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Title: The Custom of the Country: Adapted from the Novel by Edith Wharton by Jane Stanton Hitchcock, Edith Custom of the Country Wharton ISBN: 1-55783-287-0 Publisher: Applause Pub. Date: 01 October, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.32 (19 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Slow-building Classic
Comment: Edith Wharton is likely the best chronicler of life in the upper startum of early New York, and the CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY joins her other classics in this realm, such as the HOUSE OF MIRTH and the AGE OF INNOCENCE. From the beginning, you can see where the book is headed, but the skill with which it's written keeps it from being a predictable read. The herione (?) is Undine Spragg, a social climber on the order of Lily Bart. Undine is a rather unlikeable protagonist, which leaves one's sympathies with the supporting characters, such as her first husband, Ralph Marvell. Fortunately, the book is filled with wonderful supporting characters, and the book's point-of-view often shifts between these characters. The ending is bittersweet, but gives one a great deal of insight into the emptiness of attaining everthying you want. Another terrific novel from Edith Wharton!
Rating: 5
Summary: Wharton's Best
Comment: What a marvelous author Edith Wharton is! I like to copy passages from her books just to feel how beautifully she constructs her sentences and paragraphs. I've also read Ethan Frome, Summer, House of Mirth, and Age of Innocence; they are all terrific novels. But The Custom of the Country is her best. Could there be a worse mother, wife, or daughter than Undine? And yet, she is too pathetic to hate; she is so needy and dependent upon material things. She's perhaps the most unliberated woman in literature! Do read this novel; you will love it and learn from it.
Rating: 5
Summary: "If only everyone would do as she wished..."
Comment: In CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY Edith Wharton created a most unlikable protagonist that is certainly easy to deplore. Undine Spragg is the epitome of a spoiled individual who doesn't bother to care how her financial demands negatively affect those around her. After moving to New York with her parents she has the full intentions of entering the ranks of high society. She studies the society columns in the local newspapers and dreams of residing in a splendid home on Fifth Avenue. Undine is both charming and beautiful and she doesn't hesitate to rely on various schemes and methods to get what she wants.
During the course of this book the reader follows Undine as she strives to enter the fashionable social circles of New York at the beginning of the 20th century. She studies the prominent players in the upper classes and desires to join them during their dinner parties in New York and their annual spring trips to Paris. Unfortunately her father doesn't possess the type of financial resources to accommodate Undine's wishes so she seeks to marry a man who can provide. Undine's climb to the top of New York society is not without incident. At times her ascendancy is marked by setbacks and controversies that aim to keep Undine away from the social limelight.
Edith Wharton provides insightful commentaries on how Undine Spragg is so self-centered and ignorant and the general superficiality of high society during this time period. Undine completely ignored the concerns of her husband(s) and her child as she strived to join the fashionably conscious social circles. The social and religious sentiments towards divorced woman are also explored during this era of general disapproval of broken marriages. CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY provides a revealing glimpse into the workings of the upper society circles of New York before the Great War. Highly recommended.
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Title: Summer by Edith Wharton ISBN: 0553214225 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: The House of Mirth (Signet Classics (Paperback)) by Edith Wharton ISBN: 0451527569 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Old New York by Edith Wharton ISBN: 0020383142 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Age of Innocence (The Modern Library Classics) by Edith Wharton ISBN: 0375753206 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Sanctuary by Edith Wharton ISBN: 0812217926 Publisher: Pine Street Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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