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The Fruit of the Tree
Set in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts during the height of the progressive era, the book centers on heroine Justine Brent, a professionally trained nurse who is called upon to attend her childhood friend Bessy Westmore, a rich textile mill owner left paralyzed by a riding accident. When Bessy begs to be released from a life of intense pain and suffering, Justine debates the moral issues and makes the difficult choice to administer a lethal dose of morphine. After Bessy dies, Justine falls in love with her widowed husband and joins him in his efforts to create better conditions for the factory workers. Questions surrounding Bessy's death, however, haunt their relationship, and Justine learns first-hand the tragic consequences of social idealism and reform.
Full of plot twists and turns and finely drawn characters, The Fruit of the Tree is a must read for anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of Wharton's superb prose.
Full of plot twists and turns and finely drawn characters, The Fruit of the Tree is a must read for anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of Wharton's superb prose.
633 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1907
39 people are currently reading
563 people want to read
About the author
Edith Wharton
1,456 books5,277 followersEdith 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.
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.
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March 30, 2022
Ah, Justine.
On Litsy we were comparing Wharton to Willa Cather, because the same group read Cather previously. They are such different writers. Wharton was born into the New York City leisure class, whereas Willa Cather grew up in Nebraska, was educated in Lincoln before coming to New York City to write. They both overlapped as New York City writers in the early 1900's, before Wharton left for France permanently around 1911, and both were deeply influenced by Henry James (Wharton was a personal friend of his.). Of course, Wharton wrote of her own class, critically, making her a very jaded writer, even if sharp and elegant. Cather began by writing about this leisure class too, before exploring her own roots, and even turning spiritual in her own way. I told the group I see Wharton as insistent, needing to convince (us, the reader, and also the world). Whereas I see Cather accepting that you, reader, are probably never going to change and see it her way.
Justine. Justine is the most Wharton-like character I've come across in her books. She was born in the leisure class, but she works for a living. She's a nurse, self-sufficient, and not married, and not in any rush to get married although she's looking around. She's practical, sharp, well read, philosophical, and an independent thinker in every way. The odd structure of this book puts her in the opening seen, caring for a patient, and then leaves her mostly alone, a secondary character, for a long time, before putting her out in front again, in all her wit and flaws.
Our nurse is taking care of a mangled factory worker and the novel begins with a look at the abuse of factory labor for profit, almost an exposé. But it turns to the owners of these factories, the leisure class. And Wharton studies them, putting a widow in an accidental ownership role she's completely unsuited to, letting things play out. She studies all her characters, but especially looks into these different women and their contradictory expectations. Our widow, Bessy: "Isn't she one of the most harrowing victims of the plan of bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality, corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, and leaving them to reconcile the two as best they can, or lose their souls in the attempt."
The novel never solves the paternalistic perspectives on the factory workers, ever viewed as "these dim creatures of the underworld," but it does work on marriage, ethics, and the conflicts of idealism and practical reality. Her study of marriage is quite magnificent, capturing that bewildering unintended failure to communicate. The novel is all over in several interesting places. As I put it in Litsy, it‘s not just how many different unexpected turns this novel‘s focus takes, but how thought provoking each is. It led to a lot of discussion.
It's a difficult book to review. A plot summary is really difficult as the plot is just complicated, and it's nearly impossible to avoid spoilers. But there is a lot of good stuff in this rather obscure book. It's a bit long (although the 600-pages editions are really misleading. It's not _that_ long. I read this in less time than I read The House of Mirth), so recommended to the curious and committed.
-----------------------------------------------
10. The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
published: 1907
format: Kindle Public Domain ebook, I'm calling it 400 pages
acquired: November, read: Feb 6 – Mar 17, time reading: 15:13, 2.3 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: novel theme Wharton
locations: New York City and a fictional factory town in Massachusetts
about the author: about the author: 1862-1937. Born Edith Newbold Jones on West 23rd Street, New York City. Relocated permanently to France after 1911.
On Litsy we were comparing Wharton to Willa Cather, because the same group read Cather previously. They are such different writers. Wharton was born into the New York City leisure class, whereas Willa Cather grew up in Nebraska, was educated in Lincoln before coming to New York City to write. They both overlapped as New York City writers in the early 1900's, before Wharton left for France permanently around 1911, and both were deeply influenced by Henry James (Wharton was a personal friend of his.). Of course, Wharton wrote of her own class, critically, making her a very jaded writer, even if sharp and elegant. Cather began by writing about this leisure class too, before exploring her own roots, and even turning spiritual in her own way. I told the group I see Wharton as insistent, needing to convince (us, the reader, and also the world). Whereas I see Cather accepting that you, reader, are probably never going to change and see it her way.
Justine. Justine is the most Wharton-like character I've come across in her books. She was born in the leisure class, but she works for a living. She's a nurse, self-sufficient, and not married, and not in any rush to get married although she's looking around. She's practical, sharp, well read, philosophical, and an independent thinker in every way. The odd structure of this book puts her in the opening seen, caring for a patient, and then leaves her mostly alone, a secondary character, for a long time, before putting her out in front again, in all her wit and flaws.
Our nurse is taking care of a mangled factory worker and the novel begins with a look at the abuse of factory labor for profit, almost an exposé. But it turns to the owners of these factories, the leisure class. And Wharton studies them, putting a widow in an accidental ownership role she's completely unsuited to, letting things play out. She studies all her characters, but especially looks into these different women and their contradictory expectations. Our widow, Bessy: "Isn't she one of the most harrowing victims of the plan of bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality, corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, and leaving them to reconcile the two as best they can, or lose their souls in the attempt."
The novel never solves the paternalistic perspectives on the factory workers, ever viewed as "these dim creatures of the underworld," but it does work on marriage, ethics, and the conflicts of idealism and practical reality. Her study of marriage is quite magnificent, capturing that bewildering unintended failure to communicate. The novel is all over in several interesting places. As I put it in Litsy, it‘s not just how many different unexpected turns this novel‘s focus takes, but how thought provoking each is. It led to a lot of discussion.
It's a difficult book to review. A plot summary is really difficult as the plot is just complicated, and it's nearly impossible to avoid spoilers. But there is a lot of good stuff in this rather obscure book. It's a bit long (although the 600-pages editions are really misleading. It's not _that_ long. I read this in less time than I read The House of Mirth), so recommended to the curious and committed.
-----------------------------------------------
10. The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
published: 1907
format: Kindle Public Domain ebook, I'm calling it 400 pages
acquired: November, read: Feb 6 – Mar 17, time reading: 15:13, 2.3 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: novel theme Wharton
locations: New York City and a fictional factory town in Massachusetts
about the author: about the author: 1862-1937. Born Edith Newbold Jones on West 23rd Street, New York City. Relocated permanently to France after 1911.
March 21, 2011
This was my first real Wharton (besides Ethan Frome and Bunner Sisters, two relatively short works). Gotta say I was impressed. It's so nice to follow early Woolf (Night & Day) with a minor Wharton. They work in different, almost oppositional, ways.
