A Son at the Front

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

pick

Oddly centered on an unpleasant main character. Wharton‘s novel on (wealthy) American expats in Paris during WWI focuses on an artist and divorced father who put his art before his family. When he tries to finally connect with his son, WWI intervenes. The novel lingers a bit plotless at times, but makes for a very interesting perspective on the war experience. And it has that Wharton prose. #whartonbuddyread

Lcsmcat

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dabbe

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

pick

Wharton's writing is simply gorgeous. The story is mainly seen from the parents' point of view, especially John Campton, George's father. The horrors of what parents go through when their child goes to war are riveting, yet I wanted to view the war more through George's eyes since he is the son of said title. Still a pick mainly for Wharton's understanding of France during such a turbulent period of history. #WhartonBuddyRead

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Lcsmcat

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

How‘s everyone processing this now? Is the book “hawk” or “dove”? In the end, which character did you change your mind about, and which not? And how do you react to the above quote from The Mount? Quotes to follow, of course. 😂 #whartonbuddyread

Lcsmcat @jewright @Louise @Sace @Suet624 @arubabookwoman @Currey @catebutler @Catherine_Willoughby @crazeedi @mdm139 @emilyhaldi @KathyWheeler @llwheeler @CarolynM @Cathythoughts @BookishTrish @graywacke @leftcoastzen @ann_reads @sparklemn @sarahbellum @imaslowreader @samanne 1y

Lcsmcat “Apparently it did not occur to her that, in the matter of human life, victories may be as ruinous as defeats;” 1y

Lcsmcat “and the chaplain‘s asking “O grave, where is thy victory?” in the querulous tone of a schoolmaster reproaching a pupil who mislaid things?” 1y

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Lcsmcat “I‘ve never in my life been happy enough to be so unhappy!” 1y

Lcsmcat “What did such people as Julia do with grief, he wondered, how did they make room for it in their lives, get up and lie down every day with its taste on their lips? Its elemental quality, that awful sense it communicated of a whirling earth, a crumbling Time, and all the cold stellar spaces yawning to receive us—these feelings which he was beginning to discern and to come to terms with in his own way” 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat I loved the writing in this book. I was more attuned to it than I thought I would be. Also, I found it to be closer to some personal experience perhaps because, as you mentioned last week, our narrator was so deeply flawed and the societal constraints Wharton usually deals with are getting to be less ancient. The love affair and possible divorce for example would not have presented like that in an earlier book. 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat I do think it is largely a pro war book, that somehow, something was worth fighting for. I loved the interchange about fighting for France but what is France without men - an idea. 1y

Graywacke That quote - had no idea. And instead if AoI, her most famous work. Wow. I think she struggled with this much like Campton struggled to capture his son at the end. It‘s a tough mindset to capture. And, for all her experience, she had no children to lose. Her relationship with George‘s parents can only be imagined. But she also captured a war experience, and the complexity of response over time, making this an important work. 1y

Graywacke I struggled with the plotless nature of the novel. When Campton is off to see his wounded son near the front, i was all in. Every interfering bus vivid, wwi films filling out the imagination. But the rest of the book, wandering around apparently aimlessly with self-centered Campton, was tough. 1y

Graywacke I think the book is subversively pro-France. 🙂 At least, I‘m left feeling grateful France held off the Germans and survived, and having no such feelings towards Germany. What did American expats in Germany feel? All twelve of them. 1y

Graywacke - On America declaring war:
“At the thought Campton felt a loosening of the tightness about his heart. Something which had been confused and uncertain in his relation to the whole long anguish was abruptly lifted, giving him the same sense of buoyancy that danced in Boylston's glance. 👇 1y

Graywacke 👆 At last, random atoms that they were, they seemed all to have been shaken into their places, pressed into the huge mysterious design which was slowly curving a new firmament over a new earth...
There was another knock;” 1y

Graywacke 👆i like that because it‘s a beautiful expression of being lost in joy of the world, and with an immediate soft counter-comment (the reinsertion of reality, in a way) 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey That bit - France without her young men - struck me too. But I felt like it was a bit of an anti-war book. Not totally, but like Wharton was working her way there. 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat Perhaps you are right. Pro France but not necessarily pro war. It sure beats: “for king and country” which was the rallying cry in England. You can imagine that “for the idea of France” would not have worked as well. 1y

