On a lovely sunny morning, the Sullington Windmills WI book group gathered in the garden of a member’s neighbour to discuss Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.
There was a fairly strong consensus that The Age of Innocence was not an easy read. For the majority of us it proved something of a slog, with the descriptions of New York’s 1870s society, its endless rules and its intricate social etiquette sometimes feeling rather hard going. A number of members admitted they had struggled to finish it, while one resourceful reader eventually resorted to watching the film instead! Others, however, enjoyed the novel considerably more, and interestingly, even some of those who found it a tiring read were glad that they had persevered.
The most interesting discussion centred on the characters, particularly May Welland. At first, May seems to be a rather insipid, conventional young woman. Yet, as the story progresses, another May emerges. Beneath the apparently innocent exterior is someone remarkably astute, who understands both Newland and the society in which they live far better than he realises. Her manipulation of events, bringing forward the wedding and, later, announcing her pregnancy at precisely the right moment, makes her much more complex than she first appears.
Ellen Olenska, meanwhile, seemed remarkably modern to us. She wants the freedom to divorce her husband and live independently, an astonishingly bold idea in the society into which she has returned. Her declaration, “I want to be free; I want to wipe out all the past,” could almost belong to a contemporary novel.
Her influence on Newland is enormous. Through Ellen, he begins to question the values of the world he has always accepted and to see that there are other ways of living beyond the narrow circle of New York society.
This is perhaps where the title of the novel becomes most ironic. There is very little real innocence in this novel. Everyone is watching everyone else, everyone knows the rules, and almost everyone is manipulating those rules while pretending not to. Wharton exposes a society where appearances matter more than truth and where scandal is often considered worse than unhappiness.
The book also made us wonder about Newland himself. Some members felt that he was weak. Is he genuinely a victim of society, or does he use society's rules as an excuse for not making difficult choices? He longs for Ellen and believes himself to be more enlightened than the people around him, yet when faced with the consequences of challenging convention, he ultimately falls back into the life expected of him.
The ending was described as disappointing by a few members. After all the anticipation surrounding Newland and Ellen, the final meeting, decades later, feels deliberately restrained. Some of us wanted more: more confrontation, more emotion, perhaps even a little more drama. It is a frustrating ending, but perhaps appropriate for a novel about the things society prevents us from saying and doing.
So, was The Age of Innocence worth the effort? The answer from our group was decidedly mixed. It was certainly not everyone's favourite read, and several members found it slow and difficult to get through. However, it generated plenty of conversation, particularly about marriage, freedom, social pressure and the deceptively complicated May Welland.
The next book to be read will be ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens.
This will be discussed on Thursday 8th October 2026.