Woolf knits these complex inner thoughts that hit the surface of a character in oblique indeterminate actions. Characters like Mary and Catherine seem 'compelled' by a matrix of psychologies they don't quite grasp, making the things they do/say seem more like quicksand than volition. While Woolf definitely masters this and much more by the time she writes To the Lighthouse; the early stuff seems to sink into itself, lost in a rubble of half-thoughts, thoughts yet to thought, and beginnings that have not yet begun.
On the other hand, Wharton works on the outward societal matrix and its multifarious influences on characters' subjectivity. While this matrix is much better tuned, expansive to the point of being airy, and "beautiful" in many ways -- it's not as convoluted or interesting. Wharton's characters have been described as "two-dimensional," and while I understand the impulse to make this critique, I'm not as quick to judge. The work of bringing the outside inside is no small task, Wharton winnows the vast sociological landscape to its essential grains.
This feeling of calm came over me while reading The Fruit of the Tree, undiminished calm. This feeling wasn't due to a subdued plot (the plot could have been... I don't know... less soap-opera-ish, more elegant). This feeling hinged on Wharton's ability to digest and activate all the social data clicking around the characters. It makes the world feel more manageable, because most of the characters could actually see the world and bang out their relation to it. Now whether she used this power to really get at something, is another story. I'm not sure she did. But I did thoroughly enjoy this book. And I'm definitely reading more Wharton.
Woolf knits these complex inner thoughts that hit the surface of a character in oblique indeterminate actions. Characters like Mary and Catherine seem 'compelled' by a matrix of psychologies they don't quite grasp, making the things they do/say seem more like quicksand than volition. While Woolf definitely masters this and much more by the time she writes To the Lighthouse; the early stuff seems to sink into itself, lost in a rubble of half-thoughts, thoughts yet to thought, and beginnings that have not yet begun.
On the other hand, Wharton works on the outward societal matrix and its multifarious influences on characters' subjectivity. While this matrix is much better tuned, expansive to the point of being airy, and "beautiful" in many ways -- it's not as convoluted or interesting. Wharton's characters have been described as "two-dimensional," and while I understand the impulse to make this critique, I'm not as quick to judge. The work of bringing the outside inside is no small task, Wharton winnows the vast sociological landscape to its essential grains.
This feeling of calm came over me while reading The Fruit of the Tree, undiminished calm. This feeling wasn't due to a subdued plot (the plot could have been... I don't know... less soap-opera-ish, more elegant). This feeling hinged on Wharton's ability to digest and activate all the social data clicking around the characters. It makes the world feel more manageable, because most of the characters could actually see the world and bang out their relation to it. Now whether she used this power to really get at something, is another story. I'm not sure she did. But I did thoroughly enjoy this book. And I'm definitely reading more Wharton.
February 2, 2017
Set in an eastern mill town Fruit of the Tree is another book about the struggles of workers and how the owners I.e. The upper classes choose to exploit the workers or reform management of the mill. There's an emotionally stunted young man who Wharton takes to task through the ministration of the much, much wiser women around him. Since this theme appears in much of Wharton it feels belabored appearing in yet another of her books and, as is often the case, things become overwrought AND as is often the case I loved the book. Lol
Another of Wharton's perpetual themes is an enlightened individual who goes against the mores of society and who must pay the price. I don't know if it's because I've read so many of her books or if this particular one is written with less skill but these themes felt like hammer blows.
Another of Wharton's perpetual themes is an enlightened individual who goes against the mores of society and who must pay the price. I don't know if it's because I've read so many of her books or if this particular one is written with less skill but these themes felt like hammer blows.
April 28, 2018
"Human life is sacred," he said sententiously.
"Ah, that must have been decreed by someone who had never suffered!" Justine exclaimed.
Mr. Tredegar smiled compassionately: he evidently knew how to make allowances for the fact that she was overwrought by the sight of her friend's suffering: "Society decreed it—not one person," he corrected.
"Society—science—religion!" she murmured, as if to herself.
"Precisely. It's the universal consensus—the result of the world's accumulated experience. Cruel in individual instances—necessary for the general welfare. Of course your training has taught you all this; but I can understand that at such a time...."
"Yes," she said, rising wearily as Wyant came in.
As the days dragged on, and Bessy's sufferings increased, Justine longed for a protesting word from Dr. Garford or one of his colleagues. In her hospital experience she had encountered cases where the useless agonies of death were mercifully shortened by the physician; why was not this a case for such treatment?
[...]
For her whole life was centred in Amherst, and she saw that he would never be able to free himself from the traditional view of her act. In looking back, and correcting her survey of his character in the revealing light of the last hours, she perceived that, like many men of emancipated thought, he had remained subject to the old conventions of feeling. And he had probably never given much thought to women till he met her—had always been content to deal with them in the accepted currency of sentiment. After all, it was the currency they liked best, and for which they offered their prettiest wares! "
This is is one of Edith Wharton's few novels to deal directly with issues such as euthanasia, the problems of labor and industrial conditions, and professions for women.
Great Great Book
"Ah, that must have been decreed by someone who had never suffered!" Justine exclaimed.
Mr. Tredegar smiled compassionately: he evidently knew how to make allowances for the fact that she was overwrought by the sight of her friend's suffering: "Society decreed it—not one person," he corrected.
"Society—science—religion!" she murmured, as if to herself.
"Precisely. It's the universal consensus—the result of the world's accumulated experience. Cruel in individual instances—necessary for the general welfare. Of course your training has taught you all this; but I can understand that at such a time...."
"Yes," she said, rising wearily as Wyant came in.
As the days dragged on, and Bessy's sufferings increased, Justine longed for a protesting word from Dr. Garford or one of his colleagues. In her hospital experience she had encountered cases where the useless agonies of death were mercifully shortened by the physician; why was not this a case for such treatment?
[...]
For her whole life was centred in Amherst, and she saw that he would never be able to free himself from the traditional view of her act. In looking back, and correcting her survey of his character in the revealing light of the last hours, she perceived that, like many men of emancipated thought, he had remained subject to the old conventions of feeling. And he had probably never given much thought to women till he met her—had always been content to deal with them in the accepted currency of sentiment. After all, it was the currency they liked best, and for which they offered their prettiest wares! "
This is is one of Edith Wharton's few novels to deal directly with issues such as euthanasia, the problems of labor and industrial conditions, and professions for women.
Great Great Book
November 23, 2015
This may be nearly one of the last Edith Wharton novels that I had not yet read. This was, all in all, a fascinating novel too. It is much more of a 'social conditions' novel than many that Wharton has written; as it describes the working conditions in the clothing mills in New England in the late-19th century. Wharton also spends much of the novel dealing with the issue of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. I need to go back to Hermione Lee's great biography and see if I can ferret out the backstory, or impetus, for this novel.
I love anything that Ms. Wharton has written and this was no exception. Was it as good as The Reef, or The House of Mirth, or The Age of Innocence? No, but it was well worth reading, and quite thought-provoking particularly in light of the social discussions that we are having about issues associated with the quality of end-of-life. My mother died several years ago from ALS (i.e., 'Lou Gehrig's Disease) and it was a miserable, miserable experience for all of us--this novel meant a lot to me personally.
The Fruit of the Tree is a solid 4 of 5 stars for me.
