The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence is well written and humorous. This book follows three main characters: May Welland, Newland Archer, and Countess Ellen Olenska. These characters belong to New York's small upper class society in the late 19th century. Newland marries May, and during the process of their betrothal he falls in love with May's newly returning cousin the Countess Olenska. This book is well worth reading and earned Wharton a Pulitzer Prize in 1921. I found myself laughing in many places especially to Wharton's satirical comments about the web and quagmire of these small societies. I was seething when reading this story in places, hoping that Newland would not run out on his wife for the quixotic Countess Olenska. This book helps explain family pressures and gender issue disparities of the focused setting. Newland Archer seems obsessively mad and in lust with Countess Olenska in several parts of the novel. Years later, Newland and his grown son go on a trip to Europe together and the son tells his father: "Yes: the day before she [May] died. It was when she sent for me alone- you remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted."

My rating: 3.9 out of 5