Book Review: The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

This book has more than a little in common with "Gone With the Wind," and I can only imagine that Margaret Mitchell had Undine Spragg, that bitch of bitches in mind when she put pen to paper to invent Scarlett O'Hara.

They both are married, I believe, four times (always for social gain and wealth, of course). They both are terrible mothers who couldn't even begin to pretend to care about their children except when it's convenient to look as if they do. They are both relentlessly vapid, though Scarlett seems to win out in the brains category-- Margaret at least insisted on giving her a good head for figures and cash stacking, while poor Undine just keeps ordering up shit from the dress makers, never once considering how much something costs.

Scarlett, again, wins out in that, by novel's end, she's learned what family and land (and that weird European combination) mean, while again, little Undine has her second husband's family jewels reset in the latest style and buys out her third husband's family heirloom tapestries out from under him with her fourth husband's inexhaustible source of funds. And she's STILL not happy.

There lies one of the main plot differences (I'm not going to get into deeper differences for the truly scathing social commentary that Wharton is making is far too heavy for a motherfucking blog, my friends). Scarlett ultimately redeems herself, as far as I can tell. While neither seem to know true love, Scarlett has found her home in the end-- the story ends on a note of hope. Undine is left desiring the one thing she cannot have-- the title of Ambassador's wife of all things!! She has ultimately realized that her husband(s) are as bored of her as she is of them-- because she's so goddamned boring!! Her husbands, all of them, are, in their ways, quite interesting ans intelligent.

So what am I to make of this? Does Edith Wharton just hate women?

Would that it were so simple. She seems to state again and again in her books, that women are (here she does it through the long speech given by Bowen) merely ornamental-- given no function, taught nothing. Undine is boring sure, but its implied over and over how smart she is-- she is after all, the most scheming women ever to hit the page! But she can't "focus" or organize her thoughts. She is just a spoiled brat, truth be told-- a woman with no function. Poor thing.

My take? One of the greatest books ever.