I love anything that Ms. Wharton has written and this was no exception. Was it as good as The Reef, or The House of Mirth, or The Age of Innocence? No, but it was well worth reading, and quite thought-provoking particularly in light of the social discussions that we are having about issues associated with the quality of end-of-life. My mother died several years ago from ALS (i.e., 'Lou Gehrig's Disease) and it was a miserable, miserable experience for all of us--this novel meant a lot to me personally.
The Fruit of the Tree is a solid 4 of 5 stars for me.
Want to read
December 23, 2020Free download at Librivox, here: https://librivox.org/the-fruit-of-the...
*********************
*The Old Maid: The 'Fifties 5 stars
*Bunner Sisters 4 stars
*False Dawn 4 stars
*Summer 4 stars
*The Shadow of a Doubt: A Play in Three Acts 4 stars
*The Marne 3 stars
*The Reef 3 stars
*The House of Mirth 3 stars
*The Glimpses Of The Moon 3 stars
*Coming Home 3 stars
*Xingu 3 stars
*The Eyes 2 stars
*The Age of Innocence 1 star
*Ethan Frome 1 star
*Madame de Treymes TBR
*The Custom of the Country TBR
*The Fruit of the Tree TBR
*The Touchstone. by: Edith Wharton TBR
*********************
*The Old Maid: The 'Fifties 5 stars
*Bunner Sisters 4 stars
*False Dawn 4 stars
*Summer 4 stars
*The Shadow of a Doubt: A Play in Three Acts 4 stars
*The Marne 3 stars
*The Reef 3 stars
*The House of Mirth 3 stars
*The Glimpses Of The Moon 3 stars
*Coming Home 3 stars
*Xingu 3 stars
*The Eyes 2 stars
*The Age of Innocence 1 star
*Ethan Frome 1 star
*Madame de Treymes TBR
*The Custom of the Country TBR
*The Fruit of the Tree TBR
*The Touchstone. by: Edith Wharton TBR
April 6, 2017
I am a big Edith Wharton fan. I can only think of one of her novels that I disliked more than this one. About 1/3 in I almost stopped reading it. It's not because of the way it's written. It's because of the characters and the plot. I absolutely loathe John Amherst, the main male character. At the very end, I was hoping his wife (who could have done so much better) would destroy his self-serving lie and leave him. He was a zealot. He was pompous, holier than thou, massively self-absorbed despite his imagined works of 'charity'. He cared only for his own ideas. He had no interest in someone who disagreed with him. People had no value unless they supported his self-aggrandizing ideas. His works served to enslave the workers and make them his puppets. How about paying them a decent wage and letting them decide how they want to live and spend their meager spare time. Wharton has had other main characters who were not particularly admirable, i.e, 'Custom of the Country'. This one particularly annoyed me. I finished the book because I wanted to know what happened. I can only hope that Justine came into full understanding of what he was and left him.
December 30, 2019
Not sure about this one, I think the length of the book could have been a lot shorter.
A fairly long tale revolving around a mill town where the workers are exploited and the rich worry about keeping rich. A young reformist works as the Assistant Manager and has an aim of improving the working and living conditions but faces a wall of resistance from the owner and her advisers who sponge off her. Things change when the owner and the reformer marry but the walls still remain and there is plenty of angst, pettiness and endless arguments.
The Assistant Manager although with his heart in the right place seemed so unhappy with his lot that the book took a lot of patience to get through. There is a love story going on (eventually), a controversial euthanasia and plenty of arrogance by most characters.
A fairly long tale revolving around a mill town where the workers are exploited and the rich worry about keeping rich. A young reformist works as the Assistant Manager and has an aim of improving the working and living conditions but faces a wall of resistance from the owner and her advisers who sponge off her. Things change when the owner and the reformer marry but the walls still remain and there is plenty of angst, pettiness and endless arguments.
The Assistant Manager although with his heart in the right place seemed so unhappy with his lot that the book took a lot of patience to get through. There is a love story going on (eventually), a controversial euthanasia and plenty of arrogance by most characters.
October 8, 2025
This is a bit drawn-out and repetitive at times. But I love the ideas and the way it's written. And the last 100 pages or so are excellent. There's this intricate problem that creates so much stress and tension! All the pieces come together to create this perfect riveting storm. Definitely made the sloggy parts worth it in the end.
January 12, 2020
The Fruit of the Tree is a novel by Edith Wharton written in 1907. The novel tries to deal with issues such as euthanasia, the problems of labor and industrial conditions, and professions for women. When first published it received mixed reviews, and critics (I don't know who they are) complained of its uneven structure, which combines an industrial plot (Amherst's and the mills), an ethical plot (the question of euthanasia) and the romance plot. There's a divorce in there somewhere too.
As The Fruit of the Tree opens, John Amherst, is a reform-minded assistant manager at the Hanaford textile mills, a really, really reform-minded assistant manager, since it seems to be the only thing he ever thinks of. John meets trained nurse Justine Brent at the hospital bedside of Dillon, an injured mill worker. Dillon got injured getting crushed in the cards, I'd love to know what that means but I don't. The workers say there are too many cards in one room, the owners say he was careless. Justine and Amherst agree Dillon would be better off dead if he is deprived of his occupation, keep that in mind. Shortly thereafter, Amherst is pressed into showing the mills to the new owner, Bessy Langhope Westmore, a former schoolmate of Justine's who is now a wealthy young widow with a young daughter. I feel sorry for Bessy, Amherst spends all his time trying to convince her to make all his changes at the mill which usually just ends up with her confused or crying. She really does want to help the workers, but has no idea how. She has no idea of anything except being an upper class wife brought up to love luxuries. The more of these luxuries she has, the better she could show her husband's success. But now he's gone and she owns a company she knows nothing about. Amherst meets with her often, and during the course of these meetings over the fate of the workers, Bessy falls in love with him. He cares about the workers at the mill, not as much about Bessy. Thinking that she shares his social vision and concern for the workers, Amherst marries her and begins his reforming the mills. However, poor Bessy and Amherst are just not meant to be, he is often away at the mills and she begins doing her own thing, going back to the society he hated by attending parties and the like. And then one day Bessy rides her horse over icy roads and ends up in a near fatal accident. Near fatal, she's alive, but has a spinal injury. Bessy asks for Justine to come to her as her nurse and now Justine has to decide whether to help her friend's suffering end.
And that's a lot of the plot. It goes on from there, but you're going to have to find that out all by yourself if you want to know if Amherst gets all the mills the way he wants them, which seems to matter to him much more than a wife ever did, whether Bessy will recover, whether Justine will help her to die, anything else I'm forgetting you'll find out for yourself when you read the book. It was okay, but I don't think I will read it again. Happy reading.
