She was named Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1916, in recognition of her commitment to her adopted homeland and her assistance to refugees during the war. Buried in Versailles, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) spent half of her life in France, between the Paris region and the Côte d’Azur. But with us, the writer too often remains confined to the austere Ethan Frome. A masterpiece certainly, but atypical: it is one of his rare books located far from the upscale neighborhoods of Manhattan. Let us therefore thank the Quarto collection at Gallimard for publishing a magnificent volume bringing together three major novels and short stories which all have New York as their main setting. Furthermore, The House of Mirth, his first big success, not only benefits from a new translation by Marc Chénetier, but also finds in French a title more faithful to the original one (The House of Joyinstead of the Fitzgeraldian Among the happy people of the world, which had been established since 1907).
The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for novels, several times expected to win the Nobel Prize for literature, Edith Wharton had nothing of a voter in the New Popular Front (President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal seemed too socialist to her), even less so. of a sovereignist RN. Cosmopolitan from her childhood, she established herself as the highest-earning writer of her time. “She was a businesswoman,” notes Anne Ullmo, professor of American literature at the University of Tours, who was in charge of the critical apparatus with Emmanuelle Delanoë-Brun.
“There is a dichotomy in people’s minds between authors and money. But, in this case, Edith Wharton was a very intelligent person, with a pragmatic side. She needed money because she wanted to earn her autonomy. We can say that she was born into the wealthy. In reality, when her father died, the inheritance only provided liquidity for her two brothers. She always knew how to negotiate her contracts very well. sold his books well.” The copyright will allow him to acquire Sainte-Claire-le-Château, a splendid villa with a turret and botanical garden on the heights of Hyères. “In 1929, there was a phenomenal storm which devastated his gardens. Wharton records the restoration of his park in his diary, but never mentions the financial crisis which was then raging in the United States”, laughs Anne Ullmo.
Relaunched by cinema
Even in the English language, Edith Wharton’s work has experienced purgatory. Ironically, it was cinema that definitively brought up to date a writer who nevertheless despised this genre and, according to her biographer RWB Lewis, would never have set foot in a dark room. In 1993, The Time of Innocence marks the improbable encounter between a turbulent child from Little Italy and the corseted high society of the late 19th century. Far from his usual mafiosi and freedmen, Martin Scorsese signs his finest film by depicting a New York aristocracy whose codes, rigidity and cruelty have nothing to envy of those of the underworld. Social death is given, certainly “without bloodshed”. Less opulent, but just as successful, Among the happy people of the world (2000) is also directed by a proletarian, Terence Davies, scion of the working class from Liverpool. Gillian Anderson plays Lily Bart, a beauty in search of a husband, but who will experience a descent into hell by missing out on both love and money.
It’s now the series’ turn to focus on Whartonian heroines. Sofia Coppola wanted to adapt Beautiful Weddings, whose main character, the unscrupulous Ondine Spragg, unlike Lily Bart, achieves a spectacular rise in good society thanks to different unions. But Apple TV canceled the project. “The idea of making a series about a detestable woman did not appeal to them,” the filmmaker explained to New York Times. Subscribers to the platform will be satisfied with The Buccaneerspop and feminist adaptation of the unfinished novel The Buccaneersin the anachronistic vein of The Bridgerton Chronicles.
“Do New York!”
But to fully savor the customs and psychology of these idle New Yorkers, it is still better to immerse yourself in this Quarto. According to the slightly macho legend, it was her friend and mentor Henry James who pushed Edith Wharton to write about her hometown, after a first novel set in Italy at the end of the 18th century. “Do New York!” (“do New York!”), recommends the author of Washington Square in a letter dating from 1902. “In reality, she was already thinking of The House of Joy before this date”, recalls Anne Ullmo. “Wharton and James have common themes (cosmopolitanism, transatlantic confrontations, etc.) and she makes a lot of nods to the latter, notably in The Age of Innocence. The hero is called Newland Archer, a reference to Isabel Archer in Portrait of a woman. But she has other sources of inspiration, particularly loving Balzac. Wharton is also an heir to the New England Puritans. Its relationship to religion is very strong, and the title The House of Joy is inspired by Ecclesiastes: “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of joy.”
In France, Edith Wharton immediately admired Marcel Proust, sending Henry James a copy of Near Swann. “Neither James nor I met Proust. In my case, the meeting could easily have happened, because he was the friend of several of my close friends. But what I heard about him, even from the people who ‘liked the most, didn’t make me want to see it […]. His greatness is found in his art, and his incredible smallness in the nature of his worldly admirations,” she wrote in her autobiography.
Like the father of Research, Edith Wharton finely depicts the rituals, impenetrable to neophytes, and the hushed violence within the elite, but also the changes underway among the wealthy. Its setting is that of the Gilded Age, a period extending from the end of the Civil War until 1901, marked by spectacular fortunes made possible by the railroad, the industrialization and finance. Set in 1870, the famous start of The Age of Innocence, great nostalgic novel, contrasts the uncomfortable and old-fashioned Academy of Music, popular with patrician families, with the future and modern Metropolitan Opera, inaugurated in 1883.
In his fiction, Wharton never ceases to describe the passing of the baton between an old aristocracy descended from the first Dutch settlers, who disdained money and feared “scandal more than illness”, to the nouveau riche perceived as vulgar “invaders”. “These “invaders” are trying to penetrate an environment whose mysterious codes they do not initially master. Wharton describes the efforts of these upstarts to integrate. But with the strength of their banknotes, they will. take away by creating a new world”, underlines Anne Ullmo. To the austere brownstones (brownstone residences) of Washington Square, this elite prefers the flashy buildings around Central Park, while in the south of the island, the wolves of Wall Street do everything to contradict the instructions of Edith Wharton’s mother: “Never talk about money, and think about it as little as possible.” Of this “old New York”, already disappearing when the writer began to chronicle it, remain these fabulous novels that we should definitely not just watch on the screen.
Chronicles of New York, by Edith Wharton. Gallimard, 1280 p. €36.
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