On finishing The Age of Innocence

I’ve finished reading The Age of Innocence. A magnificent novel. It must be Edith Wharton’s best book. 

“… he had built up within 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; thither he brought the books he read, the ideas and feelings which nourished him, his judgments and his visions. 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. Absent—that was what he was: so absent from everything most densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes startled him to find they still imagined he was there.” (Ch.26) 

I see The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence as masterpieces, and both are greater than The Custom of the Country, because they’re written with compassion and sympathy, whereas The Custom of the Country is a cold dissection of an essentially hollow character. It is masterfully done, and Undine Spragg is a fascinating, vivid character, among the most memorable female characters in literature, but something is lacking in the novel as a whole, especially after Ralph’s death (except for the final chapter, which is haunting).  
In an earlier blog post, I wrote that there was a sameness to Wharton’s 3 great New York novels, but that was only my initial reaction. Compared to The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence has a different tone—the sense of suffocation is still there, but the social criticism is more muted, and there is a tenderness and melancholy that the other books don’t have.  
Look at these wonderful lines from the final chapter: 

“He preferred to spend the afternoon in solitary roamings through Paris. He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.”   

That is what the novel is about—longing, passion, then “packed regrets and stifled memories”. 
There are some magnificent passages in the final chapter, which serves as epilogue, but I will save them, for those of you who haven’t read the book. 
I began reading The Age of Innocence, thinking it was about Newland Archer’s choice between individual needs (Ellen Olenska) and social duty (May Welland), but it’s a lot more complex, and his choice cannot be seen merely in such abstract terms. Nor is it a choice between a passionate, unconventional woman (Ellen) and an innocent, conventional, and narrow-minded woman (May). 
Both Ellen and May are portrayed with lots of compassion. Ellen sacrifices her own happiness because she cannot betray the people who have welcomed her back and accepted her with kindness, and has too much self-respect to agree to be Newland’s mistress; whilst May turns out to have much more depth and understanding than Newland recognises, and she too probably sacrifices herself in accepting a life with him, knowing that he passionately loves someone else. 
The 2 women, the way I see it, seem to correspond to the 2 sides in Newland: he recognises the limitations, hypocrisy, and the stifling nature of his society, but he is part of it—he shares its conventions and hypocrisy. Newland has many shortcomings, but his shortcomings are those of his class—he’s more of a product of society than he sometimes realises. In middle age, as he looks back at his life and choices, Newland knows he has missed “the flower of life”, but “he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery” (Ch.34). He must know, at the back of his mind, that life with Ellen might not be as happy as his fantasy. 
If we must compare The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, some readers might see the former as having more tragic weight, and prefer it for the harsh, merciless analysis of high society, but I think of the latter as greater for having more emotional depth, more sympathy, and a greater vision. I won’t say more, both are great. 


See my previous blog posts about The Age of Innocence: random thoughts, passion, and the things people leave unsaid.