As The Fruit of the Tree opens, John Amherst, is a reform-minded assistant manager at the Hanaford textile mills, a really, really reform-minded assistant manager, since it seems to be the only thing he ever thinks of. John meets trained nurse Justine Brent at the hospital bedside of Dillon, an injured mill worker. Dillon got injured getting crushed in the cards, I'd love to know what that means but I don't. The workers say there are too many cards in one room, the owners say he was careless. Justine and Amherst agree Dillon would be better off dead if he is deprived of his occupation, keep that in mind. Shortly thereafter, Amherst is pressed into showing the mills to the new owner, Bessy Langhope Westmore, a former schoolmate of Justine's who is now a wealthy young widow with a young daughter. I feel sorry for Bessy, Amherst spends all his time trying to convince her to make all his changes at the mill which usually just ends up with her confused or crying. She really does want to help the workers, but has no idea how. She has no idea of anything except being an upper class wife brought up to love luxuries. The more of these luxuries she has, the better she could show her husband's success. But now he's gone and she owns a company she knows nothing about. Amherst meets with her often, and during the course of these meetings over the fate of the workers, Bessy falls in love with him. He cares about the workers at the mill, not as much about Bessy. Thinking that she shares his social vision and concern for the workers, Amherst marries her and begins his reforming the mills. However, poor Bessy and Amherst are just not meant to be, he is often away at the mills and she begins doing her own thing, going back to the society he hated by attending parties and the like. And then one day Bessy rides her horse over icy roads and ends up in a near fatal accident. Near fatal, she's alive, but has a spinal injury. Bessy asks for Justine to come to her as her nurse and now Justine has to decide whether to help her friend's suffering end.
And that's a lot of the plot. It goes on from there, but you're going to have to find that out all by yourself if you want to know if Amherst gets all the mills the way he wants them, which seems to matter to him much more than a wife ever did, whether Bessy will recover, whether Justine will help her to die, anything else I'm forgetting you'll find out for yourself when you read the book. It was okay, but I don't think I will read it again. Happy reading.
January 8, 2010
This is a little-known, unusual, and fascinating Wharton. She's more generally known for her books about New York and European high society, yet here she chooses a mill town for her setting and creates a love triangle among the poor, radical assistant manager of the mill, a high-minded nurse, and a charming but shallow upper-class widow. As always, Wharton observes her characters sharply, especially Justine, the nurse, who is determined to have a life and a career for herself, to break out of the life another character calls "the plan of bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality, corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment." The plot gets a little unwieldy, but there were more than enough ideas -- about labor reform, class, euthanasia, and the lot of women -- to keep me reading with interest.
October 23, 2023
Azt a mélységet a karakterábrázolásban, amit annyira szeretek Wharton írásaiban, ebben a regényben nem annyira éreztem. Viszont maga a cselekmény kifejezetten érdekfeszítő volt, érdekes problémaköröket boncolgatott. És az alaphelyzetből csak a könyv felét találtam ki.
Az meglepett, hogy 1907-ben megjelent egy könyv, ami gyakorlatilag most annyira divatos munkahelyi ergonómia a dolgozói „experience” alapjait írja le. A főszereplő férfiúnk, John Amherst egy örök idealista, aki a gyárban próbálja élhetővé tenni a munkakörnyezetet az alkalmazottak számára, mind fizikailag, mind szociális szempontból.
Gyönyörűen bemutatja a regény azt a típusú fellángolást, ami valójában hamis alapokon nyugszik.
Érdekesség még ebben a helyzetben, hogy nem a férfi az, aki rangban és vagyonban magasabban áll, hiába ő a férfi. Továbbra is szeretném hangsúlyozni, hogy 1907-ben jelent meg a regény.
Justine szerepe nagyon érdekes a teljes cselekmény során. a romantikus aspektusnál sokkal fontosabb, amit az ápolónőségről és az eutanáziáról mond/vall. (Újfent, 1907-ben...) A kiégésről, a társadalmi elvárásokról egy ápolóval szemben, illetve hogy van egy határ, ahonnan már inkább kínzás az orvostudomány, semmint segítség.
A végére kihozott morális dilemma nem igazán fogott meg. Kicsit soknak és direktnek éreztem, túlságosan piedesztálra emelve Justine-t. De végül is ez is egy módja annak, hogy a szerelem fok-mértékét meghatározza egy író.
Összességében úgy érzem, korát bőven meghaladó problémakörökkel foglalkozik ez a kötet. Bár az is igaz, hogy nincs sok összehasonlítási alapom, csak kiragadott korábbi regények.
June 17, 2017
This is definitely NOT a typical Edith Wharton novel. Instead of the foibles of the aristocracy of New York Cit, we have a book that is part a muckraking polemic on the evils of manufacturing and part lurid love story laced with adultery, drug addiction and euthanasia. Quite the topics for 1907!
John Amherst, the reform-minded assistant manager at the Hanaford textile mills, meets trained nurse Justine Brent at the hospital bedside of Dillon, an injured mill worker. They agree that Dillon would be better off dead if he cannot return to the job. Their discussion of euthanasia, sets up the novel's major incident.
Meanwhile, Amherst is asked show the mills to the new owner, Bessy Langhope Westmore, who a wealthy young widow with a young daughter. During the course of later meetings over the fate of the workers, Bessy falls in love with Amherst. Thinking that she shares his idealistic social vision and concern for the workers, Amherst marries her and begins his campaign of reforming the mills.
However, he runs into opposition from Bessy's father and her lawyer who think that all this reforming will eat into Bessy's income. After the death of their infant son, Bessy and Amherst become increasingly estranged, and he spends longer and longer periods absent from home immersed in his work. When he is home he & , Justine meet and discussed conditions in the mills. He comes to regard her as a friend. who understands him as opposed to Bessy who lives more and more for her own pleasure.
Bessy recognizes that Amherst is drifting away from her. Hurt by his indifference, she starts going to parties with the disreputable Mrs. Fenton Carbury and indulges herself in planning a "pleasure-house." Bessy has also renewed her friendship with Justine, who tacitly understands the situation. Seeing the two drift apart and urged on by Mrs. Ansell, an older friend of Bessy's, Justine writes to Amherst that he should return home. Hurt by Amherst's refusal to do so, Bessy rides over icy roads on her horse, and suffers a near-fatal spinal injury
Justine watches Bessy suffer helplessly at the hands of Dr. Wyant, an ambitious young doctor determined to keep his patient alive at all costs. Justine recalls her discussion with Amherst about euthanasia, and moved by Bessy's plight, she administers an overdose of morphine to Bessy.
After Bessy's death, Justine and Amherst marry, but their happiness is short-lived.because Dr. Wyant, now addicted to morphine, threatens to expose Justine's action and blackmails her. Soon he will no longer be bought off by the small sums that Justine has sent him and she must tell Amherst the truth. He is appalled at her action and she sacrifices her own happiness and leaves.
When Bessy's daughter Cicely falls ill and pines for Justine, Amherst seeks Justine out and they reconcile, but not happily for long. .
Amherst finds a set of plans for Bessy's pleasure-house and mistakes them for a new recreation hall for the millworkers and believes Bessy had at last learned to share his compassionate attitude toward the workers in the mill. When he asks Justine about Bessy's motives for building the gymnasium, Justine, who knows the truth, nonetheless lies to preserve his illusions. With the specter of the now-idealized Bessy between them, however, Justine and Amherst can never again live in the total happiness of their first few months together. Wharton has clearly written a book ahead of it's time.
