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has finally arrived. And over

1:01

at the Gilda Gentlemen podcast,

1:03

I've got some fabulous new

1:05

shows for the season. Step

1:08

Inside, a hidden world in

1:10

the heart of Manhattan, the

1:12

historic Gramercy Park, with guest

1:14

and listener favorite Keith Talion.

1:16

Gramercy kind of exists as

1:18

this island unto itself, this

1:20

little oasis that almost

1:22

can be forgotten about or bypassed

1:24

very easily. And later this month,

1:26

we'll take a look at another

1:28

hidden world of sorts, with

1:31

a look at Gilded Age

1:33

undergarments. Fashion historian and author

1:35

Dr. Elizabeth L. Block is

1:37

here to navigate a closet

1:39

full of corsets, bustles,

1:42

straps, and stockings. I

1:44

want people to consider that

1:47

corsets were adjustable. These were

1:49

really objects of engineering. That's

1:52

the Gilda Gentlemen History Podcast

1:55

on Apple, Spotify, or

1:57

wherever you listen to

1:59

podcasts. I

2:05

can't hear because I thought I could persuade you to

2:07

break away from all that. To

2:10

advance our engagement? Don't

2:12

you understand how much I want to marry you?

2:14

And why should we dream away another year? I'm

2:17

not sure I do understand, Newland. Is

2:20

it because you're not certain of feeling the same way

2:22

about me? What

2:25

on earth do you mean? Is

2:28

there someone else? Someone

2:31

else? Between

2:33

you and me. Look

2:59

into the background of this novel,

3:01

taking a deep dive into the

3:03

personalities of the major characters and

3:05

discussing what Wharton wanted to say

3:08

in her masterpiece. And

3:10

they also speak about the

3:12

1993 movie adaptation by Martin

3:15

Scorsese, Winona Ryder forever. Now

3:18

enjoy the show. American

3:34

novelist Edith Wharton was one of the

3:36

great chroniclers of the Gilded Age. She

3:39

captured a world that is often wildly

3:41

romanticized, but she shows us that below

3:44

the surface beauty and the

3:46

glitter in the gold, there were

3:48

dark and often irreparable implications and

3:50

conclusions. Edith Wharton was

3:53

born in New York City in 1862 at

3:55

the height of the Civil War, and she died at

3:57

her home outside of Paris in 1937. just

4:00

before World War II broke out in Europe.

4:03

Despite her early years spent growing

4:05

up in that very closed, restricted,

4:08

regulated society about which she wrote

4:10

so critically, she chose to leave

4:12

both it and America and settle

4:14

for the last third of her

4:16

life permanently in France. But

4:19

as Wharton grew older, she returned with increasing

4:22

regularity to New York in her mind and

4:24

in her fiction, and

4:26

following World War I, she wrote perhaps

4:28

her finest work, The Age of Innocence.

4:32

Wharton's literary output was extraordinary. She

4:35

published over 50 books, over

4:37

20 novels and novellas, and in

4:39

addition to fiction, she published works

4:41

of travel writing, poetry, war reporting,

4:44

landscape architecture, and interior design. To

4:47

many, perhaps, her most familiar works are her

4:50

1920 novel, The Age of Innocence, and

4:53

her dramatic novella set against a

4:56

stark New England backdrop, Ethan Fromm.

4:59

But those only represent a part

5:01

of what Edith Wharton had to say. Edith

5:05

Wharton, as a writer and

5:07

as a woman, was complex,

5:09

held many layers of insight

5:11

and perception, and tackled some

5:13

social as well as very

5:15

human conditions and situations that

5:17

perhaps weren't so innocent at

5:19

all. Hello,

5:35

I'm Carl Raymond, the host of the Gilded Gentlemen

5:37

History Podcast, where every two

5:39

weeks we journey into corners light and dark

5:41

for a look at America's gilded age, Francis

5:45

Bellipac and England's late Victorian

5:47

and Edwardian eras. Wharton's

5:54

masterpiece, The Age of Innocence, like

5:56

Edith herself, exists in many layers.

