The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
read: 2011
Modern Library #58, Guardian 1000 Novels, Pulitzer Prize

Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of my favorite bloggers, and in the glow of finishing The Age of Innocence, he wrote:

I generally try to avoid honorifics like 'best novel ever' or 'greatest American novel' and so on. But Age of Innocence really is quite incredible, and, at the moment, I consider it the best novel I've ever read.  

Of course, I had to give the book a shot after that.  And after finishing the novel, my immediate reaction was, "holy crap, he's right."  What follows are some reasons why.

1) It's perfectly constructed.  Age of Innocence is a tight story narratively.  It doesn't seem like anyone could change a word in the last half of the book.  It's not exactly a plot-driven book, but the twists and turns of the narrative all ring true.  Everything proceeds the way it has to.  I made the point before that I love novels that leave some pieces missing or unresolved, and while The Age of Innocence doesn't leave any questions unanswered, it still lingers due to the emotional impact of the work.  The last 100 pages especially are wrenching, devastating even, chapter after chapter, page after page, sentence after sentence.  And the epilogue is pitch-perfect, full of hope and optimism, but in a way that renders the rest of the novel all the more tragic.

2) The conflict.  William Faulkner once said that "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself ... alone can make good writing."  If someone asked for a definition of "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself," you could hand them this novel.  There are no good guys and bad guys; there is no life-and-death struggle.  What's at stake in The Age of Innocence is not survival or victory, but how much we're willing to sacrifice to be happy, whether one can sacrifice that happiness, what duty and honor and love truly mean, and the choices we make in our lives that bind us.  In short, it's about the human experience and the things that make it matter.

3) The context.  I've complained about some other works that it was hard for me to appreciate their context.  I certainly didn't go into reading The Age of Innocence with a profound knowledge of aristocratic society in New York in the late 19th century.  But even though that setting was critical to the events of the novel, I did not feel my ignorance left me with a disadvantage.  On the contrary, the notes Wharton hit were so universal that through my emotional connection to the characters and their situation, I was able to understand that society so much better.  The oaken strengths and the crushing limitations, the loyalty and the brutality, all of it unfolded vividly during the novel.

The best novel I've ever read?  I couldn't argue against it.