Before our recent trip to St. Augustine, Florida, America’s oldest city, I searched for historical fiction set there. One of my favorite books of all time kept coming up:
The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton
It has been several years since I first read this (in my early 20s?) so I was happy to have an excuse for a re-read.
I forgot my hard copy but was able to download on Libby, which is tied to my local library. If you aren’t using this app, check it out!
This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t read this book, please do and come back to my post later!
I didn’t remember how St. Augustine came into play; the book is famously being set in “old New York.”
May’s family vacations there every winter. And Newland follows May to St. Augustine to beg her to speed up the marriage even though it is questionable that’s what he really wants. Not much detail about St. Augustine is provided.
I still loved the book, but I was likely a different reader than in my 20s when I likely thought it a tragedy that Newland and the Countess couldn’t/didn’t end up together.
Reading now, I can be more logical and less romantic about the whole situation: Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out anyhow. Maybe she would have left him eventually or vice versa. And as it is, they are left with the beautiful memory and obviously full lives.
This more mature reading didn’t make it any less excruciating.
What I had no time for (can’t remember what I thought of this before) is the whose-who and all the family trees and social standing of New York. I couldn’t keep it all straight and skimmed some of these parts.
What I can write with confidence is that the ending scene where he stays on the bench is still one of my favorite in all of literature.
“It is more real to me here than if I went up.”
And without this torture perhaps I wouldn’t be re-reading this story because it would be like too many others.