Hudson River Bracketed

Vance Weston #1

by Edith Wharton

Determined to become a writer, Vance Weston leave the midwest for New York City, where he meets Halo Tarrant, a socially prominent woman who introduces him the the city's literary circle

Genres: Classics, Fiction, American, Literary Fiction, Novels, Female Authors, New York

536 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Edith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Drawing from her deep familiarity with New York’s privileged “aristocracy,” she offered readers a keenly observed and piercingly honest vision of Gilded Age society.

Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.

Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.

Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.

Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.

Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.

Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.

In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.

Reviews

[Carol, She's so Novel ꧁꧂ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5★

I'm normally a big Edith Wharton fan, but at first I thought this book was going to be the exception. However, after a somewhat flat beginning the book really picks up & I become fascinated by rookie author Vance Weston's journey. Every time he came to a fork in the road, he made the wrong choice. Every. Single. Time.

But it was impossible not to be moved by Vance's story. &, as always, Wharton writes so beautifully.

Have patience as this story is so worth it.

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75 stars
This is the first novel of two featuring the two main characters, Vance Weston and Halo Spear/Tarrant. The title itself refers to a style of architecture particularly found in New York State (developed by Alexander Jackson Davis). Inevitably it is the Virago edition with an afterword by Marilyn French. I much prefer afterwords.
The novel is set in the early 1920s and is really a type of coming of age story: Vance Weston is only nineteen at the beginning. It’s also supposed to chart the development of an author, a little like Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
“Never was a girl more in love with the whole adventure of living, and less equipped to hold her own in it, than the Halo Spear who had come upon Vance Weston that afternoon.”
There is a sort of love story going on, unrequited as they marry others. The novel charts Weston struggling to become a writer.
Wharton also has some fun with other contemporary authors:
“Of the many recent novels he had devoured very few had struck him as really important; and of these The Corner Grocery was easily first. Among dozens of paltry books pushed into notoriety it was the only one entitled to such distinction. Readers all over the country had felt its evident sincerity, and its title had become the proverbial epithet of the small town atmosphere.
Some of the novels people talked about most excitedly--Price of Meat, say, already in its seventieth thousand, or Egg Omelette, which had owed its start to pulpit denunciations and the quarrel of a Prize Committee over its exact degree of indecency--well, he had begun both books with enthusiasm, as their authors appeared to have; and then, at a certain point, had felt the hollowness underfoot, and said to himself: "No, life's not like that, people are not like that. The real stuff is way down, not on the surface."
For The Corner Grocery read Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. Egg Omelette is probably Ulysses and Price of Meat probably The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The prize mentioned, the Pulsifer Prize, is a lightly disguised Pulitzer.
The geography of the Hudson Valley is central to the novel, an area Wharton knew well and her descriptions are effective:
“The house, which was painted a dark brown, stood at the end of a short grass-grown drive, its front so veiled in the gold-green foliage of two ancient weeping willows that Vance could only catch, here and there, a hint of a steep roof, a jutting balcony, an aspiring turret. The facade, thus seen in trembling glimpses, as if it were as fluid as the trees, suggested vastness, fantasy, and secrecy. Green slopes of unmowed grass, and heavy shrubberies of syringa and lilac surrounded it; and beyond the view was closed in on all sides by trees and more trees. “An old house, this is the way an old house looks!” thought Vance.”
This is one of Wharton’s lesser known works and it is possible the portrait of Weston may be based on her. Weston isn’t particularly sympathetic and Wharton certainly paints Weston’s misogyny effectively and subtly. Weston has dreams and doubts as would any young writer. It’s a good novel, not her best, but worth reading

[Haleigh DeRocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read many of Wharton's books and this is perhaps my favorite. While vastly different from her novels of New York, I found it most similar in style to Summer.

This saga follows the life of burgeoning writer Vance Weston. Over the course of many years (five or six maybe) we see him develop in mind, passion, and character. Though at times the choices he makes are frustrating, overall he makes a sympathetic protagonist; I found myself ever rooting for his successes, both in his professional and personal life. Because we see so much of his life, I'm not bothered by his downfalls - to me they make him more realistic and rounded.

I found the love story between Vance and the other protagonist, Halo Spear, to be perfectly written. Both devoted to their chosen mates, they are absolutely tormented by their love for each other. Nevertheless, in the end we get hope - which is rare in Wharton novels.