6:00

It's very title and it requires

6:02

a look deep beneath the surface

6:04

of the plot to understand just

6:06

what Wharton he's showing us. The

6:08

story is set in the early

6:11

Gilded age New York as the

6:13

eighties seventies is centers on a

6:15

young New York lawyer from old

6:17

knickerbocker society Nuland Archer on the

6:20

verge of marrying May Well and

6:22

a young woman of good family

6:24

and similar background, a supposedly perfect

6:26

match. Made cousin

6:28

and an old childhood friend of

6:31

new and Elena Landscape enters the

6:33

scene She is now a is

6:35

having married a European aristocrat and

6:37

after a disastrous and scandalous marriage

6:40

has returned to New York to

6:42

reconnect with a family, a city

6:44

and a society that ultimately judges

6:46

and even excels her. The backdrop

6:49

Wharton creates for us is the

6:51

beginning of America as Gilded Age,

6:53

and she paints and extraordinarily detailed

6:55

portrait of that world with intricate.

6:57

Details of architecture, fashion,

7:00

food and social etiquette

7:02

to recreate and ultimately

7:05

translate. It

7:08

eighty Six eighty really meant. In

7:11

the age of innocence, Wharton

7:14

gives us one of her

7:16

most emotionally charged love triangles

7:18

and ultimately a novel of

7:20

chances of taken and loss.

7:22

resignation, duty, love, perhaps unfulfilled.

7:24

An overall what can often

7:26

be like. Ambiguities with

7:29

often unsettling attempts

7:31

at resolution. joining

7:34

me today is author and scholar

7:36

doctor emily orlando and will take

7:38

a close look at the age

7:40

of innocence the novel itself but

7:42

we're also going to delve into

7:44

why wharton wrote it when she

7:46

did what it meant to her

7:48

and will also take a look

7:50

at some other examples of her

7:52

work that eliminate her as a

7:54

woman and as a writer Dr.

8:00

Emily J. Orlando is the E.

8:03

Gerald Corrigan endowed chair in the

8:05

Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor

8:07

of English at Fairfield University. Dr.

8:10

Orlando is the editor most recently of

8:12

the Bloomsbury Handbook to Edith Wharton published

8:15

in 2023 and has published widely

8:17

in 19th and 20th century literature

8:19

and culture. She

8:21

is the author of the award-winning

8:23

book Edith Wharton and the Visual

8:26

Arts and co-editor with Meredith Goldsmith

8:28

of the essay collection Edith Wharton

8:30

and Cosmopolitanism. A

8:32

past president of the Edith Wharton

8:35

Society, she curated the Wharton installation

8:37

for the American Writers Museum in

8:39

Chicago which focused on the age

8:41

of innocence. She is

8:43

currently preparing for publication a new

8:45

edition of Edith Wharton's first book,

8:48

The Decoration of Houses. Emily,

8:51

it is such a complete honor to

8:53

have you join me today for the

8:55

Gilded Gentlemen. Not only are you a

8:58

complete Wharton expert but you share your

9:00

insight and your knowledge through all your

9:02

writing and your teaching. We've been chatting

9:04

back and forth for months now and

9:06

I am so incredibly honored to have

9:08

you right here with me at the

9:11

table to share this episode. Well,

9:13

the honor and the pleasure is truly all mine.

9:15

So thank you so much for allowing me to

9:17

be with you today. I'm so excited

9:19

and we have a lot to talk about. We do. So,

9:22

oh my gosh, let's dive in and

9:25

let's just start by

9:27

putting the age of innocence in

9:29

context a bit for listeners here.

9:31

So let's begin with when Edith

9:33

Wharton wrote The Age of Innocence.

