The Fruit of the Tree Edith Wharton 9781374935150 Books
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The Fruit of the Tree Edith Wharton 9781374935150 Books
I cannot comment on this particular edition of the novel, but the novel itself is highly underrated. I believe it to be one of Wharton's best. Not only does she deal with the usual absurdities of Old New York society and its vapid "irresponsible pleasure-seekers," but she takes on unethical businessmen who exploit their workers and treat them like scum. And at the heart of the novel is a moral dilemma of immense proportions as the strongest female character in the novel, a nurse -- and one of her best characters -- struggles with the decision to give her patient (and friend)an overdose of morphine to relieve her of unbearable pain. In the meantime, a young, ambitious doctor catches her in the act of overdosing the patient and proceeds to blackmail her from thence forward -- until the "truth comes out" about the event in the end. It is a complex plot, but deftly handled and an exhibition of Wharton's extraordinary literary skills.Wharton is not as deep as, say, George Eliot. But she is exceptionally observant, immensely skilled as a writer, and deeply concerned with serious social and moral issues. She is clearly one of the greatest novelists to have set pen to paper, male or female, and this is one of her best novels -- if not the best.
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The Fruit of the Tree Edith Wharton 9781374935150 Books Reviews
I am on a Wharton rampage at the moment, tearing through less-known works that I had never even heard of until recently. As far as I know, this is the only one of her novels that deals head-on with industrial labor-management problems. It concerns a factory in a depressing small town the oppressive conditions of its workers, the unjust wealth and ease it creates for its owners and their hanger-ons, and what happens when a determined reformer sets out to change the way the factory is run. Wharton portrays these issues through the story of the reformer's troubled relationships with two women, the rich young widow who owns the mills and a nurse, a childhood friend of the widow's who must now earn her way in the world. The nurse is the novel's real protagonist.
Unlike other writers who tackle class conflicts, e.g., Balzac or Eliot, Wharton makes the sketchiest possible effort to depict the workers themselves. She sticks to the milieu she knows, the world of upper-class drawing rooms, although as usual she reveals them to be full of secret social and economic tensions. Unfortunately, Wharton's distance from her chosen subject-matter--we are not even told what the factory and mills produce (some kind of cloth, apparently, as there is talk of carding-machines)--distances the reader from it as well. We learn much more about the thwarted desires of the do-gooder than about the desires of the human beings whom he proposes to help. As a result, both his motives and his plans are rather suspect in a way that I am not sure Wharton intended. The novel itself becomes abstract and dull and the characters don't come to life. I found myself feeling sympathetic toward those who resist the reformer, especially his first wife (the widow), whom he expects to hand him her mills and money to manage, to reduce her lifestyle, to rent out one of her properties, etc.
The marriage fails almost as soon as it begins along with the reformer's plans. Wharton then has to devise a way for the reformer to achieve his goals while also finding him a more suitable helpmeet. Wharton does not like divorce, so the wife must die. This plot requirement leads to the only really interesting part of the book. Previous reviewers have already explained how Wharton pulls the plot off. I will just add that the last part of the book unexpectedly rises nearly to the level of Wharton's great novels as we follow the twists and turns of the heroine's moral life as she slowly, agonizingly comes to terms with the repercussions of a well-intentioned but unlawful act of mercy. But the reformer, now her husband, finally achieves his dreams without having to undergo a comparable moral awakening. The book ends, like so many Wharton novels, on a chilling note of female suffering and injustice. Read it for the last section.
Excellent. Agonising over ethics. Issues still topical today. Great dialogue. Marvellous view of the merging role of the working woman.
good
the print is way too small in this book
This is one of Wharton's most challenging novels. Clearly she was trying to make a social statement with this work, but like her other gritty work, it comes off a bit staged as her life played out in the highest society of New York, Paris, and the English countryside. The story stays with me well after reading it though, with a haunting view of weighty topics like workers rites, assisted suicide, inheritance, and infidelity. In my attempt to try to read all Wharton, I'm very glad that I read this. But I would never point to it as something others should read for fun or even for social commentary.
I cannot comment on this particular edition of the novel, but the novel itself is highly underrated. I believe it to be one of Wharton's best. Not only does she deal with the usual absurdities of Old New York society and its vapid "irresponsible pleasure-seekers," but she takes on unethical businessmen who exploit their workers and treat them like scum. And at the heart of the novel is a moral dilemma of immense proportions as the strongest female character in the novel, a nurse -- and one of her best characters -- struggles with the decision to give her patient (and friend)an overdose of morphine to relieve her of unbearable pain. In the meantime, a young, ambitious doctor catches her in the act of overdosing the patient and proceeds to blackmail her from thence forward -- until the "truth comes out" about the event in the end. It is a complex plot, but deftly handled and an exhibition of Wharton's extraordinary literary skills.
Wharton is not as deep as, say, George Eliot. But she is exceptionally observant, immensely skilled as a writer, and deeply concerned with serious social and moral issues. She is clearly one of the greatest novelists to have set pen to paper, male or female, and this is one of her best novels -- if not the best.
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