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Originally Posted by BelleZora
I also enjoyed this book and was fascinated by the details of the lives of the privileged in 1870's New York. May is a more interesting character than Newland Archer realized, and I loved how Wharton was able to indicate more than was apparent to Newland, the narrator.
I'd love to hear what others think of the ending.
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I finished the book today. I really enjoyed it and loved the witty commentary on 19th century American social conventions. It was a little hard to get into it the first few chapters. I had to put it away and come back to it when I was in a different mood. I thought the book was certainly a romance. At times there was quite the passion felt underneath the words and love demonstrated by lack of action to unite.
The ending was unexpected. Finally there were no barriers that would prevent them from uniting. I suppose he chose to live with the memory of Ellen rather than risk the possibility that time and life experiences would have rendered them too different from each other and tarnished that memory. The other possibility could have been for them to fall back together like time had never happened. Although I think that would have diminished the impact of the rest of the book that kept them apart.
I was thinking while reading the book that I wished the character of May was more developed, but then her awareness is revealed finally in the last chapters.