9:35

She wrote it in 1919, going

9:37

into 1920 and then it was

9:39

published at the end of 1920

9:41

and then she won the

9:43

Pulitzer Prize for it in 1921. So

9:47

Emily, just where was

9:49

Wharton in her life when

9:51

she wrote The Age of Innocence and why did

9:53

she write it when she did? So

9:56

literally Edith Wharton is of course, as you

9:58

said, she's living in France. the time

10:00

and she's dividing her time between

10:02

two properties. She's spending a lot

10:04

of time in Yere. She's looking

10:06

to own a home there, which

10:08

she will do by the time

10:11

she wins the prize by the

10:13

way. And she's also living in

10:15

a magnificent estate outside of Paris

10:17

called Pavillon Colomme. She is an

10:19

American expatriate. She's divorced. She divorces

10:21

in April of 1913 and

10:24

removed herself permanently to France. And

10:27

I think it's fun and important

10:29

to note that she got there before

10:31

it was really kind of the cool thing

10:33

to do, you know, before Fitzgerald and Hemingway

10:35

and Sherwood Anderson. And so

10:37

she's there. She's first in Paris,

10:39

but again, she removes herself out

10:41

to the countryside. So she's around

10:43

57 years old when

10:45

she's writing this novel. She's famous. And

10:48

that's important for our listeners to understand

10:50

like she's really famous by the time

10:52

the House of Mirth really puts her

10:54

on the map as a master

10:56

novelist of New York. And that's

10:58

1905. And she's lived through World

11:03

War One. She's very unusual. And

11:05

so far, she's literally like working

11:07

on the front lines and support

11:09

of the Allies. She's looking back

11:11

at her girlhood in New York,

11:13

but very realistically, she's not romanticizing

11:15

it. I think it's important to

11:17

note that she's the same age

11:19

that our hero, Newland Archer, is

11:21

at the end of the book.

11:23

She's 57. There's a kind of

11:26

nostalgia for a lost New York

11:28

that she abandoned. And there's also

11:30

arguably a nostalgia for a lost

11:32

Paris that she also abandoned. And

11:34

that's represented at the end of

11:36

the book. I think it's important

11:38

to note that she's incredibly prolific.

11:40

She's been writing prose and she's

11:42

been writing fiction. She's been writing

11:44

travel writing. French Ways and Their

11:46

Meaning comes out in 1919. In

11:49

Morocco is right around the

11:51

time of this novel. She's

11:53

written Fighting France 1915. So

11:55

I mean, she's just a

11:58

woman of incredible enormous energy

12:00

and capacity and discipline. And again, she's

12:02

famous, but she's looking back to, as

12:04

you said, the 1870s of New York,

12:08

let's say the New York of her childhood. And I

12:10

think that's such an interesting moment in

12:13

her life because she's actually just lived

12:15

through World War I. And

12:17

she grew up really in Europe as a

12:19

child for a number of years. Her parents

12:22

took her to Europe, and she developed such

12:24

a European sensibility. And she comes back to

12:26

New York, and the New York that she

12:28

sees as a 10-year-old girl is this construction

12:30

pit, basically, right? And

12:33

she has this European sensibility

12:35

and these European values, which

12:37

nearly were all destroyed in

12:39

World War I, right? So

12:42

do you think it's accurate to say that

12:44

this sense of nostalgia and looking back on

12:46

her childhood is one of

12:48

trying to recreate something stable or some

12:51

sense of beauty? How do you interpret

12:53

that? Yeah, I think that's an

12:55

excellent point. I think that she's looking

12:58

back meditatively. She's approaching her 60s. But

13:01

I think that there are some things

13:03

that she's mourning the loss of. It's

13:05

really crystallized nicely in the last couple of pages

13:08

of this novel through the

13:10

consciousness of Newland Archer. He acknowledges

13:12

that there was good in the

13:15

old ways, and there certainly there

13:17

was. But as we'll talk about

13:19

later, there's also incredible social violence

13:22

and excommunication. There's also, as

13:24

Newland Archer acknowledges, and the direct quote is, there's

13:26

good in the new order too. That's

13:29

acknowledged in Newland Archer's younger

13:31

daughter, more carefree, called Mary.

