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    The Age of Innocence
    The Age of Innocence
    The Age of Innocence
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Age of Innocence

    Written by Edith Wharton

    Narrated by Laural Merlington

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton's most famous novel, is a love story, written immediately after the end of the First World War. Its brilliant anatomization of the snobbery and hypocrisy of the wealthy elite of New York society in the 1870s made it an instant classic, and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921.

    Newland Archer, Wharton's protagonist, is charming, tactful, enlightened-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. Independent, free-thinking, and 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 29, 2008
    ISBN9781400180134
    Author

    Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.

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    Reviews for The Age of Innocence

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    • 5/5
      Spoiler Alert!When Ellen Olenska returns to New York to escape her husband, she shakes up Newland Archer's carefully ordered world and challenges his assumptions about what his life could and should be like. As the two carry on an affair mostly of the heart, consummated only by a few stolen kisses, the ramifications of his actions are felt throughout the tiny community of New York society. My favorite thing about this novel was the ending. As I read along, I was expecting some dramatic, tragic ending for Newland and Ellen. Instead, she returns to Europe and he stays with his pregnant wife. As time passes the supposedly all-consuming love fades and the two are content, if not blissful, in their separate lives. This seemed to me much more realistic than the tragic fates that await other unfaithful lovers in many novels. It wasn't a happily-ever-after story, but it was, in a strange way, a happy ending.
    • 2/5
      Seeing this title as a Playaway audio book at my library finally convinced me to read(?) it. I also downloaded a print(?) version from Gutenburg.org for "backup." I knew I liked the story from seeing movie versions. I wanted to learn more about why, in the final scene, Newland doesn't go upstairs to see Ellen. It was a different era and society, for sure, but was he exacting some sort of revenge on Ellen? On himself? Just being a jerk? Being senile? Stupid? Honorable? To me, it's a fascinating situation. Don't we all anguish over going to class reunions? Don't we wonder about meeting an old lover? On purpose? By accident? Well, I've skipped the class reunions and I'd probably do a "Newland Archer" for the same reasons, namely, laziness, poor memory, and too much else to do. Angie: Ethan Fromme, Age of Innocence, and House of Mirth!
    • 4/5
      This is a cultured, crafted and understated classic novel. The Age of Innocence speaks of so much in the small actions and habits of a dying New York socialite privileged class. It reminded me most of Chekhov played to a jazz backing rather than the melancholic strumming of rural guitars. Much is subsumed including the passions and the love affairs – exquisitely inferred in gestures and tokens. This is not a particularly easy read but it is a luxurious and rewarding one.
    • 3/5
      THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is about the silly manners followed by the very rich New York society in the 1870s. While the book is romantic, the romance serves to show the absurdity of the “rules” they lived by. Newland Archer is a part of this society yet sees the absurdities. But he’s a young man in his 20s and just goes along with it. He becomes engaged to May, a girl from another wealthy New York family. May is an innocent who follows the rules and believes in them. She is not a snob; she knows no other way.Then Newland meets May’s cousin, Ellen. Ellen disregards many of the rules. And that attracts Newland. He falls in love with her.Although I’d like to see this movie, a book about romance and wealthy New York society can sometimes bore me nowadays. I found myself rereading paragraphs because I would forget what I read immediately after I read it. My mind wandered while I was reading, not a good sign.
    • 2/5
      Well, I read this for my book club reading. I guess since this is a classic etc. and so highly praised there must be something wrong with me because I found this book VERY boring! I did not like her style of writing where she had three or more things happening in every sentence and thankfully she let up on this style after the first couple of chapters and only back slid to it a couple of times further on in the story. Perhaps this was a favored writing style when this was written but I almost put the book down several times in the beginning (and also after on just from boredom). As it was, I read four other books while reading this just so that I would finish it. Again, the whole book was very boring for me.Classic or not, I would not recommend this book to any of my reading friends. I will be interested to see what feelings my book club fellows have towards this book this next Saturday.
    • 4/5
      A look at 1880's-1900's New York society. Wharton focuses on the characters' thoughts, veiled message, secret communication, delayed gratification. The tension is palpable. Some members of our book club did not like it because it didn't move, but that's the whole point.
    • 4/5
      Loved this book. I will say the first week was difficult, I only had 15 minutes at a time to read. Once I was able to sit and read,it was a great book. I loved the writing,and the characters. The ending made me sad,but I understood Newland.
      Fabulous.
      As much as things have changed,have they really?
    • 5/5
      I avoided Wharton's work for years because I hated Ethan Frome when I read it in high school, and now I realize I made a grave mistake. The Age of Innocence is wonderful. I can't remember the last time I was so captivated by a novel of manners. This is like an anthropologist's treatise on 1870s New York City high society, and it is revelatory both about its time period and our assigned roles now. I found the views on the roles of women particularly relevant and engaging. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      I read Edith Frome a couple of year's ago, but I enjoyed The Age of Innocence much more. I generally do not enjoy novels set in high society. It is not a milieu that I have ever been a part of, and the concerns of the upper class New Yorkers in The Age of Innocence seem somewhat trivial to me. But perhaps it is because Newland Archer at least flirts with breaking free of the constraints of high society that I was drawn to his story. Engaged to May Welland, Newland has an undeniable connection with May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has recently returned to New York after leaving her husband. As this love triangle plays out, I found myself being drawn into the story because of Wharton's ability to bring emotion to the page, even in a constrained environment.
    • 4/5
      Another book which I saw the movie years ago. Being close to 20 years, it was easier for me to replace the actors with characters of my imagination.

