WEBVTT - Edith Wharton: Novelist and Designer 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.640 She was a born storyteller. At the age of three 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:11.680 or four, um she would be observed holding a book 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:13.840 in her hands, off and upside down, and she would 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.040 walk back and forth and make up and create a 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.160 story that her mother arranged for a play date with 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.680 young friends. He would actually refuse them and insist that 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:25.520 her mother played with him so that she could she 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:31.240 could continue on making up. That was Susan Whistler talking 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.320 about young Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.920 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Wharton is the author of classics 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.640 like The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:48.800 She created an unforgettable portrait of nineteenth century America and 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.959 women's role in it. I'm a land Ververe and this 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.880 is Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:01.000 one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:06.600 women you need to hear. Edith Wharton's books continue to 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.560 sell widely, even a hundred years after their publication, and 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.480 they've been the source for many movies starring everyone from 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.479 Betty Davis to Michelle Peiffer. But Wharton was more than 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.480 a novelist. She was also a forward looking designer, of 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.559 homes and gardens, and for her relief work during World 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.959 War One, she was a hero to the French people. 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.840 We got a fascinating insight into Wharton's life from Susan Whistler, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.600 the executive director of the Mount, the beautiful estate Wharton 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:48.040 built in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. Listen and learn 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.440 from Susan Whistler why Edith Wharton is one of Seneca's 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:58.960 One Women to hear. I'm speaking today to Susan Whistler, 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.360 the executive director of the Mount the Estate of Edith Wharton, 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.880 and we're going to be speaking about Edith Wharton and 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:12.320 her place in America's literary history and so much more. Susan, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.280 it is a wonderful pleasure to have you with us today. Well, Malan, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.040 thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Edith Wharton wrote 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.160 about the world of the wealthy during the Gilded Age 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:28.200 the late eighteen hundreds. She gave us memorable novels, including 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.320 The Age of Innocence in the House of Mirth. She 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.000 was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.000 Literature for the Age of Innocence. She was also a 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.400 designer and a decorator, and her passion for houses and 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:46.280 gardens obviously comes out at the Mount when one visits. 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.840 What do you think she should be remembered for? How 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.520 do you see her legacy? You have an intimate engagement 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.400 with her almost every day as you're there at the Mount. 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.760 Well Edith Wharton, I would say, is and should probably 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.799 best known for her enduring classics of the House of 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.360 Mirth Ethan Frome, and also the Age of Innocence, which 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.880 is probably her best known work. It's the one that 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:11.880 one of the Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.840 nineteen twenty, and it hit number one on the bestseller 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.720 lists again in nine three, following Martin Scorsese's release of 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.480 his film starring Michelle Peifer and Daniel day Lewis, which 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.000 is based on the novel but Um, I would say, 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.560 even though she's mostly known as a novelist, her literary 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.280 legacy is actually so much bigger. Um. She wrote across 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:39.200 many genres, including short stories, to travel books, literary essays 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.040 and poetry, and her first well known and sort of 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.800 I would say hit, was a book that was actually 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.320 about interior design, called The Decoration of Houses. It was 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:55.360 published in eight and it's still taught in design schools today. Um. 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.040 I think she also should be remembered for taking on 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:03.000 subject matter that I would say, even today might seem audacious. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:07.000 She her books and her novels addressed issues ranging from 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:12.640 euthanasia to war um to female sexual desire, especially that 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.160 of older women. And I would say that she and 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:20.400 her works defy any easy categorization. I would say. And 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.279 then of course there is, um what I think she 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.960 considered her most important creation, or one of her most 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.760 important creations, and that is the estate that she gotagned 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.640 and build from the Berkshires, the Mount Um. And she 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.719 was as proud of that as any of the literary 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:40.200 work that she produced. Just an exceptional legacy for sure. 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.839 Now you're the executive director of the Mount. Her long 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.200 time state is you just mentioned in the Beautiful Berkshires 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.240 And you used to practice law in New York? What 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.320 got you interested in Edith Warren and how did you 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.560 come to head the Mount? Well, I thank serendipity for 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.280 for my journey. Um. My last legal job was actually 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.599 with a firm here in the Berkshires, and Um, the 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.120 partner that I was closest with unfortunately died of cancer 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.200 while I was there, and it was it was a 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.360 big moment in my life, and I took that opportunity 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.600 to step away from the law and decided i'd really 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.240 actually rather spend more time outdoors. And I spent the 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.520 next couple of years as a sort of itinerant tradesperson. