton's use of language and plot development had me reading to discover the denouement of Frome's sad tale. The fact that she included her usual twist toward the end enhanced the story.
I have only discovered Edith Wharton over this March's women's history month reads, but I find it remarkable that her writing can go from comedy in one story to tragedy in another and still contain a high level of wit. She wrote at a time when the novel was dominated by the middle class, and was one of few upper crust society women to write. That she entered a male profession and eventually won a Pulitzer for her writing, makes her career all the more impressive. Although Ethan Frome is a tragedy, I found the story interesting enough to hold my attention, especially as Wharton inserted her mark at the end. A four star read, I look to read more of Wharton's work in the future. -
It is a novel to despair of love, pessimistic, where selfishness and conventions are predominant. It is a novel where the silences speak louder than the words.
That's a closed door where Edith Wharton, between the lines, seems to denounce her time's customs and social conditions with her precise writing.
It takes us into literature from another age, where talent was a necessary preamble to writing. -
Sparse prose is sexy.
Sexy.
And that's why I've given it a special shelf on my page, called a buck and change.
Guess what else sparse prose is?
Rare.
That's why I have only seven books on there.
Why? Why are these precious books that fall under 200 pages so rare?
Because writers tend to overwrite everything.
But not Edith Wharton, the queen of sparse prose. And Ms. Wharton, though she may appear stolid in her old black and white portraits, was one sexy lady.
She manages in Ethan Frome to take one anti-hero, one untamed shrew, and one manipulative maiden, and proves, in less than 100 pages, that winter, isolation and poverty do not discriminate.
Wharton is never a sell-out. She gives you foreshadowing, symbolism and metaphors in just the right dosages, and she never wastes your time.
And when one red dish shatters into sharp pieces all over that never-ending landscape of white. . . you can not help but be bewildered at what an exceptional writer can do, especially in succinct and clever prose. -
spoilers?? what spoilers??
i have changed my stance on the cover. a) initially, i thought that it was showing an altogether different type of activity, and then b) when ariel called it a spoiler, i reinterpreted it to something else and was still wrong, and then c) everything that may potentially be spoiled is pretty much spelled out in the first ten pages. so is that a spoiler, or is that foreshadowing??
tomato, potato...
what is so excellent about this book is that it is not at all a depressing book while you are reading it - it is an intensely hopeful book. but then - gutpunch!! the depressing bits happen offscreen, after all the meat of the story has been ... digested?? this metaphor is escaping me... but in the lacuna between when the story ends and the nosy new kid-narrator in town comes on the scene. (such a fantastic new-england type character - "hi, i just moved in, tell me all your neighbor's secrets!!") the tragic bits are in imagining what these characters went through between point a and point b. so shivery-horrible! and that kind of story is right up my alley. great description, great pacing - simple story, but haunting and devastating longing. and aftermath. i love aftermath.
i liked this much more than summer, and i may read more wharton based on the strength of this one.
hmmm... who could i find to advise me....???
come to my blog! -
In the bleak setting of 1880's Starkfield, appropriately named, (Lenox, western Massachusetts) where it always seems like perpetual winter, and its cold, dark, gloomy, ambiance, a poor, uneasy farmer, Ethan Frome, 28, is all alone, his mother has just died, the woman who took good care of her, Zenobia (Zeena) Pierce, is about to leave, though seven years junior to the lady, he purposes, she accepts gladly and the biggest mistake he believes, of his life, occurs. Zeena, not a beauty, likes nursing sick people, the capable woman knows what to do, unlike the hapless Frome, but soon develops a strange illness herself, while idle, seeing many doctors, they tell her what she wants to hear, given some pills, advice and then off to another one. The hypochondriac continues this ceaseless pattern, Ethan becomes quite disillusioned, after only a year of marriage, Zeena's, physicians prescribe that she get a maid, to help with the hard, tiresome housework, which is ludicrous, since her husband does most of it...Yet the struggling farmer, not the best around, has troubles of his own, a deteriorating, old house, that frequent blizzards, cause much damage to, a failing, lumber mill, also, and the new expenses... he reluctantly agrees, though, Mattie Silver, Zeena's petite cousin arrives, with no close family left, she is healthy, cheerful, lively and yes, pretty, Mr. Frome, a lonely man, falls in love, but naturally keeps it a deep secret, his sour, silent wife lives in another world and does not notice. He begins to daydream, neglects his not prosperous farm and negligible mill, thinking about pleasant thoughts, their few walks and rides together... bliss. Does Mattie, not the best maid, either, rather more a dreamer, like Ethan, love him too, the possibilities are endless, thinks he, can they dare run away together, to the western frontier, forget the people they abandoned and live only for themselves? The triangle if it exists, will have winners and losers, but Ethan must find out quickly how Mattie feels, a new woman is coming to replace Miss Silver, at the insistence of the unpleasant Zeena, the crises looms, decisions have to be made now, the scared girl has no place to live...An uncommonly captivating story of love, ( but not for all, the narrative can be difficult to digest) responsibility, and propriety, in an age that demands this from everyone, scandals are not tolerated by society, all must know the rules, the few who brake them are ostracized in perpetuity...