John Amherst, the reform-minded assistant manager at the Hanaford textile mills, meets trained nurse Justine Brent at the hospital bedside of Dillon, an injured mill worker. They agree that Dillon would be better off dead if he cannot return to the job. Their discussion of euthanasia, sets up the novel's major incident.
Meanwhile, Amherst is asked show the mills to the new owner, Bessy Langhope Westmore, who a wealthy young widow with a young daughter. During the course of later meetings over the fate of the workers, Bessy falls in love with Amherst. Thinking that she shares his idealistic social vision and concern for the workers, Amherst marries her and begins his campaign of reforming the mills.
However, he runs into opposition from Bessy's father and her lawyer who think that all this reforming will eat into Bessy's income. After the death of their infant son, Bessy and Amherst become increasingly estranged, and he spends longer and longer periods absent from home immersed in his work. When he is home he & , Justine meet and discussed conditions in the mills. He comes to regard her as a friend. who understands him as opposed to Bessy who lives more and more for her own pleasure.
Bessy recognizes that Amherst is drifting away from her. Hurt by his indifference, she starts going to parties with the disreputable Mrs. Fenton Carbury and indulges herself in planning a "pleasure-house." Bessy has also renewed her friendship with Justine, who tacitly understands the situation. Seeing the two drift apart and urged on by Mrs. Ansell, an older friend of Bessy's, Justine writes to Amherst that he should return home. Hurt by Amherst's refusal to do so, Bessy rides over icy roads on her horse, and suffers a near-fatal spinal injury
Justine watches Bessy suffer helplessly at the hands of Dr. Wyant, an ambitious young doctor determined to keep his patient alive at all costs. Justine recalls her discussion with Amherst about euthanasia, and moved by Bessy's plight, she administers an overdose of morphine to Bessy.
After Bessy's death, Justine and Amherst marry, but their happiness is short-lived.because Dr. Wyant, now addicted to morphine, threatens to expose Justine's action and blackmails her. Soon he will no longer be bought off by the small sums that Justine has sent him and she must tell Amherst the truth. He is appalled at her action and she sacrifices her own happiness and leaves.
When Bessy's daughter Cicely falls ill and pines for Justine, Amherst seeks Justine out and they reconcile, but not happily for long. .
Amherst finds a set of plans for Bessy's pleasure-house and mistakes them for a new recreation hall for the millworkers and believes Bessy had at last learned to share his compassionate attitude toward the workers in the mill. When he asks Justine about Bessy's motives for building the gymnasium, Justine, who knows the truth, nonetheless lies to preserve his illusions. With the specter of the now-idealized Bessy between them, however, Justine and Amherst can never again live in the total happiness of their first few months together. Wharton has clearly written a book ahead of it's time.
August 4, 2021
This was a lot of reading! I always think of Edith Wharton's tomes as prolonged reading, but, practically speaking, this really needed to be read continuously and immersively to absorb the minute complex fluctuations in humans that she is presenting. Through the primary characters of nurse Justine Brent and textile mill assistant manager John Amherst, who briefly cross paths at the hospital bedside of an injured mill worker, Wharton weaves a tale encompassing many unaddressed issues at the turn of the 19th/20th century.
Wharton's themes include, as always, the dichotomy of society's upper echelons, the seemingly helpless female evidenced through newly-widowed Bessy Westmore and her friends, often manipulative, insincere, and primarily concerned with public opinion, against straightforwardness and practicality in working class Justine Brent and John Amherst. In this book they are nuanced, juxtaposed, intertwined, and overlapped, demonstrating both deep and shallow fluctuations in both "types." Amherst's burning belief was that an investment in reforming Westmore Mill from a place where workers held no worth and the bottom line was the only consideration into a workplace that would acknowledge their humanity and value would ultimately benefit Westmore in production and financially. With the death of the mill's owner, Amherst stumbled upon the chance to discuss this with the new owner, Bessy and the lives of everyone surrounding each of them became involved.
Besides industrial labor conditions, The Fruit of the Tree story also skillfully weaves in and grapples with other issues of that era that were hidden from discussion and consideration, such as euthanasia, drug addition among medical professionals, and divorce.
Wharton's themes include, as always, the dichotomy of society's upper echelons, the seemingly helpless female evidenced through newly-widowed Bessy Westmore and her friends, often manipulative, insincere, and primarily concerned with public opinion, against straightforwardness and practicality in working class Justine Brent and John Amherst. In this book they are nuanced, juxtaposed, intertwined, and overlapped, demonstrating both deep and shallow fluctuations in both "types." Amherst's burning belief was that an investment in reforming Westmore Mill from a place where workers held no worth and the bottom line was the only consideration into a workplace that would acknowledge their humanity and value would ultimately benefit Westmore in production and financially. With the death of the mill's owner, Amherst stumbled upon the chance to discuss this with the new owner, Bessy and the lives of everyone surrounding each of them became involved.
Besides industrial labor conditions, The Fruit of the Tree story also skillfully weaves in and grapples with other issues of that era that were hidden from discussion and consideration, such as euthanasia, drug addition among medical professionals, and divorce.
April 24, 2020
So much of reading depends on the timing: when you read a particular book, what is in the news at the time, what you read just before. So much of what I'm going to say is relevant in terms of the coronavirus that is absorbing practically all the news bulletins at the moment. There have been plenty of newspaper headlines to suggest that doctors are forced to decide who lives, who dies. And then, on a broader scale, should coronavirus patients survive while cancer patients die? Or, even more broadly, should we all survive if the economy collapses?
The story of the novel - I hope I'm not giving too much away - hinges on a mercy killing. I am surprised that more than 110 years later we as a society have not decided whether it is all right to end a person's suffering; the argument still rages on.
And so, although this debate is interesting in itself, the novel is about love and what loving somebody entails. It is also about improving the social conditions at an industrial plant, and about personal responsibility. All described well, if a touch wordily. Some scenes are quite heartbreaking.
I like Edith Wharton's problems, I like her books. I think I have read all of them. This is perhaps not her best but the moral core is as strong as ever. She never strayed very far from the question of human happiness. And if you ask me, there is no better book in the world than her "Ethan Frome"- more of a novella than a novel. Very highly recommended.
If you have never read a Wharton, I urge you to do so now.
The story of the novel - I hope I'm not giving too much away - hinges on a mercy killing. I am surprised that more than 110 years later we as a society have not decided whether it is all right to end a person's suffering; the argument still rages on.
And so, although this debate is interesting in itself, the novel is about love and what loving somebody entails. It is also about improving the social conditions at an industrial plant, and about personal responsibility. All described well, if a touch wordily. Some scenes are quite heartbreaking.
I like Edith Wharton's problems, I like her books. I think I have read all of them. This is perhaps not her best but the moral core is as strong as ever. She never strayed very far from the question of human happiness. And if you ask me, there is no better book in the world than her "Ethan Frome"- more of a novella than a novel. Very highly recommended.
If you have never read a Wharton, I urge you to do so now.
November 30, 2014
I started this months ago, and put aside because it felt like a cheap 'nurse romance'. But I hate to be beaten by a book, so took it up again, and the Wharton magic worked. She has the knack of creating real people, a beautiful hand for descriptions of the natural world - and an unrelentingly bleak outlook on human behaviour. Don't expect any unalloyed happiness here. Once you're in it, though, it's unputdownable. Oh, and coming fresh from Ethan Frome, it's nice to see you can coast downhill safely....
