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• 1 of 2 people find this helpful

  • I love this book. I read it four years ago, and now I'm onto it again. I wish there was a "rereading" option.

    

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• ― mynameiszoe said on Jan 12, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

• 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

'They 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.' Edith Wharton's most famous novel, written immediately after the end of the First World War, is a brilliantly realized anatomy of New York society in the 1870s, the world in which she grew up, and from which she spent her life escaping. Newland Archer, Wharton's protagonist, charming, tactful, enlightened, is a thorough product of this society; he accepts its standards and abides by its rules but he also recognizes its limitations. His engagement to the impeccable May Welland assures him of a safe and conventional future, until the arrival of May's cousin Ellen Olenska puts all his plans in jeopardy. Independent, free-thinking, scandalously separated from her husband, Ellen forces Archer to question the values and assumptions of his narrow world. As their love for each other grows, Archer has to decide where his ultimate loyalty lies.

Margin notes of this book

• LiteratureMy favoritesfictionCT ShelfnovelLiterature & fiction@read 2006xmas 0520th c.