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L’INVERNO DEL CUORE
Liam Neeson è Ethan Frome nel film del 1993 diretto da John Madden.
Non era tanto la sua statura, perché quasi tutti gli “indigeni” spiccavano a prima vista tra le razze forestiere più tozze proprio per la loro altezza dinoccolata; era piuttosto quel suo aspetto naturalmente vigoroso, nonostante fosse talmente zoppo che, a ogni passo, sembrava che una catena legata ai piedi lo trattenesse di colpo… Aveva nel volto qualcosa di desolato e di chiuso e appariva così rigido e bianco che lo avevo preso per un vecchio, al punto che, quando mi dissero che non aveva più di cinquantadue anni, rimasi stupito.
Ecco la perfetta descrizione di quello che è stato il suo interprete più convincente, seppure in un film non molto convincente, nonostante il cast. Mi riferisco a Liam Neeson, che mi pare un match ideale.
Joan Allen è la moglie Zeena.
La Wharton si allontana decisamente dall’ambiente che gli è più familiare, quello dell’establishment (parvenu o meno), al quale lei stessa apparteneva. E si allontana dal milieu urbano che di più non si potrebbe: New England, Massachusetts, un paesino immaginario, Starkfield, montagna neve ghiaccio freddo, gente che vive e parla in accordo col luogo, e cioè poche parole, gesti e sentimenti essenziali, duri, perfino aspri.
C’è un narratore senza nome che si deve trattenere a Starkfield per affari: un giorno nota la figura alta e zoppicante di Ethan Frome e chiede in giro chi sia. Ascolta le risposte, ma non ottiene molti racconti dalla gente del villaggio, che, come già detto, sono parchi di parole, gesti, e sentimenti.
Il narratore assume Ethan come guidatore del suo calesse, e così ha modo di saperne di più.
Fine del prologo.
Da qui, siamo di colpo proiettati un quarto di secolo indietro, il racconto da prima persona cambia in terza, e noi lettori diventiamo spettatori della storia di Frome.
Patricia Arquette è Mattie. Qui, Ethan e Mattie sono già innamorati, vorrebbero fuggire insieme, se solo avessero il denaro sufficiente. Lo slittino che Ethan trasporta è elemento essenziale di questo punto del racconto.
Ethan era via da Starkfield per studiare all’università (come dice un paesano al narratore, I migliori se ne vanno). Ma Frome deve ritornare di corsa a casa perché il padre rimane ferito in un incidente di lavoro.
Da quel momento, non si allontana più da Starkfield. Da quel momento vive un quotidiano immutabile, in qualche modo lugubre: sposa Zeena (diminutivo di Zenobia) che si è presa cura dei genitori vecchi e malati di Ethan. Zeena ha anni 35 anni, lui invece 28 – lui è giovane e vigoroso, lei sembra già una vecchia.
Un matrimonio di compensazione, senza amore, nella reciproca rassegnazione, destinati insieme a una vita che ti lega senza corde e ti uccide senza veleni.
Zeena è un’ipocondriaca che lamenta stanchezza e salute cagionevole. Perciò chiama una sua lontana parente, Mattie, ad aiutarla in casa e accudirla.
Mattie è giovane e non ancora piallata da Starkfield.
Tra lei e Ethan man mano si accende una fiammella che va crescendo. Fino a che…
Zeena non è per niente contenta della felicità della nuova coppia, guai in vista.
C’è un forte senso di fato in questo breve romanzo, che è una piccola gemma.
Il fato è sempre primitivo, ancestrale, tanto più in un ambiente rurale ed essenziale come Starkfield.
Parola, il fato, che si tira dietro, invariabilmente, un senso di tragedia greca.
Il fato non può essere benigno, non può compensare, redimere, soddisfare. Il fato punisce.
Punisce anche gli innocenti. Ma tanto, nessuno è innocente.
In questo caso è un fato provvisto di beffarda, direi anche perversa, ironia, che ribalta i ruoli tra i tre personaggi.
Ethan e Mattie due cuori innamorati nel luogo e nella stagione sbagliata. -
Magnificent, spectacular... I somehow always feel I must assign many types of superlatives to the magnificent & spectacular Edith Wharton! Definitely top ten writers of ALL TIME contender. Her best is "Age of Innocence," & her not-as-much (personally, alas) is "House of Mirth", but sandwiched between them is this tense novella about the restrictions of "unconventional" feeling. & it has the type of invigorating force that compels the reader to do his one job and do it good. I adore this slim tome, admire Wharton for being absolutely angelic literature-wise in her rare & immense perfection.