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.760 I was a carpenter, I did landscaping, I did painting, UM, 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.280 just sort of odd jobs here and there and UM. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.599 But I was growing tired of that. It was getting 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.920 a little tiring, and I certainly wasn't making a lot 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.520 of money. And a friend notified me that there was 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.120 an opening here at the Mount, involved with operations, and 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.200 I applied on the labor day, and too, I think 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.359 I applied on a Friday in two thousand one, in 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:57.680 September and started the following Monday. And I fell in 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.440 love with the property. And I have never look back. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.960 And it's hard to believe that that was nearly twenty 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:07.200 years ago. It's an exceptional story serendipity, though it might 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.560 be in terms of how you got engaged. But I 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.080 think the Mount is very fortunate too, to have such 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:18.320 an exceptional lawyer and committed leader of that beautiful place. 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:24.760 You mentioned at the outset some of Edith's great literary achievements, 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.000 And she wrote so many years ago, and yet her 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.679 books remained so popular today. What do you think that's 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.680 the case and and what does she tell us about 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.480 the wider culture in in terms of her time and 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:43.680 our time. Well, when Wharton was at the peak of 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:48.719 her career, women's rights were arguably expanding, Divorce was becoming 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.720 more common, more women were entering the workforce and um, 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.040 and then of course the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 0:06:55.160 --> 0:07:00.640 nineteen nineteen. And despite all of this scene progress, a 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.800 major theme in Wharton's work is how women's options remain constrictive. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.359 Marriage was often unsatisfactory, and of course women continue to 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.800 be treated unequally. And I would say that is one 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.240 thing that runs throughout her work that continues to resonate today. 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.080 And another big theme was, I would say, the huge 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.920 divide between the enormously wealthy, the one percentagers perhaps, and 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.680 the working class. So I don't think it's hard to 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.320 draw parallels between her time and ours, And I think 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.520 the themes that she addresses in her works continue to 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.600 be themes that we as individuals and as a society 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.640 continued to struggle with. But I think perhaps the principal 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.480 reason she remains popular is because she's just a wonderful writer, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:49.560 and she's got memorable characters, engaging plots, beautiful language, and 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.240 I would say a clean, even muscular writing style. And 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.840 so her work is has has stood the test of time, 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.920 and I think a century from now we will still 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.400 talking about her. It's it's so interesting, and those two 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.920 things that you mentioned are certainly very much with us today. 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:13.080 Um she lived between eighteen sixty two and nineteen thirty seven. 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.760 What was happening then that had a great deal to 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:22.360 say about shaping her and what she eventually would write about. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.520 That's a great question on um. Well, Wharton was born 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.680 into the old money New York society uh or. By 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.200 way of example, on the US Census, her father listed 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.640 his occupation as a gentleman of leisure. So this was 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.840 the world into which she was born. Her family belonged 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:46.240 to a class of people who loved art but distrusted artists, 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.079 and it was also a class that felt themselves under siege, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.640 particularly by the new money class. And because she was 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.960 a bona fide member of this class, she knew it. 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.280 She understood it warts and all. She knew it intimately 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:03.800 and it provided her with terrific material for her writing. UM. 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.839 She was also heavily influenced by European culture as a child. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.240 Edith had spent much of her life in Europe, mainly 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.080 in France, Germany and Italy, and it was there that 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.920 she developed both her gifts for languages, but also a 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.480 deep appreciation for beauty. UH. She loved art, architecture, and literature, 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:27.200 and this is where all of those passions were ignited. UM. 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.760 I would also say that she had an incredible intellectual 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.719 curiosity and that drove her to read just an extraordinary 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.320 range of books, not just literature, but she also was 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:43.120 fascinated by science and philosophy and religion, and her library 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.280 here at the Mount actually includes multiple copies of her 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.480 books by Darwin, whose works and theories were of course 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.360 hotly debated in the day. UM. So those were some 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.280 of the forces in terms of events that shaped your life. 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:00.240 I would say World War One was perhaps the most influential. UM. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.600 From nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen, she wasn't was in France, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:09.120 in Paris, and she devoted herself to creating a complex, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.480 really extensive network with charitable and humanitarian organizations that included 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:20.079 work rooms for the unemployed, convalescent homes for people with berculosis. 