Wharton as a young writer

In 1922, just two years after winning the Pulitzer, Wharton published the highly acclaimed, international bestseller, Glimpses of the Moon. It was turned into a film in 1923. Strangely enough, today it is one of her least known books. Thanks to Britain's Pushkin Press, we can now read it again. Like all of Wharton's novels—she also wrote short stories, poems, travelogues and books on design, architecture and gardens—Glimpses of the Moon takes a close look at upper crust society of her time. As an insider to this milieu, Wharton took almost an anthropological view of her class in the early parts of the 20^th century, and the later parts of the 19^th. She dissected her own kind, sometimes wittily, sometimes much more harshly.

Hers is an often satiric view, always entertaining, but also sometimes painful as she paints the superfluous lives of many of her social compatriots. Glimpses of the Moon and Wharton's other books should be must read material by those, who drift about the world with aimlessness, in pursuit of ever-eluding happiness, while they contribute little to the well-being of our planet. Her books are also, without being obviously so, warnings to wannabe celebrities. Life at the top can be very empty, even if it seems fun at first. Through the modern medium of communication we can now see that Wharton's descriptions of idle lives aren't that much different from today's world.

In Glimpses of the Moon we meet two young, attractive New York socialites, Nick Lansing and Suzy Branch. They are very much in love, but they also happen to be fairly poor. Nick wants to be a writer. Suzy, however, has a knack for living off the kindness of her rich friends, though it is at a cost she only realizes too late.

One of the prices she must pay is not seeing Lansing as often as she wishes at the request of a friend, because, "Ursula does a lot for me: I live on her for half the year. This dress I've got on now is one she gave me. Her motor is going to take me to a dinner tonight. I'm going to spend next summer with her at Newport . . . If I don't, I've got to go to California with the Bockheimers—so, goodbye."

The problem is that Nick and Suzy feel they have little chance at happiness without a fortune to spend. Yet, love prevails when Suzy comes up with a scheme that will allow them to separate when either encounters a more eligible prospect. So, at the kindness of yet another friend, they honeymoon on Lake Como, then a Venetian Palace. As Suzy sees it, they should have at least a year together, living not only off the indulgences of friends, but also off the money and jewelry given to them as wedding gifts. Life, however, isn't quite so simple. Jealousy enters, and so do troubled consciences. The house of cards, so carefully crafted by Suzy's dreams, collapses very soon.

Wharton has a wonderful way of painting scenes. We get to know not only Lake Como and Venice through her eyes, but also Paris. Her books about architecture and gardens obviously show that she has a keen eye for detail, and so brings every locale the two lovers, now husband and wife, encounter.

Wharton's own life informed her writing. She came from a well-to-do New York family, who educated her privately. Her family moved to Europe after the American Civil War, where they could live more cheaply. She came back to New York at age 18, and soon after published her first poetry. Another stay in Europe, where her father died shortly after arriving for a cure, Wharton returned home. At age 23, she married a wealthy Boston banker, 11 years her senior. It was not a happy marriage, yet they moved to France in 1907, where she remained after their divorce in 1913. During WWI she managed to travel extensively to the front lines of the war, publishing articles about her experiences. She worked tirelessly in charitable efforts for refugees, operated workrooms for unemployed Frenchwomen, organized concerts to give work to musicians, supported tuberculosis hospitals and founded the American Hostels for Belgian refugees. For her efforts the French named her a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1916.

It seems rather strange, given her work on behalf of the downtrodden, that after her death she was labeled by many as an irrelevant writer, who knew nothing about the 'masses'. It has to be noted here that Virginia Woolf knew far less, but her appeal lay in her unusual writing style that captured a new generation's imagination. Besides, Wharton was perhaps too sane for a public that hungered for more exotic personalities. Woolf filled that prescription far better, as did all of the Bloomsbury group, as did Joyce, E.M. Forster, and Ernest Hemingway, to mention a few.