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"Hey Mrs. Kinetta, are you still inflicting all that horrible Ethan Frome damage on your students?" - John Cusack, Grosse Pointe Blank
If you're looking for a book with an ever-increasing level of misery, this one is hard to beat. Try this test the next time you're with a group of your friends: just mention "Ethan Frome" out loud, and see how many of them groan audibly. -
“If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked yourself who he was…”
- Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
Famously known as an acute observer of class and society in classics such as The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome strays far from her typical stomping grounds, leaving behind wealth and privilege to follow a struggling farmer who is exceedingly close to complete financial ruin. Despite the drastic change of scenery, she nevertheless delivers a hammer-blow of a doomed love story, in one of the least likely places imaginable.
The setting is the aptly named (and fictitious) village of Starkfield, a bleak and grim place that – like Narnia – seems caught in an endless winter. A million miles from New York City high society, the novel’s titular lead is a young man caught in a loveless marriage with a sickly, possibly hypochondriacal wife named Zenobia. The only glimmer of sunshine in Ethan’s gray world is his wife’s cousin, Mattie Silver, a beautiful, lively young woman who has come to live with them.
This rather dreary love triangle provides the setup for Wharton’s short, well-executed tragedy. I don’t think it is spoiling anything to say that this is a combination of Shakespeare, Anna Karenina, and the Winter Olympics.
Ethan Frome is a framed story, with a prologue and epilogue narrated in the first-person by an engineer who has traveled to Starkfield to do some work. While there, this observer becomes haunted by the image of an aged Ethan, the survivor of an ambiguously-labeled “smash-up.”It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives” were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
Because of a snowstorm, the narrator is invited into Ethan's house, where he ostensibly learns the bits and pieces of Ethan’s tale. From there, and for the bulk of the book, Wharton switches to the third-person for what amounts to an extended flashback, showing how Ethan came to be that “ruin of a man.”
At 157 pages in length, Wharton has to make every word count. There is no fat, no wasted moments. The characters are drawn boldly. Though they lack great depth, they are mostly memorable. Of the trifecta, Mattie makes the least impression. She is a bit of a cipher, more symbol than person, existing mainly to show Ethan that there are worlds within worlds, and that he has the possibility of a different life.
Ethan is frustrating. Physically strong, he is mentally – and perhaps morally – weak. Just about everything that goes wrong in this novel could have been avoided by even average decision making. Then again, if everyone in fiction used common sense, there would be a lot less drama worth reading about. Though I didn't like him, I can't quite shake him, either.
In my opinion, Zenobia – who goes by Zeena – is the most memorable of Wharton’s creations. Heck, I'd go so far as to say that she's one of the more exceptional low-key villains I've encountered in American letters. Without ever raising her voice or hatching a plot, she skillfully wields her chilly demeanor, her highly refined passive-aggressiveness, and her preternatural understanding of her husband to get exactly what she wants. Though she is mostly hateful, Wharton eventually gives us a few insights into her personality that enrich our understanding of her.
Ethan Frome is a work that is extremely straightforward. The symbols are unambiguous, as is its central theme, that of small-town conventionality stunting an individual’s ability to find happiness and growth via unconventional pathways. Yet, the simplicity is deceptive. Though uncomplicated, the prose does a beautiful job of conveying the oppressiveness of Ethan’s existence, where the walls – represented by the weather, community expectations, and economic failures – are constantly closing in.
When I first read this is high school, I really liked it, and not only because it can be read comfortably in just a couple sittings, and requires no parsing of language to get its meaning. No, my attachment sprung from the repressed passion between Ethan and Mattie, and the way it seemed like the entire universe balanced on their love. At the time, such romantic nonsense really appealed to my sensibilities. As one example among many, I saw Titanic in the theater five times. Five times. While I truly love the historical ship, I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t also there for Leo and Kate and their brilliantly-flaming meteor of a relationship.
Now far removed from high school, I appreciate Ethan Frome on a different level. Ethan’s flaw is in failing to recognize that his problems go beyond the constricting ethical framework in which he is hemmed. His failure is not one of imagination – he knows there is a better life out there, for the taking – but of motivation. Hamlet-like in his dithering, Ethan has an unfortunate genius for choosing the worst option to a difficult question. Instead of looking for the way forward, he is looking for a way out, and that is not the same thing.
Ethan Frome rests on its ending. After all, from the very first page, we are teased with the riddle of Ethan’s fateful moment. For the book to work, the denouement has to work. I think it does. The finale is a bit operatic, bordering on black comedy, but it is effective because of Wharton’s unadorned, just-the-facts style. The epilogue, as well, provides a powerful kicker.
This is a novel that is written with assuredness and confidence. Wharton seems to know exactly what she’s doing with every word. Because of this, and because of her talent, Ethan Frome certainly belongs in the category of “classics.” With that said, it can feel like a minor one. It does not grapple with huge ideas or say something profound about an age. It’s just the story of an unhappy marriage, of a man one step shy of a fool, who can’t get anything to work. For all that, it’s really hard to forget. Certainly, it'll make you think twice about outdoor winter recreation. -
But Mrs. Hale had said, "You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome," and he felt less alone with his misery.