Read
December 26, 2025Classic Wharton, not my favorite but deals with particular uncomfortable experiences (jealousy, disability, second marriages) with insight.
March 23, 2015
A compassionate young nurse and a factory manager committed to improving conditions for the workers find themselves in sympathy with each other from their first meeting, though their unconventional convictions will be put the test by tragedy and fate.
The nurse is Justine Brent, a competent and beautiful woman who won't compromise her career to marry into money. The factory manager is John Amherst, who does marry into money, hoping to persuade his young heiress wife into allowing him to carry out his staff-friendly reforms at the mill she owns.
This wife is Betty Westmore, a spitited yet frivolous girl who initially becomes enamoured of her husband's plans, against the wishes of her father Mr. Langhope.
He is the type of meddlesome old hand in social dissimulation so familiar in Wharton's fiction, as is his friend, Mrs. Ansell, who says tellingly of Bessy: "a peculiarity of the infant mind is to tire soonest of the toy that no one tries to take away from it."
The unconventional conviction that Justine and John share is about the sanctity of life, which conventional science and religion uphold beyond any amount of suffering. Wharton's gut-wrenching plot puts this philosophical question to the practical test, resulting in a characteristic resolution of bitter ironies.
Wharton really is a magnificent author, even when she meanders a little as she does here. Her main character, Justine Brent, at one stage commits an act that I simply couldn't forgive, not so much for how it impacted on the central question of the novel but because, in my view it simply wasn't hers to make. And yet Wharton never lost my full investment in her story.
It helps that she writes so very, very well. She's never showy, just extremely refined and perspicuous. I could have selected any number of passages to illustrate her style, the one below is merely typical:
'Certainly Bessy Amherst had grown into the full loveliness which her childhood promised. She had the kind of finished prettiness that declares itself early, holds its own through the awkward transitions of girlhood, and resists the strain of all later vicissitudes, as though miraculously preserved in some clear medium impenetrable to the wear and tear of living.'
A troubling premise as resonant today as it was in 1907, tacked with courage and dexterity.
The nurse is Justine Brent, a competent and beautiful woman who won't compromise her career to marry into money. The factory manager is John Amherst, who does marry into money, hoping to persuade his young heiress wife into allowing him to carry out his staff-friendly reforms at the mill she owns.
This wife is Betty Westmore, a spitited yet frivolous girl who initially becomes enamoured of her husband's plans, against the wishes of her father Mr. Langhope.
He is the type of meddlesome old hand in social dissimulation so familiar in Wharton's fiction, as is his friend, Mrs. Ansell, who says tellingly of Bessy: "a peculiarity of the infant mind is to tire soonest of the toy that no one tries to take away from it."
The unconventional conviction that Justine and John share is about the sanctity of life, which conventional science and religion uphold beyond any amount of suffering. Wharton's gut-wrenching plot puts this philosophical question to the practical test, resulting in a characteristic resolution of bitter ironies.
Wharton really is a magnificent author, even when she meanders a little as she does here. Her main character, Justine Brent, at one stage commits an act that I simply couldn't forgive, not so much for how it impacted on the central question of the novel but because, in my view it simply wasn't hers to make. And yet Wharton never lost my full investment in her story.
It helps that she writes so very, very well. She's never showy, just extremely refined and perspicuous. I could have selected any number of passages to illustrate her style, the one below is merely typical:
'Certainly Bessy Amherst had grown into the full loveliness which her childhood promised. She had the kind of finished prettiness that declares itself early, holds its own through the awkward transitions of girlhood, and resists the strain of all later vicissitudes, as though miraculously preserved in some clear medium impenetrable to the wear and tear of living.'
A troubling premise as resonant today as it was in 1907, tacked with courage and dexterity.
June 17, 2021
Edith Wharton is known as a critic of the East coast upper class, exposing the hypocrisy and superficiality of their values. In a bit of a contrast, The Fruit of the Tree (1907) takes on the plight of factory workers exploited and neglected by the wealthy family who owns the factory and pits them against the factory's manager John Amherst, who champions the cause for better working conditions. Falling in love with Bessy Westmore, the daughter and heiress who will one day assume control of the business this is more than an opportunist's dream for Amherst who is convinced he has turned Bessy from a disinterested carefree young girl to his partner in humanizing the lives of the people she will one day be responsible for.
~
But it takes money to turn the factory and its environs from the impersonal, less than optimal living conditions for its workers into a lushly landscaped vision where there is onsite medical care and a school for employee's children and adult education is provided. The first blush of altruism for Bessy begins to fade when she realizes the time that must be spent "working" though she is still supportive of John's aims and goals.
~
When Bessy's childhood friend, the idealistic Justine Brent, meets John at the bedside of an injured worker, conflict arises between the three.
~
But it is always the morality of the moneyed class that Wharton places under a microscope and here John's push pull with Bessy's fortune and those who control her puts the changes for the factory in jeopardy.
💮
I enjoyed this immensely and with each new novel, novella or short story Wharton just does not disappoint.
~
But it takes money to turn the factory and its environs from the impersonal, less than optimal living conditions for its workers into a lushly landscaped vision where there is onsite medical care and a school for employee's children and adult education is provided. The first blush of altruism for Bessy begins to fade when she realizes the time that must be spent "working" though she is still supportive of John's aims and goals.
~
When Bessy's childhood friend, the idealistic Justine Brent, meets John at the bedside of an injured worker, conflict arises between the three.
~
But it is always the morality of the moneyed class that Wharton places under a microscope and here John's push pull with Bessy's fortune and those who control her puts the changes for the factory in jeopardy.
💮
I enjoyed this immensely and with each new novel, novella or short story Wharton just does not disappoint.
December 30, 2017
I was disappointed by this. It had beautiful moments, but it ended with so much artificiality and unhappiness between central characters which felt inconsistent and unbelievable as a character portrait of one the people involved (Mr Amherst). There were scenes in which I thought it was going to be like “A Room with a View” in which one finds a soaring crescendo of honesty and love clearing away all misunderstandings and social conventions, but instead in this book the social niceties/negative assumptions won to the everlasting detriment of central characters. I was impressed that Mrs. Ansell turns out to be a much more interesting and insightful person than she was originally portrayed.
April 20, 2019
This novel is bitter-sweet, and LONG. I've had the hardest time finding motivation to finish this, which I believe I started in September or October of 2013.
Wharton expresses in clearer terms in this novel than in her other works her interest in politics and social welfare relating to her context. Set in a mill town, Wharton delves into questions of property, inspiration, unions and community responsibilities while still writing the sort of interpersonal romance she is best known for. The overarching moral question of the story centers around the motivations and consequences of euthanasia.
Wharton's voice in this novel felt forced and lifeless. I find more hope in her sarcastic works about New York society's anti-heroes that Wharton experienced in her own life than in this constructed world of heroes and heroines.
