Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our December 2022 group read of...


The Custom of the Country

by

Edith Wharton


Please feel free to comment anytime before or after December 2022


Considered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton's epic work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might be called the interior décor of this America and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she is irresistibly fascinating, and through a most intricate and satisfying plot that follows Undine's marriages and affairs, she conveys a vision of social behavior that is both supremely informed and supremely disenchanted. - Anita Brookner

What a great name Undine Spragg is! You imagine it as the original name of an actress who long since changed her name to something far more mundane.

Ha, there's a reason for her name as you'll find when you read the book!

Looking forward to it, RC. Have ordered the deluxe version, whatever that means!

Wonderful, memorable novel will follow your discussion with interest!

Looking forward to reading my first Wharton! Is this book representative of her work?

Debra wrote: "Looking forward to reading my first Wharton! Is this book representative of her work?"

It's a while since I've read it so you're likely to get a more nuanced reply from someone who has. However, from my perspective, in terms of themes, settings etc it has a lot in common with novels like The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, but the level of cultural/social commentary is superior and more sophisticated, as well as Wharton's take on issues around gender, class and identity.

Or, in other words, yes but from my point of view it's by far her best, most memorable novel!

Wonderful! I can’t wait to dig in.

I also think it's typical stylistically but is perhaps a bit less nuanced than Mirth or Innocence. I gave it 5-stars and am delighted to reread it with you lovely people :)

Thought people might find this interesting

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...

I’ve now read through Book 1 of The Custom of the Country and am intrigued by both the similarities and differences with my last Wharton group read, the earlier novel House of Mirth(1905). Like the latter, our protagonist is a young woman seeking a suitable husband in Gilded Age Manhattan. As with Mirth’s Lily Bart character, from the first page, we are told and retold that Undine Spragg is a uniquely radiant, beautiful, exquisite apparition.

We meet the spoiled Undine two years after she has dragged her parents from the Midwest to a West 72nd Street luxe hotel, there to mount her campaign to somehow win invitations to meet young men from the city’s old-money Europhile aristocracy.

So far I am finding the portrayal of the Spraggs a bit more cartoonish and negative than Lily Bart. For all her narcissism, she was older, orphaned and more desperate than Undine. Undine’s faults are made especially glaring once she dines at Laura Fairford’s (where she meets Laura’s brother Ralph Marvell) , and the charming, bookish personality of her hostess is contrasted painfully with Undine’s ignorance and lack of interest in arts and letters.

But, despite caring little about selfish, ambitious Undine or her fate, there are enough doomy hints of future twists and turns (likely involving mysterious figures like Elmer Moffatt and Charles Bowen) to keep me reading.

The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth are my favorites from Edith Wharton. She didn't write about easy or comfortable situations.

I had read this more than 10 years ago. Even knowing that Wharton did not write light and fluffy novels, I hated Undine. I read part of the beginning and then had skipped ahead to the last 10 percent. That had me intrigued enough to read a lot more of the middle sections. It's a great novel for analysis but I couldn't overcome my aversion to her to focus on this novel.

Undine is a particularly unlikable character! Her ignorance, selfishness, lack of self-knowledge, lack of growth, not to mention the destruction she wreaks on her parents, her first husband and her son. Her one semi-admirable character trait is her ability to survive and ultimately thrive -- but then so does #45 (won't use his name).

I did like Wharton's portrayal of the fading power of old New York society and the contrast she draws between the workings of the elites in New York, provincial America, Paris and provincial France.

Undine is, of course, meant to be unlikeable - and I see her as quite unlike Lily Bart who is torn between what she knows she ought to do and what she can bring herself to do.

Undine is, I'd say, the product of a society putting capitalism, materialism and consumerism first. She has no inner resources, no heart, no soul. She just wants - but no amount of money or things can satisfy her or assuage her hunger. And she doesn't understand why. In that sense she's a little pitiable.

I think this is Wharton's most damning indictment of how she sees America - it's cruder and less subtle than Mirth or Innocence, more one note. But powerful and not without a sense of satirical humour.

Undine today would be a reality TV 'star' and social influencer.

I started this one, but I have to admit that I have stalled a bit. I will try Audible and see if that works. I really enjoyed the previous Wharton, but I wonder if I am just not in the mood? In other words, it's not the book, it's me.

Sorry, I have decided me and the book are not working and I'm giving up on this one for now.