This is the book with marvelous writing that sets you in a different atmosphere and melancholic emotional state. It is a story about longing, isolation, sorrow, complexity of life, written in long descriptive prose that is surely my favored kind of writing style.
A great piece of literature that expands beyond the ethics and morals and shows life is a much more perplexing than a black and white picture. Perfect for people that consider adultery unjustifiable and inexcusable and can’t find empathy for infidelity.
What Wharton brilliantly does is description of cruel unexchangeable circumstances of destiny that make a person quietly despair. Ethan From is a character of desperation, someone who has become stiff, cold, almost internally dead in an environment of a poor farm in neverending winter. The language of landscape is outstanding, and I love that, as in Wuthering Heights, the landscape and weather reflect the internal state of characters. The cold, always snowy and gloomy environment is interconnected with melancholy, emotional coldness of marriage without love or passion and lives stuck as they have been frozen in ice.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
Ethan is an odd character. At the same time, I’ve sympathized with him immensely, but he was a little distant and I couldn't connect with him completely, and there is almost a wall between him and the reader. Ethan is also an example of a grown man fixed in the mother-complex. His freedom was constrained in his early life with taking care of sick mother, and later on, he exchanges the sick mother for always-in-bed, hypochondriac, neurotic wife. His wife Zeena has total control over him, and much of that authority over him is due to her always being in the bad physical state.
Adler described the way patients can use physical or psychological symptoms in order to attain power, which is exactly how Zeena establishes her dominance. Their marriage is a relationship without connection, companionship, emotion, or comfort on any level. What Ethan thought will alleviate his solitariness in Starkfield, becomes the main source of isolation as a relationship without partnership can bring up more loneliness than solitude. But even in a marriage of that quality, without any form of true communication, Ethan is codependent and can’t make autonomous decisions.
Ethan’s life is a perpetual loop of things that he doesn’t like but has nor strength nor possibilities to change. In that state on his farm comes young Mattie, and she is the alteration that brings long-forgotten spark in his life. Wharton excels in describing the true nature of erotic, not sexual obsession. The sexual desire strives to relieve tension, but the erotic longing is in a whole completely different realm. Erotic has transformative power over a person’s life, it can make dead feel alive again, the unauthentic qualities become vibrant and true, it transforms dullness into a fiery passion and a priorly meaningless life into a life worth living. The object of erotic desire, Mattie, reminds Ethan of all of the parts of himself that were lost or neglected in his dismal everydayness. In contrast to sexual infatuation that longs for other person body, erotic fantasy is not just a relationship with other persons, it’s a fantasy about transformed, different kind of life, and another version of oneself, a dream about a life of fulfillment, intimacy, joy, freedom, warmth and happiness.
The commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion could have given, and he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that they had always spent their evenings thus and would always go on doing so…
Maybe the book is a little bit didactic in displaying dreadful consequences of overindulging in the erotic fascination, showing how the great promises of erotic can end up in ruin. The storyline makes his book a highly relatable tragedy. Maybe not every single person indulged in the erotic obsession, but every person was susceptible to the false promise of absolute fulfillment in external objects. whatever it may be. Ethan can make us feel less alone in sometimes desolate experience of life that can be cold and melancholic as winters in Starkfield. -
Well, that was bleak...
-
Just when you think that it's safe to kiss someone you're not married to, just then, disaster lurks barely a sledge ride away!
Ethan Frome is remarkable, in probability wrongly, in my mind for its relentless bleakness. This is an American novella, by an American author in which there is no escape. The West is there, but the protagonist can't afford the journey. This an impoverished landscape, the modest hero ploughs an infertile furrow. An ungallant way to refer to a marriage, but there you go, in Ethan Frome marriage is duty, more burdensome than most. A best pickle dish is too precious to use and when broken is carried out with as much solemnity as a dead body, perhaps more. The consequences of sin are life long, while grace, let alone redemption, are entirely absent. Then again perhaps it is natural if in a country there is an overwhelming belief in optimism, expansion, and the possibility of forever starting again that a contrasting voice emerges that says 'yes, that may well be the American dream, but this is the American reality'.
Very oddly Ethan Frome reminds me of
The Great Gatsby and those "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past". There some surface glitter covered over an essential immobility that here is plain and unvarnished. This stands in contrast to relentless reinvention, a rootlessness that allows renewal, the kind of thing we see in
Sister Carrie the woman from the back of beyond becoming a star of the New York stage.
This seems to be a dying society on the edges of buoyant country. The narrator's opening remarks talk of the natives, like Frome, and the later emigrants. Although the narrator seem to approve of the old blood, the implication of the story is that they are an evolutionary dead end. Too tied down to achieve anything new. The need to take a trip by horse drawn vehicle to the train station suggests this is a stagnating backwater, cut off from the energetic currants of the nineteenth century let alone those of the twentieth. If the present does reach into the town it is only through the patent medicines that validates Zenobia Frome's status as being perpetually sick.