Though this is one of Wharton's least praised works, I found it to be incredibly compelling and perfectly executed. I was engrossed all 500+ pages without slowing pace even once.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In Xandadu did Kubla Kahn A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea. . . “ It was a new music, utterly unknown to him, but to which the hidden chords of his soul at once vibrated. It was something for him—something the intimately belonged to him. What had ever known of poetry before?”

“That? Why—but Coleridge, of course!” She chanted softly after him: ‘Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea.’”

And that is how this lesser known classic, Hudson River Bracketed, written by Edith Wharton begins with the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge throughout this beautiful tale enriching her lovely prose. And Hudson River Bracketed is a description given to an architectural style that was originated by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, an influential 19th century architect and landscape designer. Our young protagonist, Vance Weston, is an aspiring writer visiting the Hudson Valley from the West to recover from an illness. It is here that he sees the Willows, a beautiful nineteenth-century home on the Hudson River and designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. It is in this sprawling estate young Vance comes across the most beautiful library that he has ever seen. And it is in this library that he meets Heloise Spear, known as Halo. It is through this beautiful relationship that Halo introduces young Vance to literature and in that sharing, they form a deep bond. It is in this relationship that we witness the hardships of both in their subsequent unhappy marriages. Complicating their plight, Vance signs an extensive and binding literary contract with Halo’s husband, Lewis Tarrant, the managing editor of a literary publication, The Hour, after the publication of one of Vance Weston’s short stories. It is quite the classic tale set in the beautiful Hudson River Valley and New York City, an area known well by Edith Wharton. I am looking forward to reading the sequel, The Gods Arrive.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

• "C’erano momenti in cui la sua anima era come una foresta, piena di ombre e mormorii – arcana, distante -, un luogo in cui perdersi, un luogo spaventoso, quasi, in cui restare soli"

• "Proprio davanti alla finestra del cottage, un ramo di melo attraversava il vetro. Per molto tempo Vance era rimasto seduto lì, senza vedere né il ramo né altro, in quella sorta di cecità fisica e spirituale che negli ultimi tempi gli capitava di frequente; e poi, all'improvviso, nella brulicante luce del sole autunnale, ecco il ramo, al centro della sua visione.
Era un ramo brutto e deforme di un albero trascurato, ma così carico di vita, così luccicante di frutti, da sembrare un bastone morto incastonato di rubini. Il cielo sullo sfondo era del più denso azzurro autunnale, un cielo concreto e solido. Le foglie rugginose e raggrinzite vi si stagliavano come se fossero fatte di bronzo dorato, ogni frutto sembrava scolpito in una sostanza dura e preziosa. Lo si sarebbe detto il ramo d'oro di cui parlava uno dei libri49 che aveva portato con sé quando aveva lasciato New York con Laura Lou".

• Romanzone statunitense di inizio dello scorso secolo con tanta letteratura, tanto mondo letterario (i premi, gli editori, gli scrittori...) e conseguente sarcasmo.

• Wharton è straordinaria, leggetela.

[Mela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deat had simply closed the book in which he had long ago read the last word.

The strongest part of the book were the characters and the portraits of two marriages, so different and yet, so similar. The characters weren't black and white. The study of them was brilliant. And their marriages - a great analysis of such relationships (how they started, how they progressed, and how they ended).

...the creator of imaginary beings must always feel alone among the real ones.

Edith Wharton also gave us the portrait of a young writer. I don't know how much it was auto-biographical. Nonetheless, it was a fascinating portrait. It broadened my view of that world at the beginning of the XX century.

Sadly, I must admit, that I struggled a lot at the beginning. There were many descriptions that didn't interest me at all (e.g. of a house, architecture, etc.). Besides, I just couldn't feel the story. I am not sure why. But then, at some point, I was gripped by it. There appeared still the paragraphs I only skimmed, but as a whole, I felt the story.

I am glad I read it as a group reading, because I am afraid, I wouldn't have finished it otherwise. It was definitely worth going through the initial struggles.

[2 stars for the "difficult parts", 3 stars for a portrait of a young artist, 5 stars for characters and marriages, as a whole somewhere 3-3.5 stars]

[Léa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quelle belle découverte que ce roman d'Edith Wharton !

