Welcome to Week Two of Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) for The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. This week we'll be discussing the last chapters of the novel, 27-34.
There is an Internet archive of the novel and all page numbers I use in this post will be from that edition.
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What happened in these chapters?
There's a run on the bank because of Beaufort's scheme. Mrs. Mingott had a stroke after a visit from Mrs. Beaufort. Mrs. Mingott wants to see Ellen, so they send a telegram for her. Archer will go pick her up from the train station.
He picks her up and they discuss that it was the French tutor who helped her leave her husband. Ellen straight out asks him if he wants her to be his mistress, but this scene is nonsense because he wants her, but she doesn't want to lie to May. Meanwhile, he throws a temper tantrum and exits the carriage before dropping her off.
Ellen is going to stay with Mrs. Mingott and Mrs. Mingott wants Archer to get the rest of the family on board with this plan.
Archer is bored, he wonders idly if things would be easier if May died. Archer and Ellen meet at the Met. She tells him she's staying with Mrs. Mingott because she think it will keep her away from him. At home, May says she had a long talk with Ellen (foreshadowing!).
"A really good talk," she went on, smiling with what seemed to Archer an unnatural vividness. "She was so dear — just like the old Ellen. I'm afraid I haven't been fair to her lately..." (page 317)
The next night everyone's at the van der Luydens for a pre-opera dinner. The Beauforts come up and there is shock that Ellen went to see Mrs. Beaufort. How could she! Think of her reputation! At the opera, May is wearing her wedding dress. Archer persuades her to go home with him early and we think he's going to tell her about his super dope feelings for Ellen, but instead May shocks him by telling him that Ellen is going back to Europe.
May still looked at him with transparent eyes. "Why — since she's going back to Europe so soon; since Granny approves and understands, and has arranged to make her independent of her husband — " (page 327)
Archer and May host their first big dinner party, which is a going away party for Ellen. Archer knows something's up with him and Ellen.
And then it came over him, in a vast flash made up of many broken gleams, that to all of them he and Madame Olenska were lovers, lovers in the extreme sense peculiar to "foreign" vocabularies. He guessed himself to have been, for months, the centre of countless silently observing eyes and patiently listening ears. (page 338)
The silent organisation which held his little world together was determined to put itself on record as never for a moment having questioned the propriety of Madame Olenska's conduct, or the completeness of Archer's domestic felicity. All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of, suspected, or even conceived possible, the least hint to the contrary; and from this tissue of elaborate mutual dissimulation Archer once more disengaged the fact that New, York believed him to be Madame Olenska's lover. (page 342 - 343)
After the couple has seen everyone out, May announces that she is pregnant. (And I am not shocked that all the sexytimes was kept off page, but can you even imagine what their love life was like?)
Flash forward a quarter of a century. May and Archer have had three children and May died a couple years back. Archer heads to Paris with his oldest son and his son had planned for them to go see Olenska. Archer, who remains a coward to the last page, decides not to go up to Olenska's apartment.
"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard himself say... (page 364) - Did he really say this out loud while sitting at a bench?
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mbmom11 sent some gorgeous Gilded Age buildings for our perusal.
"Here are some pictures of building from 1870-1890 in my town. One was the county jail ( now part of the college campus), two churches, and the rest homes."
I would commit felony white collar crime to live in that blue house.
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Hat mentions (why hats?):
She laughed, and drawing out her hat pins tossed her velvet hat on the sofa. (page 317)
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Things I looked up (wherein you all learn I've never been to Paris):
Wolfe collection (page 312) - Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887) was the first female benefactor of The Met and was said to be the richest unmarried woman in the United States
Cesnola antiquities (page 312) - The Cesnola Collection is remarkable not only for its size and diversity but also for its chronological range, stretching from the Early Bronze Age to the end of antiquity. The Cesnola Collection also did much to establish the Museum’s reputation as a major repository of classical antiquities and put it on a par with the foremost museums in Europe, whose collections had largely been formed at an earlier date.