      A very well written book. Wharton tells a story of New York society of the 1870s that is foreign to our 21st century ideas. While I am impressed with her use of language, the difference in customs was too difficult for me to hurdle. I just don't have the sympathy for Newland Archer that I should. Maybe that is the point that Ms. Wharton wanted to express. The oppression of the social norms was so hard, that Newland is unable to step forward and take control of his life. He is an old fashioned man that society created and passed by. Tragic.
    • 4/5
      I’m not sure what made me buy this book- I think it was probably part of a Vintage 2 for 1 deal (or just the fact that I love the way all the Vintage Classics ‘fit’ together on the bookshelf). I’ve never read a review for this book nor have I ever had a recommendation to read it. Now that I’ve read it, fans of this book are coming out everywhere!Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for The Age of Innocence and once you start reading, you can see why. Like Haruki Marukami, she paints in intricate picture in your mind of the characters and how they relate together. Newland Archer (see where Candace Bushnell gets her character names from?) is about to marry May Welland when her cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska returns from Europe in disgrace- she’s left her husband (this is the 1870s). Ellen is mysterious, bohemian and independent- all the things that Newland is looking for. He falls in love with Ellen, but still marries May. He is torn between duty and finding the passion that is so elusive in the restrained New York society. Will Archer find happiness if he throws everything he’s known away? More importantly, does he dare to?I found Archer a little like Toru Okada in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (the book I had read previously)- he’s happy for things to move him along rather than make things happen. This was frustrating- I wanted him to make a definite choice but he seemed unable to. I think he was a product of his time and class. Ellen, in contrast, seemed ahead of her time- she was decidedly independent in contrast to May, who needed approval from others (as well as opinions).I think the best way to read this book is in large blocks- it didn’t work as well for me reading it in small bites after work. The prose deserved more than this! I found I enjoyed it most on lazy weekend afternoons.
    • 5/5
      So stifling, open the windows and let the air in. Claustrophobic and great.
    • 4/5
      “In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done of even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs…” (Ch. 6).Newland Archer is a member of upper-crust, Gilded Age New York Society, about to marry May Welland, a naive heiress. He becomes attracted to May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, back in New York after disgracing herself. Part of her attraction for Newland is the fact that she is so free-spirited, and so a struggle ensues: will Newland choose the conventional path with May, or will he flaunt society’s expectations of him and choose the Countess?Edith Wharton’s observations of Gilded Age New York are extremely incisive; although she was a part of the society she wrote about, she was nevertheless able to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. The society she writes about was limiting, in which everyone did more or less the same things over and over again, day after day; so it’s easy to see why Newland finds the Countess Olenska so fascinating. I think he’s not so much in love with her as he is with the lifestyle she represents. It’s also easy to see, conversely, how New York society sees her as a threat, too. The Age of Innocence was written in 1920, nearly fifty years after it’s set; and so the novel is not so much a polemic about an ongoing issue. But it’s a fascinating look into the way that things were; and, maybe, still are in upper-crust New York society. I love Edith Wharton’s prose style, too; it’s not sophisticated, but she gets her point across succinctly.
    • 5/5
      The really cool thing about this book is that its message about high New York society at the turn of the century is true of elitist societies everywhere. I read this in middle school and was intrigued by how closely I thought it mirrored the "in crowd" and I still think of some of its lessons today.
    • 4/5
      Wharton's tale is a classic story of doomed love, choked to death by a society that values the appearance of truth over truth itself; one that has so successfully deceived itself as to it's true nature, that it has forgotten what it looks like. Wharton's vision is devoid of pretence, yet there's compassion and understanding as well.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this on CD, and the narrator, David Horrowitz, had just the right kind of refined, elegant, voice to set off the rather elegant text. Set in New York Society, it is difficult to work out to whom the title is referring - there are a number of characters that could be considered "innocent". Ellen Olenska seems innocent in the ways of Society - incurring her family's displeasure and censure, but with no-one to understand her plight, nor to guide her on what to do. She seems out of her depth, but has a moral core, in that she refuses Newland. Newland goes through quite a shift in the book, starting as moulded by his upbringing, but seemingly unsatisfied with how his marriage to May is going to turn out - hence the attraction to Ellen, but he's not given opportunity to do anything about it - no matter that the rest of his society thinks he has. May strikes me as a typical young society woman - bred not to have a brain in her head and tought to believe she shouldn;t think - although i do sense, particularly in the epilogue that she maybe wasn't quite as naive as she appeared. The tale is beautifully told, with lots of sly glances at the ills and illogicality of society. You do think that Newland is going to set the world afire, but he kind of backs off and it becomes clear he hasn't, but it seems his offspring might.