Le roman est superbement écrit, la psychologie des personnages bien travaillée. Ils ne sont jamais ni tout noir, ni tout blanc. Ils sont avant tout profondément humains et, même si certains de leurs défauts auraient pu me les rendre antipathiques, c'est avec un sourire au lèvre que je pense à Halo et Vance.
Si je pouvais rapprocher ce roman à un grand classique de la littérature américaine cela serait à Martin Eden de Jack London. En effet, dans ces deux histoires nous suivons deux aspirants écrivains qui se débattent comme ils peuvent dans la société pour vivre de leur art. Les passages de ce roman, où Edith Wharton aborde les processus d'écriture et la survenue de l'inspiration sont très intéressants. Mêlés à ça des passages de vies dans New-York aux côtés des artistes en vogue du moment, des déambulations sur les rives de l'Hudson ou sur la côte Atlantique donnent un charme certains au roman.

Sur les rives de l'Hudson est le premier roman que je lis de cette auteure et ce ne sera pas le dernier.

[Constance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edith Wharton's classic story of a young Midwesterner who heads to New York in hopes of becoming a writer is filled with elements that her fans will recognize at once. The great themes of love, renunciation, and bittersweet reconciliation play out against a New York peopled with families who embody old money, the commercial instincts of cynics, the resignation of the talented who've lost faith. And through it all, we see the artist's development, the moments of despair—and inspiration.

Worth reading...as always.

[Stephanie McGuirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love Wharton's writing. She brings natural scenes to life in such a special way. And her characters are well-rounded and easy to empathize with. I easily become engrossed in their messy lives and emotions. I didn't always understand WHY the characters felt and acted as they did in this one. But people are crazy, so it was still easy for me to go along with it. This also dives deep into the world of literature, and gives a very fascinating look into the mind of a writer.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are moments in this longest of Wharton's novels that show off her genius and her fine eye for the intricacies of social custom, they are too few and far-between. There are some fun moments of social satire throughout the text, aimed at the fascination with everything new, the momentary nature of fads in advertising and the arts; but the one character that Wharton should be satirical about (or, at least, subtly ironic), her protagonist, is too often treated seriously. Vance Weston, supposed authorial "genius" is portrayed (most painfully) as extraordinarily naive, self-obsessed, and insensitive. Where Wharton clearly understands this (she takes plenty of opportunity to show us many anecdotes in his life and relationships with others that illustrate these points of his character), he is also, inexplicably, portrayed as something of a heroic figure. This characteristic of the novel was so painful to me that this is one of the few works by Wharton that I was tempted (several times) to give up reading. The much more interesting and (potentially, anyway) sympathetic character of Halo Tarrant is too often outside the narrative frame of the work. Every time the author's focus shifted back to Vance I desperately wished for her to tell more about Halo. Also, aside from some moments representing life in the upper-class publishing and artistic circles of New York, many of the events of the novel are extremely unrealistic and unbelievable (incidents, for example, supposedly showing how poor and "ethnic" people live in the city and in the Midwest). This is capped off by the climactic, yet melodramatic, death of one of the characters by "consumption," of all things. There may be some things that make this novel worth reading, but, I'm afraid, they are not of a high enough proportion in the text to make me wholeheartedly recommend this novel.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sono fortemente combattuta tra le tre e le quattro stelle. Non è la migliore Wharton, anzitutto perché presenta un problema di ritmo: per esempio, si dilunga fin troppo sull'attività della signora Scrimser, mentre affretta troppo il finale. Lo stesso finale in cui si sfruttano un paio di stratagemmi "facili" per sciogliere la vicenda, che purtroppo finisce così per perdere smalto (forse si sente che attende un seguito, "Il canto delle muse"). Peccato, perché per il resto si tratta di un buon romanzo che, pur partendo un po' in sordina, si sviluppa bene, presenta interessanti passaggi di satira sociale e descrive in maniera acuta numerose dinamiche di coppia. La Wharton è una vera maestra nell'evidenziare le piccole meschinità dell'essere umano e Vance, il suo protagonista, ha il pregio di risultare un personaggio molto realistico: egocentrico, superficiale, del tutto privo di intelligenza sociale, di certo non il classico eroe del quale è facile prendere le parti. Tutt'altro. E in questa scelta, persino un po' originale, risiede un grande punto di forza del romanzo.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sprawling, magnificent, occasionally tedious, sometimes frustrating, often absorbing künstlerromanan centred around an author-protagonist who is deeply unlikeable but whose flaws ring true and whom we can pity, if never actually admire. Wharton is an utter genius at depicting unhappiness in its various shades (she is particularly adept at the misery wrought of foolish decisions), but also those brief flashes of pleasure, joy, and the rightness of things as they can be in the present moment. Superb characterizations all-round.

