It seems that I and many others are fascinated about the lives of upper class New Yorkers if the perpetual popularity of F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger and Woody Allen's movies could be proof of that. What can I say, the lives of the rich and famous are spiderwebs of fun and even better if they are snobby, witty and smart, hence, New York as opposed to L.A.. So it wasn't surprising that I found myself reading Edith Wharton's novel Old New York. In this book Wharton takes you on a journey through the latter half of the nineteenth century into the lives of high society families in New York and the silent dramas that went on behind closed doors. The patterns of tradition and rebellion are repeated anew in each generation as are people's attempts to build up walls of exclusivity. She artfully explains the creation of tedious traditions and then shows us how quickly they lose meaning in the next generation.
On a personal note I was struck by the way each character resolutely accepts their fate. It seems very un-American in this day and age to be so passive as to sit back and accept your fate, instead of doing what you really want. The Americans in her book had an ennui and melancholy quality in their lives, which seems extremely unacceptable now. Just look at our popular culture, I mean Oprah is basically a self-improvement show and millionaires sell books about how to become one as if it were like baking a cake. All this improving and striving and smiling is sometimes too much. Although a lot of it makes sense and I see the benefit of it sometimes the pressure of the self-improvement rat race and people's smug self-controlled lives makes me want to run the opposite direction straight into the arms of the world-weary characters in Wharton's book.