That's wise, Susan - I never understand when I see reviews from people who are not getting on with a book yet slog through it anyway. Move on and, as you say, you may come back to this.

Thanks, RC. I am sure I will try it again, when I am in the mood.

I think Undine today would be Melania Trump.

Ben wrote: "I think Undine today would be Melania Trump."

Ha!

At least Melania seems to have found her equivalent in a husband - part of Undine's problem is that she chooses good men whose values she can't share.

Undine does seem to have her best match in Elmer Moffat, but even he seems to have inner resources that give him a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, notwithstanding the limitations of a life building a fortune and spending it on collecting houses, art and other material things.

Although it's tempting to attribute the difference in the two of them to that era's exclusion of women from any role in business, I don't see Undine as having the focus to succeed in that area; she gets bored too quickly. I don't think she would have been a successful Kardashian. Perhaps more of a Katie Price.

What was Wharton thinking in creating such a sad, empty character? (Other than that it was fun and sold well!). I guess I see her as simply an unguided missile, a destructive force who blows up most of the people around her.

Much like what in legal terms used to be called an "attractive nuisance", the classic example in law school being case in which a clear pool of acidic wastewater draws people to trespass onto a property for a swim, and then injures or kills them. I suppose attractive people can be much the same!

And aren't there intimations that Elmer also sees through to Undine's inner emptiness, especially that sense that she feels nothing for her son with whom Elmer seeks to bond? I wonder what will happen when Undine loses her looks and Elmer's romantic vision fades?

Elmer also seems to take genuine aesthetic pleasure from the art he collects, something which Undine is incapable of understanding.

I thought at first that Wharton was, again, protesting at women's lack of education in any systematic way but Undine goes way beyond that. Her abandonment of her parents, for example, is shocking. She has clearly been spoiled to not just expect everything she wants but to put a precise value on people: once that expires, they are, literally, worth nothing to her.

I think it's clever how Wharton portrays Undine's inner puzzlement - she just can't understand why she's so beautiful and yet can't find satisfaction. Those are the terms on which her world has been built.

It's interesting to compare the women in Wharton's three most popular books, as you say in your review, Ben:

Undine is nouveaux riche (not sure if that was a term used in America at the time) with Undine fighting to claim her 'rightful' place. Hilarious that her name comes from the curling tongs her father sold!

May Welland is 'old' New York and uses the invisible reins of power to bind Newland Archer to her will.

Lily Bart has 'old' New York antecedents but is also rebelling against the values being inculcated.

It's Wharton's attention to gender, money and society that make her such a compelling writer for me.

For me, what is key to Undine is that she is missing a number of qualities that are essential for human society, empathy, regard for others and purpose. She has surface beauty but no soul. And she is entirely unable to understand those qualities in others.

And yet while her husbands perceive that and are disappointed and discontent, none of them see that as cause for divorce. (Statements about the shallowness of men will not be accepted as explanations. 😉)

It's interesting that Wharton placed such a character in a novel that examines different social systems, showing how an empty vessel like Undine navigates through these systems without ever comprehending their inner workings.

She is so different from Lily Bart, who yearns for social and economic success, but whose inner qualities stop her from making the wealthy match that Undine would have accepted without a second thought.

I suspect May Welland is as empty as Undine, but we see little of her inner life, and she is sufficiently embedded in society that it works to protect her. Undine has to make her own way.

Yes, I agree with everything you say, Ben.

I was quite surprised that Undine's reputation didn't scupper her chances with any of her husbands (4 marriages, 3 husbands, 1 engagement, at least one long pursuit to turn her into a mistress) - and none of her husbands is shallow.

Even her treatment of her parents and son would have been the subject of society gossip, I'd expect. Yet none of this holds her back - which is one of the reasons why she has no need to modify or even contemplate her behaviour - the social feedback doesn't seem to be negative.

On the theme of ambition, Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame, found Undine inspirational:

'In Undine Spragg, Wharton has created an anti-heroine absolutely in the same rank as Becky Sharp, Scarlett O'Hara, or Lizzie Eustace. Undine has no values except ambition, greed and desire, and yet through the miracle of Wharton's writing, you are on her side.'

I find this a spectacular misreading and don't think that Wharton makes us on Undine's side at all. The most I can get to is a sense of pity that her life is so limited. And then I remember the way she treats her father and even the pity dissipates.