Currey @Graywacke LOL - all 12 of them…. 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey It doesn‘t quite have the same ring, does it? 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke It would be interesting to read a book from the American-in-Germany perspective, wouldn‘t it? 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke I also marked the quote about his feet on America declaring war - such beautiful prose! 1y

dabbe @Graywacke I think that's exactly how Wharton wanted us to feel: as full of ennui as Campton, wandering the streets in hopes of anything to make him feel alive (his son being the only one who did). I, too, was stunned to read that Wharton wanted this book instead of TAOI: that is my all-time favorite of hers! The literary world would be bereft without it! 1y

dabbe Question: Why is the title “A“ Son at the Front and not “The“ Son at the Front? The article “A“ implies ambiguity, any son at the front during WWI. But Campton is primarily honed in on only his son, so why not the particular “The“? Perhaps because of the change Campton experiences at the end, when he realizes the importance of being at the front and how proud of his son he is? Is it because he realizes that every son counts and not just his own? 1y

Lcsmcat @dabbe I thought it was “A” because that was a status, like being a Gold Star family. 1y

dabbe @Lcsmcat Interesting. I never thought of it that way. 🤩 1y

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Lcsmcat

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

A grocer‘s window, Paris 1914 (“My 2 sons are French officers and are at the front. Long live France!”)
We get the horror of war without ourselves going to the front, and Compton‘s attitudes and beliefs undergo profound changes. Wharton‘s prose is as sharp as ever and I‘ve highlighted many quotes. To me, this seems less of a propaganda piece than The Marne did. Thoughts? #whartonbuddyread

Leftcoastzen Oops , I forgot to start ! Getting on it. 1y

Lcsmcat @Leftcoastzen It‘s a pretty quick read. 1y

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Graywacke In a strange reading mode lately, but I struggled to get into this, struggled to care about John Campton and his selfish pursuit of art. I did eventually get myself involved, as we see the war through the eyes of parents and families and can only imagine the actual front grinding out young men. 1y

Graywacke Two things on my mind are: (1) Were the Germans that bad? Or did the French just imagine themselves as the center of civilization under attack? And (2) Did i miss something with Harvey Mayhew? It didn‘t sound to me like the Germans treated him all that bad. (Perhaps I have a later 20th century perspective instead of an “innocent” wwi perspective.) 1y

Graywacke Oh, a 3rd thing is wondering about how Wharton related her war role to the experiences on the novel. John criticized his wife‘s sister-in-law for not knowing what it‘s like to have a child, and I couldn‘t help wondering if Wharton had a similar experience. (edited) 1y

Graywacke As for the propaganda aspect, it‘s not a pro-war book, but it‘s definitely a pro-French book, who are suffering abstracted German evil, where German medical staff laugh at injured pows. 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke My somewhat limited knowledge of French history makes me think the “‘70” that they keep referring back to was when Prussia/Germany annexed (a la Russia and Crimea) the Alsace-Lorraine area, forbidding the teaching of French and other such insults to the French people. So that underlies the outrage. Also in war everyone blames all atrocities on the other side. 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke As to Mathew, I thought that was Wharton‘s point - his “ordeal” was so trivial compared to the actual combatants‘ experiences. I‘ll hunt up the quote that makes me think this. 1y

Lcsmcat “‘It always comes back to the same thing,‘ Campton was saying nervously. ‘What right have useless old men like me, sitting here with my cigar by this good fire, to preach blood and butchery to boys like George and your nephew?‘” 1y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat my imperfect memory recalls (with iffy precision): 1870 is when Bismarck unified Germany (partially done in 1866) by starting a war with France and quickly getting Prussian soldiers into Paris. The Prussians used trains (like the US union forces) to good effect and France was routed. Probably Paris was a bad place to be. I think that was the time of the Paris Commune?? 1y

Lcsmcat Here are some other quotes that struck me enough to highlight them. “A nation in arms does not judge a war as simply as an army of professional soldiers.” 1y

Lcsmcat Campton: “he felt that curious incapacity to deal with the raw fact of sorrow which had often given an elfin unreality to the most poignant moments of his life.” 1y