[Evie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant novel about a bond that forms between two people, despite their very different backgrounds, through a deep love of literature. It is a long book but it is very readable and beautifully written.

Some of my favourite quotes were:

"that ever-renewed view on which the girl's eyes never rested without the sense of inner communion"

"Getting at once to the heart of things: that was the secret. But how many people know it, or had any idea where the heart of things really was?"

"There are days which give you, in the very moment of waking, the assurance that they were born for you, are yours to do as you please with"

"It made her world less lonely to think of that solitary spark of understanding burning in another mind like a little light in an isolated house"

[Frank McAdam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edith Wharton was certainly a prolific author. Although I've read a great deal of her work over the years, I had never even heard of this late novel until I came across a battered paperback copy in a pile that was about to be tossed. It's certainly not one of her best works - it's too loose and rambling with characters dropping in and out and the house itself after which the novel was titled only making a brief appearance early on. The biggest problem with this lengthy bildungsroman, however, is with the characterization of the protagonist who blunders heedlessly from one unfortunate incident to the next without acquiring the least self-knowledge until perhaps in the very last chapter. It's difficult to believe someone so absolutely clueless could have been the genius author that Wharton makes him out to be. But the book does have its charms in its descriptions of 1920's New York, and one wishes the author had gone into them more fully. It would also be interesting to know if any of the literary figures the protagonist encounters in the city had any real life counterparts and, if so, who they were. As it is, it was fascinating to read so great a stylist's thoughts on the creative process by which a writer brings a novel into being. For me, though, the best part of the book was the description of the bungalow shacks on Rockaway Beach. Those bungalows, now long since gone, still existed in the mid-1950's when as a small child I visited the beach with my family; their mention in the book brought back fond memories.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hudson River Bracketed is the nearest that Edith Wharton comes to writing an autobiographical work about her career as an author, and it is not too close to that.

In fact, Wharton’s self-portrait is divided between two characters. She is the intellectual socialite, Halo Spear, a woman who has made an unsatisfactory marriage, and who would probably be far happier with another man, even if he is perhaps unworthy of her. She is also the book’s protagonist, Vince Weston, an aspiring author.

It is curious that Wharton should use a male author to express some of her thoughts on writing, rather than making Hudson River Bracketed about a female writer. As Marilyn French’s Afterword suggests, this may have been because publishers were not yet ready for female authors to talk about anything outside of domestic affairs.

The back cover of my copy suggests that Wharton was inspired by the life of Thomas Wolfe. I imagine that Wharton did have in mind some of the male authors that she knew, as Weston does not share Wharton’s personality.

Indeed, many readers may find it hard to like Weston. He is frequently selfish and insensitive. He is given access to a house with a generous library which he is supposed to be taking care of, but instead leaves the place in a mess. He abuses the hospitality of his host by taking her son on a wild night out. His leaning on Halo puts pressure on her marriage to Lewis Tarrant. He steals the adoring Laura Lou Tracey from a man who might have kept her in wealth, forcing her to live a life of poverty that destroys her health.

While Wharton does not gloss over the many faults of her hero, I suspect that she is more sympathetic to him than many readers are likely to be. Weston is redeemed in Wharton’s eyes by his calling as an artist, even if he does not write very much in the course of the story. Weston wrecks the library that he is supposed to care for, because he is excited about the chance to read many books for the first time and develop an understanding of his craft.

Even the relationship with Laura Lou is justified by Weston’s vocation as an artist. If he drags his sickly wife up a large hill causing her to get pneumonia it is his artistic enthusiasm. As an artist of integrity, he must live in poverty rather than sacrifice his principles. Wharton even implies that it is better for Laura Lou to live in misery with him than to have lived happily with the commercial huckster that she hoped to marry.

