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• 1 of 2 people find this helpful

  • I read this for a Modern Lit course in College. I really really liked this book. It had a real twisted story and some sexual bits... which of course makes for an excellent read. Tie that in with some family frustrations and a little death and its fabulous. I think I will reread this one day.

    

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• ― karattack said on Jan 3, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • I chose this for a book club, but because I love movies, I saw the movie before finishing the book. I don't want to finish the book because the main character annoys me now. I might possibly suffer through it for the sake of the book club. I liked Ethan Frome a lot more.

    

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• ― Carobookie said on Sep 28, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

Set in turn-of-the-century New York, Edith Wharton's classic novel The Age of Innocence reveals a society governed by the dictates of taste and form, manners and morals, and intricate social ceremonies. With amazing clarity and sensitivity, Edith Wharton re-creates an atmosphere in which subtle gestures and faint implications bespeak desire and emotion, in which beauty and innocence are valued above truth, and in which disturbing the social order disturbs the very foundations of one's identity.
Newland Archer, soon to marry the lovely May Welland, is a man torn between his respect for tradition and family and his attraction to May's strongly independent cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska. Plagued by the desire to live in a world where two people can love each other free from condemnation and judgment by the group, Newland views the artful delicacy of the world he lives in as a comforting security one moment, and at another, as an oppressive fiction masking true human nature.
The Age of Innocence is at once a richly drawn portrait of the elegant lifestyles, luxurious brownstones, and fascinating culture of bygone New York society and a compelling look at the conflict between human passions and the social tribe that tries to control them.

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• Pulitzer PrizeNew YorkfictionClassicLiteratureMy favoritesCT ShelfnovelLiterature & fiction@read 2006
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