    • 1/5
      I am not a fan of Edith Wharton. This book was required reading and bored me to tears. For the most part it felt that nothing was really going on, and while I don't remember specific details nearly 10 years later, I remember that by the time I finished it I was relieved and also hated it. I have never recommended this one to anyone and am usually surprised by those who sing Wharton's praises. It was just too exhausting.
    • 5/5
      I first read this book in high school then again in college, it remains one of my favorite books. Though the hopeless romantic in me just loathes the ending! I often stop reading just before the final moments so I can envision the ending MY way. LOL Sorry Edith!
    • 5/5
      This story stayed in my head for months afterwards- I was completely haunted by it. The unnatural and sterile way of life in the Victorian Age crushes a man and woman's only real shot at happiness. The beautiful writing, the detailied descriptions of Victorian rituals, the mad passion of the protagonist, it is all...perfect! There's a reason Wharton won a Pulitzer for this masterpiece.
    • 4/5
      Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a classic story of one man's struggle over obsessive love and his duty to his family and class.Archer Newland is a well-bred New Yorker from the best of families in the late nineteenth century. He has his calm and serene life well mapped out for him including his fiancee and future wife, May. Every thing is going along without a hitch until one night he goes to the opera to meet May and her family and meets May's older cousin Ellen, the Countess Olenska who has fled her aristocratic husband and returned to New York to find safety among her family.Archer finds himself being drawn more and more into Ellen's orbit and also finds himself questioning the self-satisfied life of his family and friends. He is torn between wanting to follow his grand passion and his feelings of obligation towards his finance (and then wife) who more and more appears to be vapid and conventional when compared to his heart's desire.Wharton's writing draws the reader into the closed society of New York in the 1870's -and deftly shows how society closes around May and her family and makes sure that Archer does the right thing.This is a classic story that is told magnificently.
    • 5/5
      I tend to be a sucker for stories with a bittersweet ending and this one is as bittersweet as they get. I love how "free-spirited" Countess Olenska is the most levelheaded and strong character there. I love how for all his observations, Newland completely lacks vision and misinterprets so many people around, especially May. In the way of plot there isn't much, but the psychological portraits, characterizations and subtle details of a society in transition are spot on.
    • 5/5
      The Age of Innocence is probably one of my favorite books of all time. I read it in college and, because of that and for the sake of time, I have chosen not to re-read the Pulitzer winners that I have already read. But, I couldn't resist writing a short note on this one.Wharton wrote The Age of Innocence after World War I. She reflected back to a time when things really did seem innocent - especially in high society. But, things are not always as they appear and Wharton seeks to make that point. High society in the Victoria era was full of rules and regulations about how one was to act regardless of how one really felt. This is a book that I believe is required reading for all. It is very important to be able to step back, examine society, and see it for what it really is. It is easy to condemn those in the past for their social quirks. It is much harder, if not impossible, to step back from our own society and look at it objectively - to see it for what it really is.
    • 3/5
      I really dislike the flash-forward scenes at the end of the book. Also, I can't get the image of Michelle Pfeiffer as Countess Olenska out of my head from when we had to watch the movie in high school.
    • 5/5
      "The Age of Innocence" is one of my favorite novels. Newland Archer is committed to May Welland when along comes Ellen Olenska; the flirtation that develops starts small but builds to a crescendo; the looks, comments, light touches, and gestures are so brilliantly described by Wharton that I felt I was the one being flirted with. :-) Wharton is dead on in her observations about men, women, and marriage; you have to get past some of the New York society stuff but it's well worth it. The book also has a great, great ending. This edition has a great introduction by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, who among other thing points out a truth in Wharton's fiction, that "The real challenge that confronts each man and woman, then, can never be that of finding perfect happiness; rather, it must be that of creating some form of possible happiness...In this life, no one can expect more."Quotes:On marriage:"...once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas.""He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust; and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty.""As she sat thus, the lamplight full on her clear brow, he said to himself with a secret dismay that he would always know the thoughts behind it, that never, in all the years to come, would she surprise him by an unexpected mood, by a new idea, a weakness, a cruelty, or an emotion. She had spent her poetry and romance on their short courting: the function was exhausted because the need was past. Now she was simply ripening into a copy of her mother, and mysteriously, by the very process, trying to turn him into a Mr. Welland.""