The Reef by Edith Wharton

I finished reading The Reef and I finally came up for air.  The Reef is a laboriously dull read. I wouldn't have finished it,  if it wasn't one of my book club's selections.  Edith Wharton is the first American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.  At the beginning of the 20th C, Wharton was regarded as one of the most acclaimed novelists of her time.  Her other works include The House of Mirth & The Age of Innocence.  The Reef is a tale of naivety and snobbery that today doesn't hold water.  Wharton met fellow expat, Henry James who had a profound impact on her life and writings.  They both have the same loquacious, mired down style. When something finally happens, you no longer care.  The maudlin dilemma in this love quadrangle is between George & Anna, engaged to be married and Anna's step-son, Owen and his fiancee, Sophy had a previous affair with George.  Scandalous?  Perhaps @ the turn of the 20th C.  This is one painfully slow, obsolete novel;  reminiscent of tortuous high school syllabus reading.  The only credible comment came from George as they end their engagement from Anna langouring in anguish, "I'm not worth what I'm costing you…I've done a thing I loathe, and…put something irremediable between us."  What do I have against the writings of Wharton & James?  I find most of their novels dreadfully droll.  Skim over The Reef and read Ethan Frome instead and perhaps, James' Washington Square.

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

I'm a huge fan of Downton Abbey & Upstairs, Downstairs, and I am a huge fan of The Go Between written @ the turn of the 20th C in England depicting social classes as told (in retrospect) by an older man looking back at his younger self, during the summer he turned 13.  This is not merely a tale of British aristocracy or a coming of age story.  It deals with morality & manipulation.  It is also a bold and beautiful tale of sensual awakenings.  As a man in his 60's, Leo takes us back to his seminal year upon discovering souvenirs from his youth.  Leo as an only child, is sent by his widowed mother to boarding school at a very young age. There he is tormented by 2 older boys whom Leo plots revenge by casting a spell.  Voila, the bullies fall from a roof and Leo's notoriety soars.  Marcus, a duly impressed classmate, invites Leo to spend a few weeks with his family that July. With the Marcus' family Leo "for the first time, was acutely aware of (his) social inferiority.  I felt utterly out of place among these smart rich people, and a misfit everywhere."  Leo soon succumbs to the charms of Marcus' older, beautiful sister, Marian, & becomes a willing/unwilling messenger for Marian & her lover, Ted, a virile farmhand.  Leo grapples with the morality of serving as a conduit to this illicit affair upon learning Marian is engaged to the wealthy Lord Trimmingham, whose facial disfigurement was wrought in battle.  The Go-Between "is a  struggle between order & lawlessness, between obedience to tradition and defiance, between social stability & revolutions, between one attitude to life & another."  Nothing half-way here, I recommend this novel whole heartedly.