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:26.599 She created hospitals for refugees and schools for children and UM. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.600 She also wrote extensively about the war. She was one 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.959 of a handful journalists that was actually allowed to UH 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.440 report from the front lines, and her work was so 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.960 extensive that UM in nineteen sixteen she was actually awarded 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:44.160 the French Legion of loner UM. And I would say 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.599 mentioned one last thing that I would say was a 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.679 big force on her life. UM. During her lifetime, they 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:56.880 were incredible social, economic, and needed technological changes. UM. So 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.920 she went from a horse and buggy era to air travel. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.080 And I would say this progress affected her deeply and 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:06.480 can be seen in her writing. And by the time 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.520 she's in the nineteen twenties, she was actually quite dismayed 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:15.000 at what she saw as the commercialization of popular culture UM. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.200 And she wrote about this in in her novels. So 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.520 in the Children, for example, she makes fun of Hollywood 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.240 in the movie industry. In Hudson Riverbracketed, she she goes 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.720 after the publishing industry and and specifically the Pulitzer Prise. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:32.640 And then in Twilight Sleep, which is one of her 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.679 last novels, she turns her pen scuba modern medicine and 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.439 the wonder pills that were on the wage of the day. 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.280 She was such an interesting and complicated personality. Obviously, I 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.199 wonder listening to your description of her and what shaped her. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.760 It sounds like she could have done any number of things. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.520 Why did she become a writer? Oh? Um? Well, as 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.839 she was born a writer. I think she she had 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:00.880 no choice but to be him a writer. She was 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.360 a born storyteller, so even before she could read, she 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.679 writes her memoir that she would engage in an exercise 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.360 or an activity that she called making up. And so 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.679 you know, at the age of three or four, um 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.240 she would be observed holding a book in her hands 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.960 off an upside down and she would walk back and 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.600 forth and make up and create a story. Um with 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.520 her mother arranged for a play date with um uh 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.160 young friends, she would actually refuse them and insist that 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.000 her mother play with him so that she could she 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:40.079 could continue on making up. So the storytelling piece came 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.199 to her naturally, and I think she was driven right, 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.040 which is not to say that it was easy. Um. 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:52.400 Her family I believe was a little bit in awe 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.920 of the sort of a natural and sort of driven 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.520 nature of Edith to too right, and they ordered her 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.400 as a young girl. In fact, um Wharton's first book, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.319 first published book, was the book of poems that she 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.560 wrote at the age of sixteen, and her mother actually 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.040 undertook the private publication of that. So I think they 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.320 were quite proud of her. But once she was a 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.480 woman of a certain age where the expectations were that 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:26.440 she was to marry and settle down, UM, I would say, 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.320 the tables turned for her, and um, at the age 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.319 of twenty one, she is engaged to a young man. 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.000 The engagement was broken for very complicated reasons, and the 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:42.400 newspapers actually report that the engagement was called off because 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:48.000 Wharton was an ambitious authoress and too intellectual, and that 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.960 was a huge humiliation for her. UM. And as she 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.280 even as she became you know, critically and a critical 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:01.480 and popular success, UM, she was often not taken seriously 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.680 as a writer. She was frequently dismissed as either just 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.680 a pale imitation of Henry James, who was a good friend, 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.840 or as someone who's worked with trivial because they were 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.719 only concerned with the rich. And this was despite her 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.360 having often written stories with working class protagonists. UM. I 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.760 would say at least a third of her works deal 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.480 with people who are not of the of the wealthy class. 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.640 Sounds like some of the criticisms that were lobbed against 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:34.920 her continue in varying ways today against women. That criticism 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:40.040 of being just too intellectual strikes me as one for sure. UM. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.520 And I just love that image that you painted of 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.680 her as a child holding a book upside down, uh, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:52.480 and storytelling as as she's pacing around. So I think 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.720 you're so right. It does sound so much like she 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.360 was born to be a writer. Speaking of her work, 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:05.400 The Age of Innocence celebrated its hundredth anniversary last year. 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.200 What's the story behind that book? For listeners who are 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.920 not familiar with it, The Age of Innocence was written 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.480 in nineteen twenty, after World War One, and um after 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.000 the death of many of Warton's closest friends, including Henry 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:26.200 James and Teddy Roosevelt. UM. And it is set uh, 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.680 not in the twenties, but in the eighteen seventies. And 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.960 it is I would say both um, homage too, and 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.400 a critique of the society that you grew up in. 