...he had watched Mrs. Thorley Rushworth play toward a fond and unperceiving husband: a smiling, bantering, humouring, watchful and incessant lie. A lie by day, a lie by night, a lie in every touch and every look; a lie in every caress and every quarrel; a lie in every word and in every silence."On the double standard:"In this view they were sedulously abetted by their mothers, aunts, and other elderly female relatives, who all shared Mrs. Archer's belief that when 'such things happened' it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and designing, and mere simpleminded man as powerless in her clutches. The only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to marry a nice girl, and then trust to her to look after him."On politics:"Every one in polite circles knew that, in America, 'a gentleman couldn't go into politics.' But, since he could hardly put it in that way to Winsett, he answered evasively: 'Look at the career of the honest man in American politics! They don't want us."On passion:"Ellen! What madness! Why are you crying? Nothing's done that can't be undone. I'm still free, and you're going to be.' He had her in his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain terrors shrivelling up like ghosts at sunrise. The one thing that astonished him now was that he should have stood for five minutes arguing with her across the width of the room, when just touching her made everything so simple.""I mean: how shall I explain? I - it's always so. Each time you happen to me all over again."On adultery:"But in Archer's little world no one laughed at a wife deceived, and a certain measure of contempt was attached to men who continued their philandering after marriage. In the rotation of crops there was a recognised season for wild oats; but they were not to be sown more than once.Archer had always shared this view: in his heart he thought Lefferts despicable. But to love Ellen Olenska was not to become a man like Lefferts: for the first time Archer found himself face to face with the dread argument of the individual case. Ellen Olenska was like no other woman, he was like no other man: their situation, therefore, resembled no one else's, and they were answerable to no tribunal but that of their own judgment."On transience:"Its glass shelves were crowded with small broken objects - hardly recognisable domestic utensils, ornaments and personal trifles - made of glass, of clay, of discoloured bronze and other time-blurred substances.'It seems cruel,' she said, 'that after a while nothing matters ... any more than these little things, that used to be necessary and important to forgotten people, and now have to be guessed at under a magnifying glass and labelled: 'Use unknown.' "On the miracle of technology:"Dallas seemed to be speaking in the room: the voice was as near by and natural as if he had been lounging in his favourite arm-chair by the fire. The fact would not ordinarily have surprised Archer, for long-distance telephoning had become as much a matter of course as electric lighting and five-day Atlantic voyages. But the laugh did startle him; it still seemed wonderful that across all those miles and miles of country - forest, river, mountain, prairie, roaring cities and busy indifferent millions - Dallas's laugh should be able to say: 'Of course, whatever happens, I must get back on the first, because Fanny Beaufort and I are to be married on the fifth."On old age:"Sitting alone at night in his library, after the household had gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being..."And memories of an old love:"During that time he had been living with his youthful memory of her; but she had doubtless had other and more tangible companionship. Perhaps she too had kept her memory of him as something apart; but if she had, it must have been like a relic in a small dim chapel, where there was not time to pray every day...."
    • 4/5
      Big characters lashing emotions big and small left and right while at the same time trying to keep very agreeable with the norms of a society busy with busying itself with... itself, mostly. Freedom and individual views are not the norm and are frowned upon, and "innocence" is more or less well-played, but certainly not what is really going on. The futility of the attempts to do as one really pleases teaches the misbehaving ones a lot about the society around them, and about themselves. Wharton plays her characters back and forth, especially the two main ones, until we do not fully understand their motivation. Are their emotions real and what are they? Their actions and reactions are not always easy to comprehend, but still they remain real, and very human-like: failing, lying and cheating. Strong forces and "values" of the society play with characters at will. No one is safe and no one seems to be able to trust his next of kin or friend. The end of innocence happens on many levels and Wharton is particularly skillful in playing with meanings, tones, ironies to show us just how lowly the society has fallen (or has always been).
    • 5/5
      "In reality they all 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."

