11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"We shall never be alone again like this", December 12, 2008
This review is from: Ethan Frome (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
Edith Wharton filled her novels with a feeling of ruin, passion and restriction. People can fall in love, but rarely do things turn out well.
But but few of even her books can evoke the feeling of "Ethan Frome," whick packs plenty of emotion, vibrancy and regrets into a short novella. While the claustrophobic feeling doesn't suit her writing well, she still spins a beautiful, horrifying story of a man facing a life without hope or joy.
It begins nearly a quarter of a century after the events of the novel, with an unnamed narrator watching middle-aged, crippled Ethan Frome drag himself to the post-office. He becomes interested in Frome's tragic past, and hears out his story.
Ethan Frome once hoped to live an urban, educated life, but ended up trapped in a bleak New England town with a hypochondriac wife, Zeena, whom he didn't love. But then his wife's cousin Mattie arrives, a bright young girl who understands Ethan far better than his wife ever tried to. Unsurprisingly, he begins to fall in love with her, but still feels an obligation to his wife.
But then Zeena threatens to send Mattie away and hire a new housekeeper, threatening the one bright spot in Ethan's dour life. Now Ethan must either rebel against the morals and strictures of his small village, or live out his life lonely. But when he and Mattie try for a third option, their affair ends in tragedy.
Wharton was always at her best when she wrote about society's strictures, morals, and love that defies that. But rather than the opulent backdrop of wealthy New York, here the setting is a bleak, snowy New England town, appropriately named Starkfield. It's a good reflection of Ethan Frome's life, and a good illustration of how the poor can be trapped.
Even when she describes a "ruin of a man" in a cold, distant town, Wharton spins beautiful prose ("the night was so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray against the snow") and eloquent symbolism, like the shattered pickle dish. There's only minimal dialogue -- most of what the characters think and feel is kept inside.
Instead she piles on the atmosphere, and increases the tension between the three main characters, as attraction and responsibility pull Ethan in two directions. It all finally climaxes in the disaster hinted at in the first chapter, which is as beautifully written and wistful as it is tragic.
If the book has a flaw, it's the incredibly small cast -- mainly just the main love triangle. Ethan's not a strong or decisive man, but his desperation and loneliness are absolutely heartbreaking, as well as his final fate. Mattie seems more like a symbol of the life he wants that a full-fledged person, and Zeena is annoying and whiny up until the end, when we see a different side of her personality. Not a stereotypical shrew.
"Ethan Frome" is a true tragedy -- as beautifully written as it is, it's still Wharton's description of how a man merely survives instead of living, hopeless and devastated.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cold and bleak but haunting, September 1, 2007
This review is from: Ethan Frome (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a short, intense novel that absolutely gripped me when I read it. The cold, bleak setting seems so appropriate to Ethan Frome's existence. A life full of obligation and duty, with no hint of joy or spontaneity.
Mattie Silver, a cousin of Ethan's wife Zenobia (Zeena) brings a small amount of light and life into Ethan's life. Ethan pays a heavy price for this, as do both Mattie and to a lesser extent Zeena.
This is a sad novel about duty, tragedy and mutual obligation. It is not a light read, but it is a wonderful piece of prose that demonstrates that there is a form of beauty in brevity.
Highly recommended.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Choose a good edition, March 2, 2009
This review is from: Ethan Frome (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
I recently checked out another edition of this book from our local library to enjoy this great writer's melancholy tale once again. The library had the 1997 Scribner paperback edition, with an afterword by Alfred Kazin.
Don't read that edition! Choose one of the other available editions, like this one or others offered by Amazon. Kazin totally ruins the reading experience. He compares Wharton unfavorably with other writers and mocks her choice of words and word pictures. When he does compliment her, it is always preceded by a caveat that strips her of her every achievement.
What an uncharitable piece of writing. It's incomprehensible to me why a publisher would chose to accompany Wharton's fine tale with this mean-spirited rant. An online encyclopedia says of Kazin that he wrote "out of a great passion -- or great disgust -- for what he was reading." You can say that again.
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