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.600 Um And it was a book that she didn't want 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.400 to write. Her previous book was a war, a war novel, 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.720 and it had the misfortune of coming out just as 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.480 the war was ending and the public was basically sick 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:54.160 of war stories and um and but she wanted to 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.440 write another one, and her publisher said, no, we need 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:02.240 another sort of House of Mirth, like uh, novel of matters. 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.480 And so she needed money she by that time and 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.360 purchased a couple of houses in France and um and 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:12.280 so she actually penn The House of Mirth in I 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.520 think a little less than a year and um. In 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.000 many ways, I would say it is the most autobiographical novel, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.520 and it involves three major characters. It's kind of a 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.440 love trying the story. There's a gentleman new and Archer, 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:33.320 and then there is the very mysterious and somewhat socially 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.160 disgraced because she's divorced, Countess Elena Lensta. And then there's 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:43.200 Maywell and the sort of perfect product of New York 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:51.360 society woman who knew and is expected to wed and um. Anyway, 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.440 it's a it's it's basically a love story and it 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.280 but again it is in many ways autobiographical. UM. And 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.880 I'll just draw maybe attention to a couple of the 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.200 reasons why I say this. Um. Ellen Olenska is probably 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.800 the most obvious person based on Edith Wharton's character. Ellen 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.160 and Edith were both very comfortable and felt at home 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.120 in Europe Um not just because they grew up there, 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.760 but also because they were both very sophisticated women. They 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.439 were equally at home with fashion and as well as 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.720 part um. Both Ellen Olenska and Edith Wharton had a 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.000 husband who seized their fortune and spent it on the 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.399 mistresses um. In the novel, one of the reasons the 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.000 Lenska has returned to New York is because her husband 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.720 um uh Is has embezzled her money and was also 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.960 not poriously unfaithful. That fits that description also fits edith 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.119 husband Teddy to a te Um. He behaved very badly. 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.920 He embezzled about over fifty thou dollars of the money, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.399 which would be about one and a half million dollars today, 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.800 and speculated poorly in the stock market, and also purchased 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:05.160 the house in Boston. The House of Mistress Um and 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.359 both in the novel and Wharton in real life, Ultimately 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.159 they leave their husbands and live alone in Paris and 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:16.639 apartments where Um the pass a mare, and they both 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.800 entertain a steady stream of frenchise society. So there are 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.879 very many similarities between Wharton and Eleanor Leinska. But there 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.400 are also similarities between Wharton and Newland Archer, and Newland 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.080 represents who Warton might have been had she remained in 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:36.119 New York and not escaped all of the bonds and 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.320 shackles of the expectations that her class put upon her. 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:46.240 Um the young Newland Archer and Edith are both undeniably similar. 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.639 They both are very much a part of society. They 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.959 attend the opera, they go with dinners and balls, They 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:55.120 participate in all the activities of old New York um Um. 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.639 And despite these useful represemblances, their adult lives take very 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.600 different has. By the end of the novel, knew in 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.760 this fifty seven, and that's the same age Wharton was 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.080 when she was writing it. And this new one is 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.119 very different from from Wharton. The office, Uh, he is 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:16.080 no longer friends with writers, He no longer is dreaming 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.720 of making art and intellectual conversation central to his life. Uh. Instead, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.359 just like everyone else in his social circle, he is 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.600 governed by convention in the following tradition, and in the 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.159 last pages of the novel, as he reflects back on 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.320 his life, he realizes that he is sunk deep into 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:38.400 a rut. And Wharton, on the other hand, avoided all 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.000 of these ruts because her insatiable curiosity never left her 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.439 and um and chief at the end of her life 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.680 is in Paris and in the south of France, where 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:52.679 artists and literature and clever conversation are just a steady 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.880 diet in her life. And this is probably more information 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:58.480 than you want, but I did want to spend a 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.840 little moment on May. Uh the betrothed to Newland, and 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:08.000 May is the woman that high society included including Wharton's husband, 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.040 probably expected and wanted wanted Warton to be. And while 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.080 for many years he was able to pull off the 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.720 dual role dual role of dutiful wife and bestselling author, 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.480 eventually it became too much for her and she abandons 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.399 her wifely duties and leaves Teddy and ultimately divorces him. 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.240 So the age of Innocence, I think, is a novel 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.040 that can be read many times, and each time you 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.359 read it you'll get something different. And one of the 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.800 I think most brilliant aspects of the novel is that 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.399 it is written from the perspective of the male Newland archer. 