This work that Lisa Simpson was so pleased to gain a copy of to call her own is like a little piece of Thomas Hardy, transplanted to New England. A corner of a foreign field that is for ever Wessex. -
Finally, I have the right word for this predicament: When a capable author uses her prowess to create a work whose sole purpose seems to be to depress the reader, it can be described as Frome. This word can also be used as a verb, noun, adjective (Frome-ish, Frome-ier, etc), adverb (Frome-ly), etc. to similarly describe the effect it has on the reader, (ie, "I was Fromed.")
An example used in a sentence may be: "
John Steinbeck was clearly suffering from a touch of the Frome when he penned
The Pearl"
Or, "Can we go see a rom-com? These foreign films are beautiful but leave me feeling Fromey." -
Because Edith Wharton was born in 1862 and this novel was written in 1911, I’ve always resisted reading the story fearing that it might contain florid prose and descriptions, which are often mind-numbing for me. Not only did I love it, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite novels,
Stoner.
Ethan Frome was a mostly money strapped farmer in a miserable marriage while Stoner was raised by hard-working farm people. Both men were married to wives that were cold hearted, passive-aggressive and cruel.
Zenobia "Zeena" Frome is a hypochondriac but also cunning; and, she uses her obscure ailments to derail Ethan’s love affair with her young and beautiful cousin, Mattie Silver.
Stoner’s wife Edith, also demanding and manipulative, converted Stoner’s den into her art studio in order to deliberately thwart the shared time with his beloved daughter, Grace while he worked and she did her homework.
Ethan Frome and William Stoner were both wonderful characters in literature. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and found the story compelling. But, I adored Stoner. My rating only reflects that this one suffers by comparison...not that it wasn't well-written and absorbing. -
Every review of this contains so many spoilers that I think everyone is beyond being spoiled. Regarding Ethan Frome, you’re all unspoilable.
A SONG
Just hear those slay-bells jingling, ring ting tingling too
Come on it's lovely weather for a slay-ride together with you
Outside the snow is falling and that nasty sick old wife of yours is calling "Yoo hoo!"
But I’m going to ignore the old bag for once and go for a slay-ride with you
Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy and cozy are we
We've snuggled close together and we’re going to plunge right into a tree
This song is not from the opera version of Ethan Frome. Yes, there is an opera of Ethan Frome. It doesn’t appear to be very popular though. The soundtrack was released in 2001 and Amazon records that it is currently at number 2,034,987 in their sales list. There are no current reviews of it. But I guess it must have seemed a good idea at the time.
Anyway poor Ethan for the first time meets a cute girl and likes her and she likes him back but because he’s already married and also is a poor farmer they can NEVER BE TOGETHER so they are saying their tearstained farewells when out of the blue she says let’s do a Thelma and Louise and he says without batting an eyelid yeah sure baby, climb into my sled (not a euphemism) and off they go KA BLAMMMM. I really don’t know about this, if my beloved sweetheart said to me hey, let’s drown ourselves I might want two or three minutes to talk it over (how could you suggest such a thing! You know I can’t swim!) but not this guy Ethan.
I think there are several morals of this story. The first is, don’t be a poor farmer. Second, don’t marry a woman who looks healthy enough but immediately becomes a full time hypochondriac. And third, don’t get a girlfriend who suggests a suicide pact the first time things don’t go well. And fourth, a tree is not as reliable as the Grand Canyon.
****
SOUNDTRACK
Country Death Song : Violent Femmes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWZf_...
Ballad of Hollis Brown : Bob Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8xkx...
Old Man on the Farm : Randy Newman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hQUC...
On Tanner's Farm : Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClrWq... -
*Spoilers, proceed with caution*. This very sad tale Ethan Frome is an account of the life of Zenobia Frome, ‘Zeena’. She was named after the great Roman queen who led a revolt against the empire - somewhat like Princess Leia.
Zeena had sacrificed her life to the man she loved, Ethan Frome. However, he repaid her by having a secret love affair with Zeena’s pennyless and lazy cousin, Matty, to whom Zeena had given a home. She was pretty, and knew when to flutter her eyelashes.
But poor Zeena was quite homely. They made fun of her, for she had false teeth, and looked much older than her 35 years. This was a direct result of caring for the sick and not taking care of herself. True, it made her a little queer, sort of a hypochondriac – a sad condition caused by anxiety.
When Zeena was in extreme pain, and had to go on an overnight trip to see a doctor, these two ungrateful persons could hardly wait to see her go, so they could act out their little fantasy. While playing a shameless game of ‘house’, they destroyed the one possession that Zeena valued, a lovely red pickle dish. This dish was a wedding gift, and to Zeena, it was the symbol of her love for Ethan. She cried when she found the broken pieces, while the two calloused lovers laughed about the ‘cat’ breaking it.
