Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton, 1911
People say this is Edith’s best novel?? Have people read The Age of Innocence? I did [years ago] and this does not compare!
The novella felt like a snippet of what’s intended to be a much larger novel. Like all depth connected to the characters was in an earlier part.
The novella begins with a narrator—whom I interestingly couldn’t decipher whether they were male or female—intrigued by a cold, unapproachable, 50 something year old Ethan who he often sees in town. The rest of the novella is then Ethan’s backstory, intended to explain why he appears cold and unapproachable, until the very end when we’re back in the present and Ethan is still appearing cold and unapproachable! There is no character arc, and truthfully, I don’t sympathize with a man in his 50s who’s become bitter to the world after having his heart broken at 28! When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, no? Has he never heard that idiom? Also, his heart was never broken, he’s just a wuss. But we’ll get to that.
Mattie—the other main character and his love interest—was a likable character through most of the novel until we’re shown her in the present day as, again, bitter and cold! You can not tell me that after her accident she lost all her kindness and heart. I will not believe anything—even paralyzation—could do that to a person. I do enjoy that she’s a feminine character with a masculine name, but that’s about all the props I can give her.
So, to explain myself here, we have Ethan Frome, who’s married to Zeena Frome, a sickly woman who I’d say is more a hypochondriac than anything else. She’s Ethan’s older cousin (by 8 years) who he latched onto while she nursed his dying mother a few years prior. Zeena is a controlling and rude woman, so, naturally, we don’t blame Ethan for falling in love with her sweet cousin Mattie, who’s a few years younger than Ethan. Mattie comes to work as a maidservant for Zeena, though it’s no secret the girl has no domestic ability. Zeena is unhappy with Mattie’s work, and even Ethan has to continue to clean up after the ladies go to sleep so that Zeena thinks she’s at least finished half a job.
Mattie is Zeena’s complete opposite—she’s generous and kind and light to be around, and she’s a friendly lady who enjoys spending nights in sociable society. We’re introduced to Mattie in chapter two, as Ethan watches her through a nightclub window on a snowy night—this scene is probably the most atmospherically beautiful of the entire novella, so I’ll admit it started on a positive note.
Ethan waiting for her outside the nightclub to walk her home at midnight is their common routine, and during the commute home is how the two are able to spend enough time together to fall in love. Of course it’s quite undiplomatic to fall in love with your sick wife’s young cousin, so the two spend time at home sorta just hyper-sensing one another’s presence and sharing accidental glances at one another without ever admitting their mutual feelings.
On one night when Zeena sleeps over her Aunt’s to see a new doctor, Ethan is overjoyed by the thought of spending a night alone at home with Mattie—only to roleplay the domesticity of man and wife sewing by the fire and asking about each other’s days, yada yada. Mattie, unexplainably, sets the table with a china dish that Zeena has warned on multiple times never to use. Zeena doesn’t even use it herself, the thing is so precious to her! She keeps it out of reach, on the top shelf of the china cabinet which Mattie has to stand on a chair to retrieve. Welp, Mattie retrieves it—for a dinner between her and ZEENA’S husband—and the thing breaks! (I’m sorta glad it did?) Then Mattie cries about how awful it is that she did this. Yeah, girl, why would you do that?
Ethan puts it back in its place where, without looking at it, it doesn’t look broken, and he sternly tells Mattie it’s okay he’ll fix it, which Mattie trusts and then they drop the subject and continue their calm, peaceful night by the fire. This happens on a few occasions, where Ethan will become stern with her and she’ll acquiesce and it’ll be noted that he enjoyed the feeling of dominance. It’s clear it’s supposed to be sweet, but it sort of creeps me out.
When Zeena returns, she says the doctor says she’s super sick (we expected this) and has recommended a live-in nurse that she’s already hired, arriving tomorrow. This means Mattie’s gotta go. Zeena isn’t so kind about it either—she in fact does notice the broken dish and claims that she was warned about Mattie who leeches off others and steals. Mattie, the perpetual victim, is only sorry and thankful for her stay. After this argument, Ethan has to talk himself out of the sick decision to steal money from his neighbors and run away with Mattie.
The next day, Ethan decides he will drive Mattie off rather than the scheduled driver. On their drive, they pass a place the two of them hung out at once, and she tells him his eyes were so sharp. He tells her she looked pretty. Bam. It’s admitted. They’re in love.
They decide to go sledding, and, I’ll admit, this scene was pretty cool and unexpected. Ethan aims for an elm tree. The writing is so cavalier and casual that it took me a few rereads to figure out what was actually happening. And then I realized, well, why is he aiming for a tree? Then the sensory imagery becomes incredible, and the narrator notes that Ethan hears an animal whining and thinks it must be in pain, so much pain that it’s as if he can feel it himself. And then we realize what’s going on—he had intended a double suicide for he and Mattie since they can’t be together.
Unfortunately, they both survive. We’re then brought back into the present, again through the narrator’s perspective, where they stay the night at the Frome’s house because of a snow storm outside. Now, around 25 years later, a paralyzed Mattie lives with Ethan and Zeena, having had nowhere else to go after the accident. All three of the characters are, as I’ve mentioned, bitter, cold, and unapproachable. They live in a cloud of misery. This is what I don’t understand—Ethan and Mattie both got what they wanted! They are now together forever! And, if Zeena really is such a cock-block, why couldn’t Ethan just man-up and tell her he wants a divorce? Why are they stuck in this shitty scenario? Why couldn’t they make the best of it?
If Edith Wharton weren’t a great writer, I swear this novella sucked. 2.8/5 (I had to be specific here because it’s really not quite a 3 in my book but a 2.5 felt low).
Quotes:
Against the white background of snow, under his helmet-like cap, his seamed face looked like that of an ancient hero.
Even in his unhappiest moments, field and sky aroused deep emotion in him. Previously this emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, a sadness that veiled the beauty that evoked it.
As Ethan stood in the darkness outside the church, these memories returned with the poignancy of vanished things.
They stood together in the gloom of the spruces. Wide and gray under the stars, an empty world glimmered around them.
