#14 The Reef by Edith Wharton

How do I love Edith Wharton? Let me count the ways:
1) The Age of Innocence
2) Old New York
3) Ethan Frome
4) Summer
5) The Reef

So I've decided that I now need to read everything ever written by this woman. The Reef is awesome. I can't help but feel sorry for her characters, even thought I know that Wharton is writing satire. They make life so fucking complicated for themselves by following social niceties, which are ridiculous by the way, instead of doing what they actually want to do. The on-again-off-again marriage thing drove me nuts. I just wanted Ann to once and for all make up her mind. After I finished it, I gave it some more thought. How would I feel if the person I was almost engaged to cheated on me? Probably pretty crappy. As far as I know, no one's ever done that and I don't know how I would react if that did happen. I don't know if I would be able to forgive someone for betraying my trust. Come to think of it, Darrow is a jerk, to Ann and to Sophy, and Ann deserves much better, so does Sophy. I hope that they didn't get married that Sophy wakes up, and that Ann finds someone much better. They wouldn't be very likely though.

I read that Wharton considered this book to be her most autobiographical and that she identified the most with Darrow. Yikes! I know that she had a sucky marriage and got divorced in 1913, I think, which was pretty modern of her. She was brillant and I highly reccommend that if you hadn't read Age of Innocence, yet that you do, as well as everything else she ever wrote.