2010-09-17

small confession


As I read In Morocco, I think I want to be Edith Wharton when I grow up?

2 comments:

erin said...

Why the question mark? Her novels are fantastic. However, becoming her would require a time machine to go back to the early 20th century.

I've only read 1 (or is it 2?) of her novels, and if I recall, they're of acerbic wit and observations on the upper classes. Does this one follow the same gist?

Trish said...

I've not read any of Wharton's other work, even though I suppose The Age of Innocence should be on my to-read list.

This work is absent of observations on the upper class, although the reader is aware Wharton wouldn't have had such opportunities to travel through Morocco without some cash at hand. I believe the book tends to fall into the same mould as Karen Blixen's Out of Africa, or other observations by middle- to upper-class white women at the turn of the last century. (Think, without the same art, Nellie McClung as well.) Perhaps this sense accounts for my question mark -- while I love the writing I can't help but be made uncomfortable by a certain colonial bent.