Wharton expresses in clearer terms in this novel than in her other works her interest in politics and social welfare relating to her context. Set in a mill town, Wharton delves into questions of property, inspiration, unions and community responsibilities while still writing the sort of interpersonal romance she is best known for. The overarching moral question of the story centers around the motivations and consequences of euthanasia.
Wharton's voice in this novel felt forced and lifeless. I find more hope in her sarcastic works about New York society's anti-heroes that Wharton experienced in her own life than in this constructed world of heroes and heroines.
February 7, 2015
Topics are as fresh today as they were then. Painfully sad but compellingly written. Loved having a female author write about workplace safety; what courage and confidence! This is also about power struggles-more than a euthanasia discussion is the idea of pushing medical care for the success of the physician's professional career and in the name of science.
Wharton's ability to weave characters in and out of her story is smooth and believable. With so many books feeling like they've been done so many times before, this novel still has twists and surprises that make this a Wharton novel that remains worth reading.
Wharton's ability to weave characters in and out of her story is smooth and believable. With so many books feeling like they've been done so many times before, this novel still has twists and surprises that make this a Wharton novel that remains worth reading.
March 8, 2010
Though the characterizations are sometimes heavy-handed and the plot sometimes relies on the constraints of formula, this book has much of Wharton's flair for intricate psychological insights and memorable scenes. It's made more interesting for me by the strong theme of labor rights and the almost Marxist-socialist view she takes of labor relations (though situated firmly from an upperclass POV). Also interesting are the themes of euthanasia and drug abuse. Certainly a book that more Wharton fans and scholars should be reading.
November 29, 2023
Wow. This was not what I expected.
This early Wharton novel explores standard Wharton themes: feminism, the hardships of marriage, divorce, Old New York society, and social hierarchies. It just so happens to throw in things like labor disputes and the medical ethics of mercy killings. Yikes.
The writing is pretty tight already and you know that she only gets better. Impressive to see where she started. There are issues of structure and credibility, but I wouldn't pass on this over that.
This early Wharton novel explores standard Wharton themes: feminism, the hardships of marriage, divorce, Old New York society, and social hierarchies. It just so happens to throw in things like labor disputes and the medical ethics of mercy killings. Yikes.
The writing is pretty tight already and you know that she only gets better. Impressive to see where she started. There are issues of structure and credibility, but I wouldn't pass on this over that.
September 16, 2018
Liked the plot, not the ending so much. Interesting plot and characters were “human” and reacted as such. A classic by a writer deserving her respect. Recommended for those who like vintage (clean) mystery / romance & tales that wrestle with your heartstrings.
February 26, 2014
I loved it!
First published in 1907 and am so glad that Virago have re-printed it.
A powerful study of class, morality and love.
Well worth a read.
First published in 1907 and am so glad that Virago have re-printed it.
A powerful study of class, morality and love.
Well worth a read.
Read
April 17, 2015someone spelled Innocence wrong in the blurb.
i read a couple of chapters before realizing i read this book years ago. enjoyed it nonetheless.
i read a couple of chapters before realizing i read this book years ago. enjoyed it nonetheless.
March 11, 2022
It’s Edith Wharton + The Jungle + Final Exit!
SPOILERS, because I pretty much run down the whole plot.
(And if, like me, you hate spoilers, and you are reading the same edition I did, save the long, dull introduction for the end, like I did. God, I hate it when introductions tell the whole story. You know what that is? An AFTERWORD. Some people are reading for pleasure and don’t want the plot revealed, thank you.)
How else is a 633-page novel going to hold your interest? Wharton’s (mostly) regular theme of “pretty people with pretty problems” (my favorite genre) gets a dash of the problems of industrialization when beautiful, widowed Bessy Westmore marries the idealistic and reform-minded John Amherst, assistant manager of the mills she inherited from her late husband. Coincidentally, Justine Brent, a traveling nurse who’s condescendingly invested in the poor mill workers and their families as well (“It’s the same kind of interest I used to feel in my dolls and guinea pigs—a managing, interfering old maid’s interest. I don’t believe I should care a straw for them if I couldn’t dose them and order them about.”), and is tending to a recently maimed (due to the poor conditions) mill worker, just happens to be an old classmate of Bessy. Justine and John already had a “meet cute” over the maimed man’s hospital bed before John and Bessy marry, and as John uses Bessy’s money to make much needed changes to the mills and to the living and working conditions of their employees and families, Bessy becomes increasingly frustrated and petty with John, fearing that he is frittering away her cash and squandering her daughter’s future inheritance. Justine, who serves as the daughter’s nanny and Bessy’s confidante, tries to smooth things over, but shallow, foolish Bessy reverts to character as she and John become more and more estranged.
John takes off for South America, but not before warning Bessy never to ride her favorite horse alone. Bessy immediately rides her favorite horse alone, during an ice storm, no less, and is thrown and paralyzed. John is unreachable, the doctor who wanted to marry Justine but Justine turned him down and now he’s turning into a drug addict and is super pissed at Justine walks in on her right after she gives Bessy a fatal dose of morphine, knowing that Bessy is in horrible pain and that her death is inevitable anyway, probably before John can make it home. Justine just knows that John would agree with her, if he were there, because they “kind of” talked about euthanasia when the whole maimed man thing happened, and right before she did the deed she read something he had scribbled in the margins of a book that she interpreted as a sign. Sure, Justine. I mean, I’m on her side, but she really should have checked with someone first, and she knew Dr. Wyant was all over her ass, so she should have been way more careful.
Shortly after, John and Justine get married, and everything is wonderful. They are working together to make the mills a worker utopia (well, a 1907 worker utopia), and they love each other so much, and they love their stepdaughter so much, when she isn’t with her grandfather, and everything is just peachy. Then druggy Wyant turns up and I just zoomed through those last chapters, where there is melodrama, and a real page turning excitement, and then an interesting study of what you do to continue a marriage when your spouse does something that completely changes how you feel about them. (Did I mention that Justine just totally didn’t tell John “Oh hey! I killed your wife! It was for her own good! You think I’m right, right?”) DO you continue a marriage when your spouse does something that completely changes how you feel about them? And it gets explored from both sides, because first you deal with John finding out, then you deal with Justine, who has to sit by while John falsely portrays the late Bessy as wanting the same great things for the mill workers as Justine and John when Bessy did NOT. It’s a complex ending, neither happy nor sad.
This doesn’t stand with the greatest Wharton novels, but it sure was fun.
SPOILERS, because I pretty much run down the whole plot.
(And if, like me, you hate spoilers, and you are reading the same edition I did, save the long, dull introduction for the end, like I did. God, I hate it when introductions tell the whole story. You know what that is? An AFTERWORD. Some people are reading for pleasure and don’t want the plot revealed, thank you.)