Ilium (page 312) - Ilium is another name for the ancient city of Troy
Roman punch (page 330) - Roman Punch, or Punch à la Romaine, is a historically rich, often frozen cocktail that gained immense popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is characterized as a decadent, citrus-heavy, and heavily spiked beverage, historically served as a palate-cleansing intermezzo during elaborate multi-course banquets, including the final dinner on the Titanic. Often attributed to early cocktail writers like Jerry Thomas (1862) or "The Only William" Schmidt (1892), with origins in the Papal Palace in Rome. Here's a recipe if you want to try it!
Jacqueminot roses (page 331) - Rosa 'Général Jacqueminot', also called 'General Jack' or 'Jack Rose', is an early Hybrid Perpetual rose cultivar, developed by Roussel, an amateur from Meudon, and introduced by the gardener Rousselet in 1853. The flower was named in honor of Jean-François Jacqueminot, a French general of the Napoleonic Wars.
maidenhair (page 331) - type of fern (or moss or seaweed, but fern makes sense in context)
Maillard bonbons (page 331) - Maillard's was a popular chocolatier in New York City. That link will take you to a blog post written by a romance novel author about her research into it.
philippic (page 341) - a bitter attack or denunciation, especially a verbal one
Grand-Guignol (page 367) - (1897–1962) was a famous Parisian theater specialized in, and defining of, a genre of naturalistic horror, featuring graphic violence like mutilation, eye-gouging, and murder. Founded by Oscar Méténier and often featuring works by André de Lorde, it aimed to provoke intense fear and shock, often alternating horrifying plays with comedies.
Invalides (page 370, 371) - Les Invalides is a historic landmark in Paris, France, commissioned by Louis XIV in 1670 as a home and hospital for wounded soldiers. Today, it features the Musée de l’Armée (Army Museum) (military history), the Dome Church containing Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb, and the Saint-Louis des Invalides Cathedral.
dome of Mansart (page 370) - The Dome of the Invalides (Dôme des Invalides), designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and completed in 1706, is a masterpiece of French Baroque architecture in Paris. Commissioned by Louis XIV as a royal chapel, its gilded dome stands over 100 meters high and houses the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Lines of notes:
If society chose to open its doors to vulgar women the harm was not great, though the gain was doubtful; but once it got in the way of tolerating men of obscure origin and tainted wealth the end was total disintegration — and at no distant date. (page 341)
Interesting to see Wharton call this out directly since she's so oblique in many other ways.
He had been, in short, what people were beginning to call "a good citizen." In New York, for many years past, every new movement, philanthropic, municipal or artistic, had taken account of his opinion and wanted his name.' People said: "Ask Archer" when there was a question of starting the first school for crippled children, reorganising the Museum of Art, founding the Grolier Club, inaugurating the new Library, or getting up a new society of chamber music. His days were full, and they were filled decently. He supposed it was all a man ought to ask. (page 349-350)
Archer is forever and ever a twat.
"And you never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum, in fact!" (page 359)
Ha! Dallas knows what's up.
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Last week's homework:
I saw hat or hats twice in this week's reading. Did you see your word?
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Questions to ponder:
1) "I think you're the most honest woman I ever met!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, no — but probably one of the least fussy," she answered, a smile in her voice.
"Call it what you like: you look at things as they are." "Ah— I've had to. I've had to look at the Gorgon." "Well — it hasn't blinded you! You've seen that she's just an old bogey like all the others."
"She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears." (page 291)
What does Ellen mean that the Gorgon has dried her tears?
2) Man, May telling Ellen she was pregnant before she was sure so that Ellen would have to leave Archer alone? Who here thinks May is maybe the most clever person in the book? (I mean, all praise Mrs. Mingott.)
3) Was anyone expecting this giant time jump? I was surprised by it.
4) Did anyone else sort of imagine what this would look like as a modern romance novel? Like a scene with May and Archer hate fucking would be amazing, right? And all the gossip would be done via cell phone texts? Now that I've read this, I would like a modern retelling of The Age of Innocence? Any writers who might read this, get on this!
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Upcoming CBBC schedule:
Monday, March 2: Wrap-up - We'll talk about larger questions regarding the whole novel next week!
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