Some of Weston’s struggles to find a subject fit to write about and to maintain his integrity undoubtedly reflect Wharton’s own struggles as a writer. Weston wants to write about that which interests him, but the publishing industry wants modernism and books written in a new style. Wharton also wished to continue writing in an old-fashioned manner, ignoring trends that are as ephemeral as the Hudson River Bracketed style of architecture in New York.

However, Weston cannot be left alone to produce his own work. He must be forced to write articles or to consider writing commercial pieces for money, instead of concentrating on his writing. Hudson River Bracketed anticipates books such as Yellowface, which cynically lay bare a writing industry in which books are manufactured for sale.

This is the beginning of that world. Weston is expected to glad-handle the love-hungry widow, Pulsifer so that he can win a prize that will make his name (Pulsifer is clearly an allusion to the Pulitzer Prize, with Wharton seemingly sceptical of its worth). Weston is tied into contracts that fail to deliver sufficient royalties to allow him to live and write in comfort, and when he protests, he is told that he must write extra work for money.

America is a society made on money. The Weston family are not ashamed to invent new religions or practices so that they can make a profit from selling them. It is obvious that Halo Spear would have made the perfect wife for Weston, but she is forced to marry Tarrant because her family owes him money from the many occasions when he has bailed them out of financial trouble.

This is a society in which the wealthier members are living on credit, except for the few who have enough money to possess what they want. By financially supporting the family whose daughter he hopes the marry, Tarrant has effectively bought Halo, or at least made a significant investment in the Spear family, for which he can expect a return.

In marrying Laura Lou, Weston has broken up a similar arrangement by which she too was promised to a man to whom the family owes money, thereby putting Weston in debt for a while, and losing any support from Laura Lou’s mother.

Edith Wharton was clearly invested in the story of Vince Weston and Halo Spear. This is a long book, and Wharton would return to the characters in a second work, The Gods Arrive. As most of Wharton’s books are standalone novels, this is unusual for her.

Alas, the books that most appeal to writers are not always their greatest works. How many Ibsen admirers share his belief that Emperor and Galilean was his best work?

Hudson River Bracketed is not one of Wharton’s better novels, lacking the bleak intensity of her great works. Vince Weston does not command our respect. Wharton’s decision to express her views on writing through a male author serves to confuse her message, as the reader ends up focusing on Weston’s male faults, rather than the universal concerns that apply to writers of either sex, or the special problems faced by a female author.

Nonetheless, this is a book that is very well-written, and a useful insight into some of Wharton’s experiences as a writer. Overall, I can recommend Hudson River Bracketed as a book worth reading.

[Tracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you love Edith Wharton, then by all means, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

[hilary barkey · Rating 3 out of 5]

thought i’d love it since the rest of her work is brilliant but this novel just didn’t do it for me.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro estivo consigliato dal GRUPPO LETTURA. L’autrice, Edith Wharton è la prima donna Premio Pulitzer della storia ed il libro è ispirato allo scrittore e poeta statunitense Thomas Wolfe.

Narratrice di talento, qui ritrae la figura di un giovane dalla personalità complessa. L’aspirante scrittore Vance Weston, nato e cresciuto nel Midwest, convalescente dopo una grave malattia, si reca da alcuni parenti che abitano nella valle dell’Hudson non lontano da New York. Vance rimane incuriosito e affascinato dai “Salici”, una vecchia casa che i cugini si sono impegnati a pulire e arieggiare.
Nella biblioteca della casa, Vance incontra Halo Spear, la giovane figlia, colta e disinibita, di una coppia di intellettuali, che introdurrà il nostro eroe nei salotti letterari di New York. È l’inizio, per Vance, di una nuova vita: riconosce di colpo le mancanze della sua educazione letteraria e si apre al potere del passato, deciso a esplorarlo invece di rimuoverlo. Lì potrà conoscere un mondo nuovo, fatto di arte e scrittura, critici e romanzieri, buone maniere e conversazioni erudite – un mondo inconciliabile con quello povero e dalla mentalità provinciale in cui è nato.

E’ un giovane provinciale idealista, impulsivo, egocentrico, che cerca di trovare la propria strada e realizzare i propri impulsi creativi nella grande metropoli tra errori e illusioni.
La bella scrittura dell’autrice e la storia accattivante hanno reso la lettura semplice e fluida. A me questo libro è piaciuto molto.