How else is a 633-page novel going to hold your interest? Wharton’s (mostly) regular theme of “pretty people with pretty problems” (my favorite genre) gets a dash of the problems of industrialization when beautiful, widowed Bessy Westmore marries the idealistic and reform-minded John Amherst, assistant manager of the mills she inherited from her late husband. Coincidentally, Justine Brent, a traveling nurse who’s condescendingly invested in the poor mill workers and their families as well (“It’s the same kind of interest I used to feel in my dolls and guinea pigs—a managing, interfering old maid’s interest. I don’t believe I should care a straw for them if I couldn’t dose them and order them about.”), and is tending to a recently maimed (due to the poor conditions) mill worker, just happens to be an old classmate of Bessy. Justine and John already had a “meet cute” over the maimed man’s hospital bed before John and Bessy marry, and as John uses Bessy’s money to make much needed changes to the mills and to the living and working conditions of their employees and families, Bessy becomes increasingly frustrated and petty with John, fearing that he is frittering away her cash and squandering her daughter’s future inheritance. Justine, who serves as the daughter’s nanny and Bessy’s confidante, tries to smooth things over, but shallow, foolish Bessy reverts to character as she and John become more and more estranged.
John takes off for South America, but not before warning Bessy never to ride her favorite horse alone. Bessy immediately rides her favorite horse alone, during an ice storm, no less, and is thrown and paralyzed. John is unreachable, the doctor who wanted to marry Justine but Justine turned him down and now he’s turning into a drug addict and is super pissed at Justine walks in on her right after she gives Bessy a fatal dose of morphine, knowing that Bessy is in horrible pain and that her death is inevitable anyway, probably before John can make it home. Justine just knows that John would agree with her, if he were there, because they “kind of” talked about euthanasia when the whole maimed man thing happened, and right before she did the deed she read something he had scribbled in the margins of a book that she interpreted as a sign. Sure, Justine. I mean, I’m on her side, but she really should have checked with someone first, and she knew Dr. Wyant was all over her ass, so she should have been way more careful.
Shortly after, John and Justine get married, and everything is wonderful. They are working together to make the mills a worker utopia (well, a 1907 worker utopia), and they love each other so much, and they love their stepdaughter so much, when she isn’t with her grandfather, and everything is just peachy. Then druggy Wyant turns up and I just zoomed through those last chapters, where there is melodrama, and a real page turning excitement, and then an interesting study of what you do to continue a marriage when your spouse does something that completely changes how you feel about them. (Did I mention that Justine just totally didn’t tell John “Oh hey! I killed your wife! It was for her own good! You think I’m right, right?”) DO you continue a marriage when your spouse does something that completely changes how you feel about them? And it gets explored from both sides, because first you deal with John finding out, then you deal with Justine, who has to sit by while John falsely portrays the late Bessy as wanting the same great things for the mill workers as Justine and John when Bessy did NOT. It’s a complex ending, neither happy nor sad.
This doesn’t stand with the greatest Wharton novels, but it sure was fun.
November 25, 2020
Published in 1907 ‘The Fruit of the Tree’ is one of Edith Wharton's few novels to deal directly with issues such as euthanasia, the problems of labor and industrial conditions, and professions for women, as well as Wharton's more customary themes such as divorce. Set over almost 600 pages, one has to take time to keep up with the constant context switching due to a bit of an uneven structure, combining an industrial plot (Amherst's attempts to reform the mills), an ethical plot (the question of euthanasia) and the more conventional romance plot (Justine, Bessy, and Amherst).
Having said that the book is made interesting by the ethical and moral questions and criticisms that it raises, around the system of industrialisation. Without protections of unionisation for workers governing social responsibilities of millowners; and extension of responsibility beyond provision of medical care and safe working conditions. It also offers an unusually complex representation of a nurse in early twentieth-century fiction. And the reader is made to question medical ethics, by the writer suggesting that ‘a doctor's pride in his skill and faith in science may override humanitarian concerns’. This leads to considerations around professional and personal care giving, including the specific question of hastening death in the face of suffering and one is left forming conclusions around justification, Implications and consequences of administering morphine at end-of-life. The story-line leaves one with heavy impressions arising from the human-side of given conflicts experienced by ‘angels of mercy’; and how one must suffer, deal with and overcome personal guilt. Wharton's novel looks at the position of women in American culture, illuminating the links between her era's construction of femininity and the emerging professional figure of the nurse by contrasting two of its central characters, the independent career woman Justine and the society woman Bessy. In a critique of women's education and social role that condemns the "plan of bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality, corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, and leaving them to reconcile the two as best they can," (p. 282) Although the book favours one over the other, both female characters are revealed to have their unique flaws. The subject of divorce is also a major theme laid-bare through culminating acts amounting to failings in character and integrity. Ie lying and deception and the consequential inevitable loss in trust. Subsequent spin-off themes arise associated with aspects of relationship breakdown related to ownership, accountability and responsibility. This is one of those books that is by no-means a ‘light-read on account of the haunting view on weighty subject-matter such as assisted suicide, inheritance, and infidelity. Having said that, it is a book one can enjoy for the sheer joy of Edith Wharton’s sublime writing and also for the fact the stark topics covered will enflame long-lasting thoughts and impressions. All things said it is a good read as a once-off for me.
Having said that the book is made interesting by the ethical and moral questions and criticisms that it raises, around the system of industrialisation. Without protections of unionisation for workers governing social responsibilities of millowners; and extension of responsibility beyond provision of medical care and safe working conditions. It also offers an unusually complex representation of a nurse in early twentieth-century fiction. And the reader is made to question medical ethics, by the writer suggesting that ‘a doctor's pride in his skill and faith in science may override humanitarian concerns’. This leads to considerations around professional and personal care giving, including the specific question of hastening death in the face of suffering and one is left forming conclusions around justification, Implications and consequences of administering morphine at end-of-life. The story-line leaves one with heavy impressions arising from the human-side of given conflicts experienced by ‘angels of mercy’; and how one must suffer, deal with and overcome personal guilt. Wharton's novel looks at the position of women in American culture, illuminating the links between her era's construction of femininity and the emerging professional figure of the nurse by contrasting two of its central characters, the independent career woman Justine and the society woman Bessy. In a critique of women's education and social role that condemns the "plan of bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality, corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, and leaving them to reconcile the two as best they can," (p. 282) Although the book favours one over the other, both female characters are revealed to have their unique flaws. The subject of divorce is also a major theme laid-bare through culminating acts amounting to failings in character and integrity. Ie lying and deception and the consequential inevitable loss in trust. Subsequent spin-off themes arise associated with aspects of relationship breakdown related to ownership, accountability and responsibility. This is one of those books that is by no-means a ‘light-read on account of the haunting view on weighty subject-matter such as assisted suicide, inheritance, and infidelity. Having said that, it is a book one can enjoy for the sheer joy of Edith Wharton’s sublime writing and also for the fact the stark topics covered will enflame long-lasting thoughts and impressions. All things said it is a good read as a once-off for me.
December 9, 2024
A long but engaging story of the tension between idealism and the hard realities of life. It follows John Amherst, an idealist determined to transform an American cotton mill, Westmore, into a progressive model of benevolent employment in the face of hard-nosed capitalism. His marriage to widowed mill owner Bessy Westmore seems the route to achieving this but it soon proves to be a dysfunctional marriage despite Amherst’s initial infatuation. As events twist and change, Amherst often turns to sensible young nurse Justine Brent who remains a family friend and carer for Bessy’s daughter, Cecily. With earnestness and clarity, the story explores moral quandaries around issues such as idealism, money, marriage and more.
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