Ethan Frome
Ratings105
Average rating3.2
A plodding tale of a plodding man whose wife, who looks like Granny Clampett and has the personality of Dick Cheney, drives Frome into the arms of his wife's cousin Mattie Silver. Well, not quite because Ethan Frome doesn't have the wherewithal to pull the trigger and go to the arms of Mattie Silver. In the end he and Mattie try to pull a Thelma and Louise that fails miserably, ultimately leaving Ethan, Mattie, and his wife Zina conjoined in a menage a trois from Dante's Inferno, reminiscent of the two Lazeruses (Lazeri?) in the original Star Trek. On the plus side, the book is nowhere near as long as Moby Dick.
I enjoyed this, but I felt bad for Zenobia. She's framed as the villain, foiling Ethan and Mattie's love for one another and being a complaining burden. But she's Ethan's wife - he proposed to her simply because he was lonely, not because he loved her - she's trapped in a loveless marriage, poor, and ill with no one who seems to genuinely care for her. If you ask me it felt like a horror story on her part.
I admit that the descriptions of Ethan's feelings for Mattie were romantic, but they were marred by the fact that he was a married man, and his wife's only crime was that he didn't love her.
How to review a vetted masterpiece that you didn't enjoy.....hmm. Be honest?
I thought this was mind-numbingly boring. I would have DNF'd it but it was less than 4 hours long (on audio) so I plugged through. I couldn't stand Ethan. I am sorry he picked a winner for a wife, I am sorry he fell in love with his wife's cousin. I am sorry for him, but I didn't like him. They then have the lamest dinner date in history and, ultimately, a suicide pact. All of this is told with flowery language that takes a short story and stretches it into a hundred page novel.
Still, I'm glad I can cross it off the list.
Edith Wharton lead me on, then pulled my ending away from me. Then, when I thought all was lost, she lead me down the hopeful path again. Again, in vain. Only later do I discover that, what I esteemed to be the perfect ending, might have been made all-the-more fabulous.
Brilliantly Written. Very Easy. DO NOT SKIP THE INTRODUCTION! Which was incredibly difficult to get through, so buck up.
What a fabulous read. This is now the second one I've read by Edith Wharton. As I visited her former home in Massachusetts last fall, I wanted to read some of her works. I read House of Mirth first, and now this one.
Edith Wharton is a master at getting inside her character's minds. She reveals so much that you, as a reader, gain an intimate knowledge of what your lead character is struggling to overcome. She takes the time, and in our current fast paced world, it's a pleasure to go on this ride with her.
Ethan Frome is a good man, who ends up being stuck in life with a woman who does not meet his needs by a long shot. When he falls in love with a young woman who's been engaged to help his wife, the morals and conventions of the time make it impossible for him to leave. His wife, in discovering this not so hidden love, has ideas of her own, which create further agony for Ethan. How the story ends is both shocking and satisfying on so many levels. A masterpiece.
Short Review: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - another 20th century classic - One that I hated. And it is really short and I still had to force myself to finish it.
Click through for the longer review at my blog http://bookwi.se/ethan-frome-by-edith-wharton/