Now, it should be understood that Zeena had found a potential husband for Matty, a decent hardworking businessman, albeit somewhat socially awkward guy named Denis Eady. But Matty was having none of it. She was too good for him.
Thus Zeena knew the only way to save her marriage was to send Matty away. Ethan hated Zeena’s guts for this, and wanted to run away with Matty. That could not happen. They had no money.
On the way to the train station, they decided to have one last little fling - sledding! There was a famous sledding hill nearby, conveniently with a large elm tree at the bottom. Their first run down the hill was so much fun that Matty knew she could not live without Ethan. She slyly suggested to him that they commit suicide together, by crashing into the tree. At first he thought she had gone completely nuts, but then he remembered Zeena`s false teeth and, yeah, realized it was for the best. It is no surprise that this plan went very wrong. They both ended up crippled, and Zeena, a woman of character and principle, took care of them both for the rest of their lives. -
OMG.
Esta novela tan cortita es de esas que empiezas y hasta que la terminas NO PUEDES PARAR.
La ambientación opresiva, angustiosa y gélida me ha atrapado por completo, Wharton consigue que tu mundo se reduzca a esa cocina congelada con esas tres personas tristes y angustiadas.
¡Me ha encantado!
Es increíble lo bien que escribe esta mujer... Diría que me ha gustado más que 'La edad de la inocencia' a pesar de que esta historia es mucho más "simple"
***Edith te respeto cada día más por esa mente tan oscura tuya, que lo sepas xD -
CAMOUFLAGE
There is the stark landscape of the stark field. Starkfield it is.
Then slowly, through third party eyes, with all the distance that this implies, we begin to discern a shape that slowly acquires its own entity against its background. No, not even third party eyes, but third parties of the third party. Even further removed. For the book begins thus: I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
And thus, in this remoteness, emerges a figure, and the third party is discarded and we get a lot closer, sitting or, or reading, or looking from the first row.
But still. Hardly discernible, even if the title helps to focus on the developing shape.He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface..
.
Veiled are also the rest of the characters. They all live a discoverable and outward, but their feelings are hidden: to the others and to themselves. Again, as one tunes in one’s eye, one’s senses, one begins to discern those covered, those concealed and unformed emotions. Feelings are so clouded that it takes them years, for people living under the same roof, to identify them, to let them free. Actions and speech of the people in Starkfield are all concealments. They do not perceive what they are, or identify what think; they interact without discovering the other person. Appearances delude.
But then there is all that snow, cold, brisk and bleak: paralyzing.
This is so until disaster strikes – and then the characters continue to live, or die, secluded in their eclipsed-away house, as if they were already living, or not living, in their graves. And their physical appearances take on the abandoned, disgruntled, nature of their settings.
Even the author has camouflaged. The writer of the upper echelon of social classes of the New England is here transporting us to poverty and to rural and snowy settings. Unrecognizable. After reading
The Reef, I had to rub my eyes and squint if I were to accept that this was Wharton’s world, and that I was not reading something akin to
Growth of the Soil. Wharton has donned a Norwegian cloak.
But her words...., her words lead you.
And, eventually, one can see the cat...
-
I had already read most of Edith Wharton's major novels by the time I got around to reading Ethan Frome, and I was surprised by how different it was. Where did this come from? Wharton came from the high society of New York City which she so adeptly portrayed in The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. Ethan Frome was set in a small New England town aptly named Starkville, and concerns the life of a poor farmer and his unhappy marriage. His wife's cousin comes to live with them, Ethan falls in love and the story descends from there to it's tragic conclusion. It turns out Edith had heard an account of a sledding accident and thought it would make a good subject for a story. The unhappy marriage and subsequent love affair mirrored Wharton's own life. Ethan Frome remains one of Wharton's most recognized novels.
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Ethan Frome is my fourth Edith Wharton story and again, she has not disappointed. I came into this one blind, and I was expecting Wharton to provide another humorous study of the stuffy upper-class in New York society.
Well, this is not what she delivered on this occasion.
Ethan Frome lives in a rural fictional town in Massachusetts in the early 1900s. He only just scrapes out an existence from an unproductive, worthless piece of land. His horses are old and knackered, he has an old guy who helps out and a very sickly wife called Zeena who seems to be mostly bed-bound and miserable. This would normally engender some sympathy in the reader, but it is clear Wharton’s intention is to paint Zeena as a mean-spirited, hyper-critical person. I couldn’t stand her.
Early on we discover Ethan was badly injured in an accident many years ago, leaving him physically impaired, but still able to perform some duties. We are not sure what exactly happened to cause his injuries – Wharton adds a little tension and suspense here, as we discover the cause of his injuries. The hapless Ethan, also had to care for each parent before they passed away, and now he is caring for Zeena. Wharton makes us feel for this poor guy – it’s obvious the cards haven’t fallen his way………….and on top of all this, it is freezing cold, typical of this state in winter I understand. This gives the whole story a feeling of extreme hardship and misery.