      Through Newland Archer is who we see Old New York. Archer's opinions of May is to believe that she is an innocent and hollow person, Archer does not realize his wife's depth until the end when his son reveals:

      " '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.'

      Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the window. At length he said in a low voice: 'She never asked me.' "

      I watched the movie version directed by Martin Scorcese, immediately after reading this. It was brilliantly done and lush in setting and emotion.
    • 3/5
      The Age of Innocence…….Edith Wharton…issued 1920….Perhaps this is a good book for linguists and students of a prior NY sociology. I did complete this book as a prerequisite to attending a history class. I did however appreciate the art of under-statement and evasive or elliptic conversational skills evident in this work. This book as a Pulitzer Prize winner however was to me a disappointment. I read on but found myself reluctant to get re-started; as a consequence, it took me four weeks to complete my reading of the 377 page book. The vocabulary, the plot and sentence construction are first rate. Perhaps by osmosis I gained an appreciation of the static society and the mores of the “Gilded Era”. Only time will tell. Maybe this is a better book for romanticists than for those wishing to gain an understanding of the broad sweep of a historic age of the 1870-90 eras.
    • 3/5
      Surprising, mannered, restrained - especially appropriate ending. All of Wharton's endings are beautiful: inevitable without being predictable.

      Wharton is one of my favourite authors, but there's something... aloof about this book. It's never struck a chord the way The House of Mirth has even though the social commentary is just as concise and the characterisation just as sharp.
    • 5/5
      The Age of Innocence is a richly drawn portrait of the elegant lifestyles, luxurious brownstones, and fascinating culture of bygone New York society. It shows the atmosphere of desire and emotion and the social order that disturbs the foundation of one's identify. Newland Archer soon will wed May Welland but is attracted to May's cousin, Countess Ellen OLenska. He finds his world comfortable one moment but oppressive the next. Wharton's characters are so true to life that we feel we have certainly met them and know their hearts, souls and yearnings. The ending pacts a powerful punch and is not to be missed. Wharton was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1921. I would highly recommend it to those who love classical fiction.
    • 4/5
      I ended up liking this book more than I expected to I thought it would be more sappy and boring but it wasn't either of those.I liked the style of writing and since this is a classic it’s been reviewed by far better than me. Suffice it to say I enjoyed it and will be reading more from Wharton.