Graywacke Well, my summary wasn‘t bad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Yes, The Paris Commune was an after-effect of that war. And there was a lot of chaos and horror around that time. So Paris (which was besieged) wouldn‘t have been pleasant. 1y

Lcsmcat Following are quotes I marked for the prose. Wharton at her best. “the precise and finished language with which she clothed her unfinished and unprecise thoughts.” 1y

Lcsmcat “he passed the bent and broken arches of electric light, the iron chairs and dead plants in paintless boxes, all heaped up like the scenery of a bankrupt theatre” 1y

Lcsmcat “It was none of his business to pry into the consciences of the people about him, not even into Jorgenstein‘s—into which one would presumably have had to be let down in a diver‘s suit, with oxygen pumping at top pressure.” 1y

Lcsmcat “He was reminded of the rich vulgarians who will eat only things out of season.” 1y

Lcsmcat Finally, when Campton thinks “Oh, for the Channel tunnel at this hour!” it sent me to the internet to discover that the tunnel, begun in 1988 and opened in 1994, first had plans drawn in 1802! I had no idea it had started that long ago (but politics, etc got in the way.) 1y

Graywacke Love the quotes. Some I remember and some not. I‘m very entertained by the chunnel trivia. Wonder if there was no English da vinci who also quietly thought it through before that. (Maybe hidden in one of Newton‘s occult books…) 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Why not? The Italians didn‘t have a patent on genius. 😂 1y

Graywacke Some quotes on Mrs. Brant: “He saw she was honestly trying to be what a mother should be in talking of her only child to that child‘s father. But her long habit of superficiality made her stammering and articulate when her one deep feeling tried to rise the surface.” 1y

Graywacke “She was pretty in an odd disheveled way, and with her elaborate clothes and bewildered look she reminded Campton of a fashion-plate torn from its page and helplessly blown about the world.” 1y

Graywacke “If blind animal passion be the profoundest as well as the fiercest form of attachment, his love for his boy was at that moment as nothing to hers.” 1y

Graywacke On Olida‘s vatacinations (my favorite new word) : “If it were not the portrait of Benny Upsher it was at least that of hundreds and thousands of lads like him, who were thus groping and agonizing and stretching out vain hands.” 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke An excellent word! I‘m going to have to work it into my conversations this week. 🙂 1y

arubabookwoman I did start the book this week but didn't get far--I was having The Marne vibes. I will try to catch up next week. 1y

Graywacke @arubabookwoman i had that a bit too. It faded, though. 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat @Graywacke @arubabookwoman I am traveling but I did read Book 1 and 2 for this week. I was also expecting The Marne part 2 and was absolutely delighted that this book is less propaganda and more about a working through of what it was like to think about the war while it was happening. The writing is right up there with Wharton‘s best and if her characters waiver, and dither and don‘t communicate well, that is true to Wharton form. 1y

Currey Although I would have preferred an anti-war book, Wharton must have felt that would have been disrespectful to those who believed that they had to go and fight. (edited) 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey Given that women (in England at least) went about publicly shaming those men they assumed to be of fighting age and trim with the “white feather” of cowardice, I don‘t think anyone would write against the war in Europe. An Episcopal bishop was relieved of his post during WWI for being a pacifist, and we weren‘t involved yet. 1y

CarolynM I haven‘t started yet. I‘ll come back when I have, hopefully during this week. 1y

Currey @Graywacke @Lcsmcat in regards Mayhew, I think the outrage came from Germany breaking “civilized” rules, in other words they imprisoned a neutral civilian in a neutral country as Belgium was neutral up to the point that Germany invaded. Of course, Wharton was also mocking him as Lcsmcat points out. (edited) 1y

Lcsmcat @CarolynM See you then! 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey I think you‘re on to something. The world (and civilization) were never the same after WWI and I think people were outraged (because scared) that their way of life was being destroyed. 1y

Currey @Lscmcat love all the quotes. What do you think the women of England, who shamed with the white feather, felt after the war? I know Wharton had a difficult time getting this one published. Did everyone just want to move on as the horror was still so real no one wanted to think about it? I know my grandmother used to tell me about the “poor boys” of WWI when I was a small child. 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey Good question. I‘ve never heard anyone talk about that. 1y

