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Title: Summer

Author: Edith Wharton

Narrator: Alice Johnson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-24-17

Publisher: Audioliterature

Genres: Fiction, Literary

Publisher's Summary:

This is a powerful and tragic work by the masterful author about a girl's sexual awakening. Of course, there are consequences involved; she is a poor girl in a small western New England town.

This book deals with both sexuality and class distinction and touches on incest as well. While these topics are more or less openly debated today, they were considered scandalous at the time of publication.

Wharton's illustrious colleagues Henry James and Joseph Conrad both praised this novel for its realism and courage!

©2017 Audioliterature (P)2017 Audioliterature

Members Reviews:

Not the best Wharton, but very good nevertheless

Charity is growing up in North Dormer, a very small, very provincial village around the first quarter of the twentieth century. When still a small child, she had been brought down form the "mountain", a poverty and lawlessness ridden settlement, by Mr. Royal, a lonesome lawyer. We do not know why he has decided to bring her to his house, but now that she is a young attractive woman and his wife is dead, his view of Charity turns less patriarchal and more romantic. Charity, however, falls for a visiting young architect who visits to draw the old houses in the area. The plot centers about Charity's pride, loathing of North Dormer with its bigoted populace, and the not so golden cage of the aging Mr. Royal. The young man from New York represents everything North Dormer is not - class, wealth, breeding, style, freedom. I am not going to reveal the particulars of the plot because their discovery by the reader is important. Suffice it to say that Edith Wharton writes very very well. It is not "The Age of Innocence", the acerbic pinnacle of her writing, but her insight into Charity's brain and heart is uncanny. Not the best Wharton, but very good nevertheless

Wrestling with fate toward redemption

"Summer" is one of those books that you will think about for a long, long time. Set in the small village of North Dormer in New England, this story unfolds far from Wharton's more famous world of the Van der Luydens and the Mingotts. "Summer" has a little of the feel of "Ethan Frome", but is painted in brighter colors. Our protagonist Charity Royall is naive and unsophisticated, yet she can face facts and deal with the consequences of her actions. We feel as if the Fates have moved to New England and have woven for Charity on a future over which she has little control. The bright summer skies and flowers are overshadowed by the Mountain which broods in the distance, and the reader has a sense of foreboding about Charity's future as she develops her relationship with the sophisticated Lucius Harney. She yearns to develop herself to his level of social ability and breadth of knowledge, all the while knowing her limitations in breeding and background. The reader admires her despite her unattractive faults, such as her undervaluing of what her guardian has given her. Often she is cruel and thankless. The end was, I thought, satisfying: Wharton did not do to Charity what she did to Lily Bart in "House of Mirth", and Charity seems to have learned to be--well--more charitable.

I liked this book more than I liked "Ethan Frome", "Twilight Sleep", or "The Reef".