13:33

So I don't think that she's sad

13:36

that this New York is gone. I

13:38

think it's just complicated. As

13:40

it always is when one looks back, right? I

13:42

imagine that. And what's extraordinary is, so she's writing

13:44

this in 1919, 1920. She's

13:47

actually trying to recreate a world, and we'll talk

13:49

about this more detail. In the

13:52

mid-1970s, when she was just a

13:54

very young child, and

13:56

I think there are some extraordinary reasons why

13:58

she is so detailed. in this novel, but

14:00

I promise you we will. I promise you

14:02

my listeners we will all get to that.

14:05

So Emily, Age of Innocence is certainly one

14:07

of Wharton's most famous works, certainly due to

14:09

the Pulitzer Prize, but also the Martin Scorsese

14:11

adaptation, the film, which was done in 1993,

14:14

which we'll also talk about. So do you

14:16

feel, do you feel that Age of Innocence

14:18

is her masterpiece? And if you do, why

14:21

do you think so? You know, I

14:23

do. I've been thinking a

14:25

lot about this book. And I

14:27

mean, I am a strong advocate for

14:29

The House of Mirth as a novel

14:31

that like, and I say this a

14:33

lot, there's not a bad sentence in

14:35

that novel. And I would say the

14:37

same of this. But I will say

14:39

that what distinguishes this novel is the

14:42

really well-earned love that it has earned

14:44

from very prolific, decorated

14:46

contemporary writers today. And I

14:48

give for example, so Roxanne

14:51

Gay and Tanya Hizikota both

14:54

singled out this novel, as one

14:56

has called it, perfect. The other has

14:59

called it, you know, playfully the Age of Awesome,

15:01

right? But and the best novel that he had

15:03

ever read. And what I do think is key

15:05

is that if one were trying to learn how

15:08

to write a good novel, one

15:10

should be looking at this

15:12

book, because it really illustrates

15:14

her whole theory of creative

15:16

writing. She writes wonderfully

15:19

when she's thinking about how she writes a

15:21

novel, she says, my last page is latent

15:23

in my first. So in other words,

15:25

she knows exactly where this novel is

15:28

going to go. And when

15:30

you look at the first two chapters

15:32

of this novel, it's all laid out,

15:34

you get the triangle, you get the

15:36

return of Ellen Olenska, you know, you

15:38

get Newland Archer reading, but let's say

15:41

misreading these two women in his life.

15:43

And I think that the closing of

15:45

this novel is perfect. It is perfection.

15:47

So I would call it a consummate

15:50

work of art. And honestly, it's probably

15:52

the only novel I've ever read in

15:54

my life that found me crying

15:57

at the end because It was so beautiful, I didn't

15:59

want it to end. Not because I wasn't trying

16:01

because of New and Arts, or since

16:03

I mean he built up his whole

16:05

situation for himself. but he was such

16:07

an exquisite work of our aesthetically let's

16:09

say. So Emily, if someone,

16:11

if a listener has not really read

16:14

and Edith Wharton are certainly not very

16:16

much, do you think the Age of

16:18

Innocence is a good place to start

16:20

to discover her. I would say

16:22

unequivocally yes I said. I think To

16:24

an end, when I am introducing adults

16:27

to Edith Wharton, this is where I

16:29

send them. Yes, I think it's a

16:31

great place to start. Know

16:33

many people think of Wharton as a

16:35

New York writer, and it's certainly true

16:38

that he captured the city and it's

16:40

society and see used it's over her

16:42

lifetime, both in major works and also

16:45

some lesser known work. At Rule of

16:47

You to talk about that little big

16:49

can you talk about when she first

16:52

used New York as is setting and

16:54

then why so much of her most

16:56

significant New York work actually came later

16:59

after the age of Innocence. What was

17:01

all that about? So. Sorry

17:04

James has often been a credit

17:06

for encouraging Edith Wharton. Per quote,

17:08

unquote, Do New York But as

17:10

as we've discussed, see was already

17:13

doing it. Certainly in her short

17:15

story, who's Writing about New York

17:17

Style Friends writer Paul Bar Say,

17:19

who became a very dear friend

17:22

of Edith Wharton's actually had encouraged

17:24

her to do the same before.

