Monday, February 17, 2014

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

This is the next one in the book club I have yet to attend and I finished it!





I chose a Librivox audiobook for this even though I had the actual book because I needed to keep knitting! The version I downloaded was 4 hours and done quite well (version 2).

I am unsure what to say about this one. I am unsure that I really like Wharton's books. I keep listening and reading because there is something about the story that gets me, but in the end, I wonder why I did. Ethan is a not very old man (52, I believe) when an outsider to the town meets him. He was crippled in an accident and we get the whole sad story. Sad. Depressing story. With a sledding accident.

At the time, Frome is about 28 and his wife's cousin comes to live with them because she has no one else. His wife, Zeena, is quite the woman. Suspicious and a hypochondriac. Mattie, her cousin, is young and pretty and she and Ethan take a liking to each other.

I suppose I could have thought this book would be hopeful. I suppose they could have went off and lived happily ever after. But a miserable existence was in their cards. And what a miserable one it is.

I need an uplifting book to read now.

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