[Jessica H-C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Wharton's best, but I did enjoy the part where she takes some delightfully personal shots at Hemingway and his cohort: “'Nothing like newspaper work as a training if a fellow wants to write. Teaches you not to waste time, to go straight to the point, to put things in a bright snappy way that won’t bore people.⁠ ⁠…' Ugh, how he hated all the qualities thus commended! What a newspaper man like Bunty Hayes, for instance, would have called wasting time seemed to Vance one of the fundamental needs of the creative process. He could not imagine putting down on paper anything that had not risen slowly to the verge of his consciousness, that had not to be fished for and hauled up with infinite precautions from some secret pool of being as to which he knew nothing as yet but the occasional leap, deep down in it, of something alive but invisible" (Wharton, 1929). Having just read The Old Man and the Sea, I guess I'm on Team Wharton for this one!

[Dorothy Heyl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book at the library after completing the four novels in the Library of America set. I was attracted by the title (and surprised to see the house across the street from mine on the cover of the random edition). Also a friend had recommended it. But after 20 pages or so (and checking every so often to see if I was a tenth through it), I concluded that it was not worth my time. The writing style of this late EW was dumbed down, as if matched to the rural setting of the opening. There were no words to look up; no convoluted sentences to entangle. Could it be that after winning the Pulitzer for Age of Innocence, thereby establishing herself as a serious writer, she became a hack? I read some of the reviews on Goodreads and found no answer there but concluded that the plot was of no interest. So much for becoming a Wharton completist. Moving on.

[Carol Gaskamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has been a long time since I read Edith Wharton--had picked up this paperback from a used book store when lived in Wichita when I was on a Wharton kick. A couple of lines from the novel that I appreciated:
p. 73 "The air was so rich with the smell of syringas, that smell which is so like the sound of bees on a thundery day." Lovely phrasing.
And from the last sentence of the book, p. 407 "...he wondered if at crucial moments the same veil of unreality would always fall between himself and the soul nearest him, if the creator of imaginary beings must always feel alone among the real ones."

[Simon Vozick-Levinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found a well-read paperback copy of this relatively obscure novel on a family bookshelf and thought I’d give it a try. I’m so glad I did. Hudson River Bracketed has star-crossed romance, high melodrama, and acid satire of the literary world of the 1920s, all framed in wonderfully sharp Whartonian prose. The characters are so vividly drawn, from the protagonist down to the minor roles; Halo Spear in particular is one of her finest creations. Anyone who loves The Glimpses of the Moon should seek this one out, and a publisher should really bring it back into print!

[Ricarda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Etwas weitschweifig, statt 580 Seiten hätten mir 400 für die Handlung gereicht 😅
Noch nie war ich so wütend auf einen Protagonisten. Deprimierend der Schluss und da dieser offen bleibt, lässt er mich etwas ratlos zurück 🤔

Trotz allem ein sehr guter Klassiker

Inzwischen habe ich recherchiert, dass das Ende offen ist, da der Roman eine Fortsetzung hat, die anscheinend aber nicht ins Deutsche übersetzt wurde.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this story is primarily set in New York, Wharton writes about he midwest and midwest culture....a place that, as far I can tell, she never visited. Wharton’s uninformed descriptions fall flatter than the imaginary midwest of which she writes. Her work is best when she writes what she knows.

[Diem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so near the end of this Edith Wharton project and every time I embark on a new work I'm prepared to hate it out of exhaustion. I did hate the last book a bit but this one might have been my favorite yet. So annoying. If it had been bad I might have called the project complete but now there's ONE final novel. I can't leave it unread.

[Javier Dávila · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a novel more a product of craft than artistic impulse. It's an almost neutral application of a successful formula.
Wharton didn't weave her plot firmly enough, and it feels weak in many ways.
I hope the sequel, *The Gods Arrive*, reaches greater depth and emotion.

[John Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

my introduction to Wharton. I will definitely be back for more.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't understand why this is considered lesser Wharton! Is it the lack of fancy dresses and interiors? Is it because no one has made a lush movie about it with famous actors?

[Harald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein großer Roman einer überaus interessanten Autorin, den es sich lohnt zu lesen. Aber Vorsicht, er dient sicherlich nicht als Lektüre zur Aufheiterung der trübgrauen Wintertage.

[Grace]

Pre Goodreads tracking.
Zachary Book Group for 2009-10