I agree. I wasn't on her side at all. There was a moment when she had abandoned Ralph, she had no significant money coming from her parents and the New York society travellers had lost interest in her I thought there was a glimmer of hope she would gain some self-knowledge and humanity.

In Chapter 24,

Undine was trembling with one of her little-girl rages, the storms of destructive fury before which Mr. and Mrs. Spragg had cowered when she was a charming golden-curled cherub. But life had administered some of the discipline which her parents had spared her, and she pulled herself together with a gasp of pain. "Of course he's been turned against me. His wife has the whole of New York behind her, and I've no one; but I know it would be all right if I could only see him."

But in the next chapter, it's clear that she is not deepened by the adversity, just more determined to regain what she had lost.

Undine Marvell, for the next few months, tasted all the accumulated bitterness of failure. * * * Undine felt herself as stranded and baffled as after the ineffectual summers of her girlhood. * * * She lacked the adventurous curiosity which seeks its occasion in the unknown; and though she could work doggedly for a given object the obstacles to be overcome had to be as distinct as the prize. Her one desire was to get back an equivalent of the precise value she had lost in ceasing to be Ralph Marvell's wife.

As for her reputation, it seems unkindness doesn't make her radioactive, so long as it isn't scandal.

It is interesting though that Peter van Degen does abandon her because, seeing how she treated Ralph, he realises she would do the same to him.

Just finished The Custom of the Country, with mixed feelings. As much as I love Wharton’s prose style and insight into Gilded Age New York and Paris, devoting so much of a book to a hollow, narcissistic anti-heroine is not without risk. Chapter after chapter on Undine’s self-centered social climbing and her neglect of both her only child and of financial common sense quickly became tiring and repetitive. Throughout most of the book we are trapped with her inside an upper-class bubble where Undine’s ambitions are rewarded. The only distinctions that matter are between cultured old-money characters and crass new money strivers. The author certainly paints a damning picture of her behavior and its impacts on others. But those like Lily Bart who fall across the class divide into the swollen ranks of the working poor are invisible here. For my full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I got behind in my reading, and will be starting this one tomorrow!

I tried to read this decades ago, and abandoned it due to frustration with Undine. I'm hoping I have more patience this go round--I certainly have increased respect for Wharton, and want to hang in there and try to see what she's doing with this story. Must say I'm approaching this as a challenge though. :-)

Kathleen wrote: "... and try to see what she's doing with this story"

I think that's key, Kathleen. This isn't a book where we like the heroine or want to cheer her on, it's much more of a personal and social indictment.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Roman Clodia wrote: "I think that's key, Kathleen. This isn't a book where we like the heroine or want to cheer her on, it's much more of a personal and social indictment..."

And an examination of how she makes her place in different social and cultural systems.

I've finished, and agree the point of this was social indictment.

Like Ben and RC said, I was never on Undine’s side. I didn’t mind disliking her, but I did mind her extremely boring existence. I wanted to hear more about the other characters, but Wharton kept coming back to Undine and her boring desires. Because of that, like Greg, I found it terribly tedious, and it took me a long time to get through this book. But I’m very glad I did.

I think it was clearly her beauty that kept her from being ostracized. We’ve probably all known people who amazingly get by on this trait alone.

Can the soul Ben mentions be taught? That’s the question, for me. If Undine was less spoiled and her upbringing included exposure to something other than Mrs. Heeny’s clippings, would her soul have stood a better chance?

Kathleen wrote: "Can the soul Ben mentions be taught? That’s the question, for me."

'Soul' is a slippery term, isn't it, and can have different meanings for all of us. But she doesn't even have 'heart' in that she doesn't love her parents or her son. She's so narcissistic that she can't learn anything from anyone.

An odd comparison but there's a similar character in a very different genre: Agatha Christie's Jane Wilkinson in Lord Edgware Dies. She's a beautiful American actress who is also marrying her way through society. I don't want to mention the clue which reveals all to Poirot but it's exactly the sort of thing that we could imagine Undine saying!

Roman Clodia wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Can the soul Ben mentions be taught? That’s the question, for me."

'Soul' is a slippery term, isn't it, and can have different meanings for all of us. But she doesn't even have 'h..."

RC, I agree that there was no hope for Undine by the time we met her. I just think possibly, if she was steered in another direction when she was younger, things might have been different.

What a fun connection--I will have to try that Christie.