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.600 And as you read the novel, perhaps the first time 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:47.560 you read it you don't realize it, but certainly on 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.280 the second and third reading, you realize that he is 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:55.680 a completely unreliable narrator and um and you can't at 0:20:55.760 --> 0:21:00.440 one he he is misinterpreting signs and clues that that 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.200 come before him as the plot unfolds, and in many 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.760 ways is completely clueless. And the women in the story 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.160 who are portrayed on the first reads perhaps lesser characters, 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.359 are actually the brilliant ones. Well, speaking of brilliant, Susan, 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.480 I feel like you're brilliant, professor of literature with that 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:25.360 extraordinary answer, and it is enough. I think UH listeners 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.840 will agree to have us all go out and pick 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.240 up The Age of Innocence and read it, either for 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.240 the first time or for the second or third time. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:39.440 As you pointed out, senecas one hundred women to hear 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:52.600 will be back after the short break. Let's talk about 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.720 the mount a little bit where you spend so much 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:00.480 of your time. Warton designed and built it in nineteen 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.479 o two for people who haven't been there, and I 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.679 have recently been there for the second time, and it 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:11.720 is just a beautiful and remarkable place. Tell us how 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.679 she made it happen, how it reflects who she is, because, 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.840 just speaking for myself, when you walk through that front door, 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.959 you walk into a world onto itself in terms of 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:28.440 its beauty and everything it represents about her. She came 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.960 to the Virture's Um. This is probably one good thing 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.080 that her husband Teddy did, is Teddy's family actually summered 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.760 in the Berkshire's and that is how she came to 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:43.840 to know to know the Berkshire's um. Wharton's family watering 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.200 their their their summer place was in Newport. And while 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.639 Wharton loved Newport as a child when she was free 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.639 to play tennis or swim, or sale or ride, once 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.840 she was a young married woman uh the again, the 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:03.320 expectations of entertainment, either being entertained or to entertained proved 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.920 too great for her and um and she was all 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:09.679 of her time that she had hoped to devote to writing, 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.280 was taken up with societal duties, and so in nineteen 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.480 o one she and Teddy decide to leave Newport and 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:21.600 Wharton comes to the Berkshire's Uh they find a beautiful 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:28.320 one acre property which had been previously farmland, and they 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:32.080 purchase it. We've got a wonderful photograph, the historic photograph 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:36.000 of Petty and Edith, and they were both huge dog lovers, 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:38.119 and they're like three little dogs, and they're all standing 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.520 on this rocky mound, pointing as if this is they're 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.119 they're they're telling the person who's taking the photograph, this 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:46.480 is the place, this is what where we are going 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:50.640 to build our home and UM. Wharton had a huge 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:54.800 interest in both architecture and landscape design, and so she 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:59.720 was involved heavily in every aspect of the construction of 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.879 the State and Um. She intended that it would be 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:05.080 a home that would meet all of her needs, both 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.440 as a designer, as a gardener, as a hostess, and 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.400 most importantly as a writer. So one of the most 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:15.080 distinguishing features of the mount there are there are a few. 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:19.120 One is that it is built far far away from 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:21.879 the roads. It's not even visible from any of the 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:25.159 main highways or arteries, and that's because she really wanted 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:27.560 it to be a retreat. It was not built to 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.399 be a symbol of her wealth, though at that point 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:33.800 she was a very successful writer and her wealth was considerable. 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:36.720 It was meant to be a place where she could 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:40.000 retire from society, should she choose. It was also it's 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.320 also a very it's a very beautiful and elegant house, 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.280 but in terms of the number of people that it 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:49.919 will accommodate, it's actually quite small. The dining room is 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:54.840 designed to seat six, and there are only two guest bedrooms. 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:59.040 And so it was again it's primary purpose was to 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:03.320 entertain at most your most intimate friends, and then also 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:06.159 to give her a place where she could create. Um. 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:10.120 She was very proud of the mount Um. She there's 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:14.399 a nineteen o nineteen o six letter that she writes 0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:19.040 to her lover Morton Fullerton, where she actually says, and 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:21.960 I know this line my heart, but quote decidedly, I'm 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:25.960 a better landscape gardener than novelist. And this place, every 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:29.040 line of which is my own work, far surpasses the 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:33.720 House of Mirth. And just to put that in context, 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:38.119 the House of Mirth was the runaway bestseller of nineteen 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.720 o five. It was published I think in October, and 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:46.240