Enter Mattie Silver, a young bright bubble of a woman, who comes to the house to help with the house duties due to Zeena’s incapacity – Mattie is related to Zeena, and is taken on because she herself has hit hard times. The three main characters of Ethan, Zeena and Mattie weave an interesting web – all largely as a result of Ethan’s obsession with the girl.
This makes for a fascinating story. Ethan is obviously conflicted, not only due to societal norms of the day, but also (in my opinion) due his own moral compass – Ethan is a good bloke. But how much can the man put up with?
Wharton increased the tension as this story progressed, growing to a surprising crescendo. I wont say if the ending was sad, happy or in between.
But, my oh my, Edith, you’ve done it again!!
4 Stars -
”He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.”
From the first pages, Wharton’s descriptions of the landscape, setting a scene and showing us all of the emotions attached to life in this time and this place. As my goodreads friend, Julie, has noted in referring to Wharton as “the queen of sparse prose,” it is how much emotion which she manages to place into so few pages that is notable and inspiring.
Set in the fictional small town of Starkfield, Massachusetts in time period around the late 1800s – early 1900s, where the winters can be brutal and isolating, Ethan’s farm encompasses enough land that neighbors are quite a distance away.
Ethan has lived in on his farm, in the house where he had lived with his mother, which is how his wife, Zeena, came into his life. Zeena was hired to care for his mother in her last years.
”After the funeral, when he saw Zeena preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter."
Now Zeena’s health is now poor, and she hires her cousin Mattie to help with chores and cooking, but regrets that decision when Mattie arrives. Mattie is both pretty and young, and so Zeena begins to make plans for her dismissal.
A tale of forbidden love, simply told, this story would not be the same in another place, another time or another season. The isolation, the feeling of being trapped in an unsatisfactory life, the desperation of desiring a life we envisioned, one including happiness, feeling defeated by living ”in Starkfield for too many winters.” All add another layer, as if Winter, the seemingly never-ending season, were another character steering their lamentable state of affairs.
I’ve wanted to read this one for a while now, and am so pleased to have finally made time for it. Many thanks to Julie, whose review had me move this to my January reads.
Julie’s review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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I have been on a bit of a four-star roll recently and am beginning to fear that I accidentally pressed against my generous ratings button when I was slumped against the bookcase last week trying to figure out what to read next. It's cold and dreary outside and I was seeking something warm and fuzzy, maybe a bit light hearted or some sort of serial fantasy to see me through the onset of the winter months.... and then my hand brushed by the spine of Ethan Frome...
Which is clearly none of the things I was looking for but I picked it up and read it anyway and so here we are. I actually managed to finish it in one day thanks to the relentlessly long commute to the office which was made even longer by the delay on the return leg when the train in front hit "something". To quote the train driver who made the announcement, "We are delayed due to a collision with an object on the track. At this stage we are hoping it is inanimate." I'm pretty sure most things are inanimate after being hit by a train but there we go.
MISERY
Ethan Frome is a book about chance and misery. Specifically the chances that Ethan Frome had and the misery he subsequently endured because of them. You won't find much happiness here and the relationship between Ethan and his wife Zenobia "Zeena" Frome is a crispy and glacial as a winter in Starkfield , where the novella is set, although on the plus side this then makes the current temperatures here in Liverpool seem positively tropical. A loveless marriage to an ailing wife and back breaking work on a profitless few acres of farm land have transformed Ethan Frome into an old man at the age of 28. Wharton characterises him in such a way that you immediately imagine someone much older. Like Father Time.
DOGS BOTTOM
The Frome fortunes change when Mattie arrives at the farm. Ethan's heart starts to defrost and that is when the trouble starts. Old Mrs Frome might be an ailing hypochondriac with a face as puckered as a dogs bottom, but she's got two eyes in her head and make no mistake about it. And what she sees is her husband developing an attachment to the hired help. From this point forward there is a swathe of eye lash fluttering, breathless outdoor encounters of the non coital kind and lots of blushing across the kitchen table or the milk pan or the barn door and wherever else country folks go to do their blushing. Of course you know it will all come to a sticky end so don't read on if the lover's final act is still unknown to you.
DEATH BY SLED
Not for Ms Wharton the conventional drinking of poison, trapped and drowning beneath the ice on a frozen New England pond, or shot gun to the temple. You've got two lovers ready to make the ultimate leap together and a lot of snow. Snow plus suicide = sled, obviously. There has been much scoffing at the this method of delivering an untimely demise to the protagonist, and yes, I may be scoffing a tiny bit too. On the other hand I have been on this kind of sled and actually took one down the black ski run on a mountain in Austria once. One of the guys I was with planted his sled half way up a tree and broke his arm. The other guy went off a cliff. Not a massive cliff admittedly but big enough to probably ensure a little bit of wee came out. So death by sled is entirely probable, just more difficult to successfully engineer and a little more uncommon these days.
LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH
It turns out that death by sled really isn't easy at all and even seasoned sled driver Ethan fails to pull it off leaving Ethan, Mattie and Zeena locked together on the Frome farm each nursing their own ailments and bitter disfigurements as well as being the talk of the local town and, within the framework of the story, the subject of intrigue whenever a nosey newcomer arrives in town.
If it sounds like I didn't enjoy this, then don't be fooled because I really did. Wonderfully written, beautiful descriptions of the Massachusetts landscape and all in one novella sized package. I've now downloaded the rest of the Wharton back catalogue so expect an onslaught of all things Edith soon. -
They stood together in the gloom of the spruces, an empty world glimmering about them wide and gray under the stars.
The perfect soundtrack for this novel: "I Need My Girl" by The National.
Wow, I'm speechless. It's ten past midnight and I just couldn't go to sleep without finishing this story. Don't let its size fool you, every page of this book is full of raw emotion that will leave you feeling heavy and achy all over. The writing is so elegant and the prose, every word, every phrase was thoughtfully placed and had significance. Oh I just can't praise Edith Wharton enough. This is arguably the best book I've read so far in 2016.
For more bookish photos, reviews and updates follow me on instagram
@concerningnovels. -
Haunting, tragic tale of forbidden love
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This one is short but sweet and very quick to read. I understand that lots of American readers were 'forced' to read it at school and therefore groan when they hear the title, but I was in an English school and I do not remember a single American author being allowed onto our English literature syllabus at that time. I hope things have changed since.
So everything
Edith Wharton is new to me and I like some, including
Ethan Frome and
Summer and am not so keen on others, including
The Age of Innocence.
The author's greatest skill was her poetic writing which provides the reader with descriptions which make you feel the cold when it snows and suffer the hardships and longings of the characters. Ethan Frome's love affair with Mattie appears to be doomed from the start but it is beautifully portrayed. The ending is not exactly what is expected from the course of the story but I guess it is what we could expect from this clever author.
So another classic knocked off my lengthy list and I enjoyed it a lot! -
Jesus H Christ but this is bleak stuff! Even the town name Wharton chose, Starkfield....holy shit, hide the guns, rope and knives!
I was born and raised in New England, wandering about the wooded, hilly landscapes of Massachusetts, Vahmont, New Hampshah and Maine for much of my youth. The springs and summers were green and alive. The autumns and winters were dark and dead. So half the year was glorious, good times and the other half you spent desperately trying to survive while wondering if it wouldn't be better to let the icy roads have their way and let your car fly off a bridge. Ethan Frome is solidly stuck in the latter.
The story of Ethan, a troubled married man in love with another woman, is revealed through deft flashbacks. Though I found the dramatic climax, , a touch melodramatic, this is otherwise excellent reality writing. Life does not work out the way you want or expect it sometimes, Wharton is saying. Her ironic twists are not so very fantastical, but rather they are the necessary conclusion.
If you like when hopes and dreams are mercilessly dashed, read away! If you relish ruin and decay, have at it! But do read Ethan Frome, do. -
For over a decade, I’ve wanted to read Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome in the winter. I’m one of those folks who likes to time reading a book with the season in which the book is set.
This year, I finally got around to it. I think what had prevented me from finishing the book before was the narrative device Wharton uses. You know the one: the narrator comes upon a scene, spots the central character, and then somehow gets enough information to tell the main tale. (See also: Wuthering Heights.)
The thing is: this technique can seem fussy, distracting and gimmicky. But after I’d finished the short novel I went back and reread the opening chapters, and it’s an interesting device. I still don’t think it’s necessary, but it’s not as awkward as I at first thought.
But back to the book. It’s about a poor farmer who’s stuck in a dead marriage with his sickly wife, Zeena. Zeena’s pretty cousin, Mattie, is living with them to help with the chores, but she’s not a very good housekeeper and Zeena doesn’t like her. To complicate matters, Ethan has fallen in love with Mattie, and we think she has similar feelings.
We’re told early on about the winter “smash up” that gave Ethan his limp, and there’s a rich description of a great big (symbolic) tree early on… and so we know an accident will probably figure into the tale.
What’s remarkable isn’t the simple story, but the evocative language and the generous empathy Wharton has for her characters. The author is best known, of course, for being a sharp observer of upper-class New York society in books like
The Age Of Innocence and
The House Of Mirth. What does she know about simple country folk?
There’s not an ounce of sentimentality about her portrait, and even though the working class characters’ speech is plain and colloquial, you don’t get the feeling that Wharton judges them. If anything, she pities them. This is a sad story.
And the descriptions of the wintry landscape? Absolutely stunning. If, like me, you’ve wanted to read this, here’s my advice. Get a nice warm blanket. Put on a pot of tea or coffee. And cuddle up with the book. You won’t regret it.