Currey @Graywacke @Lcsmcat - one more before I go back to work: Campton is so thoroughly unlikable, very un generous toward others, very self centered. Do you think Wharton drew him like this to show that even such a hardened case could begin to feel impacted by the war in all its complexities? I guess Book 3 and 4 will answer that a bit. 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey I agree that he‘s unlikeable. The nasty comments he makes to people he supposedly likes make me cringe. That‘s part of what makes it less propaganda-like to me. He‘s not a hero - he‘s a real, flawed, person. 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey It‘s great that your grandmother talked to you about WWI. My grandfather was of the age of men who had to register for both WWI & WWII, but he died when I was 12 and never talked about either war. 1y

Graywacke @Currey my take on Mayhew is that he forgot what war is about. But also Wharton is very aware of what the Germans actually did to the citizens of the towns they conquered and needed to keep under control while they fought. They were brutal. The French, of course, didn‘t have the opportunity to be awful to German citizens in that circumstance. (edited) 1y

Graywacke @Currey I‘ve wondered about Campton. I don‘t like him and was really frustrated spending time with him for a long time. Eventually he becomes a lens, instead of a focus and only then did i start to get into the novel. I think Wharton is attacking Americans in France who tried to ignore someone else‘s war. But, like her other attacks, there is sympathy in her characterizations too. (edited) 1y

Graywacke @Currey enjoyed thinking about those questions 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke I like the idea of Campton as a lens. I‘m going to try to keep that in mind as I finish the book this week. 1y

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Graywacke

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

Alright, #whartonbuddyread , I‘ve started. On chapter 2. Divorce a theme.

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LitsyEvents

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

Our next Wharton novel is short - just 239 pages - so let‘s take it in two chunks. I‘ll be traveling the last week in June, so our first discussion will be July 8th. Let me know if you want to be added (or deleted) from the tag list. @Graywacke

repost @lcsmcat

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Lcsmcat

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

Liz_M @LitsyEvents 2y

Leftcoastzen Yay! 2y

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Graywacke Yay! I need a Wharton fix. 2y

Tamra I am overbooked! 😉😉 I‘m going to pass. 2y

Lcsmcat @Tamra OK, I‘ll take you off the list. 2y

batsy I don't mind if I'm tagged though I'm not sure if I can join in as I might have family visiting during that period 🙂 2y

jewright I‘m in! 2y

Louise Please keep tagging me, as I want to stay connected to this wonderful group. I‘ll have to miss this book but hope to join in on the next one. (edited) 2y

Lcsmcat @batsy @louise I‘ll keep you on the list and look forward to when you‘re able to participate. 2y

Lcsmcat @jewright Yay! 2y

rubyslippersreads I think I‘ll pass on this one. Thanks. 2y

Lcsmcat @rubyslippersreads I‘ll remove you from the tag list. 2y

CarolynM Thanks Linda. I‘m absolutely going to read this, but I may not be the right headspace for it next week so I may not be part of the discussion. Please keep me on the tag list, though. 1y

Lcsmcat @CarolynM Absolutely - come back and comment whenever you do read it. 1y

Graywacke #whartonbuddyread (edited) 1y

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BookishTrish

A Son at the Front: A Library of America eBook Classic | Edith Wharton

Oh happy day! @SerialReader has added a Wharton novel I haven‘t read yet!

thebluestocking I ❤️ Serial Reader. Working my way through Moby Dick right now. 6y

BookishTrish I never would‘ve finished MD without Serial Reader! 6y

Tamra I just loaded the app. 😁 6y

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IamIamIam LOVE Serial Reader!!!! I feel so accomplished tackling the classics now! 6y

Crazeedi What is serial reader? 6y

SerialReader @Crazeedi Hi! 👋 Serial Reader is a free app for iOS and Android that lets you “subscribe” to classic books and delivers a new bite-sized issue of the book every day. Each issue can be read in 10-20 minutes. It‘s a fun way to chip away at otherwise daunting books. https://www.serialreader.org 6y

BookishTrish @Crazeedi What @SerialReader said. I‘d also like to add they have been very good about adding Edith Wharton novels for this #insomniac 6y

Crazeedi @SerialReader @BookishTrish thank you for info! I'll check it out, there are many classics I need to read 6y

readordierachel 🎉🎉🎉 6y

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