17:26

James says it's wonderful that now

17:28

we're at a point historically were

17:31

weren't is not always bad in

17:33

the same. Breath as Henry James

17:35

Right now she's she's really recognized

17:37

as her own master. But the

17:39

early source stories Eighty Ninety One,

17:41

the First other Sorcery Mrs Man

17:44

says view Sputter Sisters were says

17:46

a brilliant but believed novella she

17:48

writes sat in the late Eighty

17:50

Nine dispense not published until well

17:52

after he and Frowns is published

17:54

because she's now famous and these

17:57

are on their does New York.

17:59

But the. The more impoverished New York

18:01

re. It's a it's a really kind

18:03

of destitute New York so it's a

18:05

like what I like to call it

18:07

warns other New York for yeah I

18:10

mean she's to your point. She certainly

18:12

is is known for the New York

18:14

novels. She masters it in the way

18:16

that really nobody else does as social

18:19

satire in my humble opinion. So she

18:21

continues with the same post innocence I

18:23

would highlights in particular, a well kept

18:25

secret cause I'm the Mothers Recompense which

18:28

is nice and Twenty Five which is

18:30

another love triangle. It's. Also set against

18:32

the backdrop of New York and she's

18:34

continuing this and she's continuing. New York

18:36

is always on the horizon for her.

18:38

I think the whole comment to do

18:40

New York was perhaps you test or

18:43

first novel was and has not a

18:45

terribly well known fact about you thwart.

18:47

and but this is an eighteenth century

18:49

historical novel rate in that's before the

18:51

House of Lords is called the Valleys

18:53

Decision Race and she's of course not

18:55

doing your fair at all So we

18:57

know her and we embrace are really

19:00

as as a master of. New York in

19:02

the novels and the Nobel as in the short

19:04

stories as well. Now in

19:06

Age of Innocence, I mentioned

19:08

this earlier that she's incredibly

19:10

detailed in Age of Innocence

19:12

about session and architecture and

19:15

locations, and this is really

19:17

extraordinary because it disappoints. It's

19:19

been nearly decade since she

19:21

herself has lived in New

19:23

York, and she has to

19:25

recreate this world that much

19:27

of her audience. When Age

19:29

of Innocence comes out, Wouldn't.

19:32

Know why do you think?

19:34

she's so detailed and what

19:36

is unique about her creation

19:38

of New York and Age

19:40

of Innocence? I'm in my sense

19:42

is that's last season Lover of history

19:44

says she has an encyclopedic mind. Her

19:47

a loose ends are all across her

19:49

six and and her her non six

19:51

and prose and of course us throw

19:53

in the poetry as well. I think

19:55

it's important to note that says a

19:58

little bit noncommittal in the first sentence

20:00

as an hour she she says it's

20:02

the early seventies rights and and was

20:04

interesting. See your point about set on

20:06

historical allusions is it Some critics came

20:09

a little hard down on her because

20:11

oh she mentioned moped signs and more.

20:13

Pass on wasn't you know yet? You

20:15

know, publishing short stories until a decade

20:18

later and the precise year of Middle

20:20

March might not be accurate, but she

20:22

she dresses this and her legs with.

20:24

By the way I recommend any Anyone

20:26

interested in Wharton is in for a

20:29

treat to look. At her publish letters

20:31

and she was very conscious of what they're

20:33

doing and she she was deliberate and her

20:35

a lot of committal to precisely what year

20:38

since we're talking about spite. See really, she

20:40

gets the art right, the literature right, the

20:42

food, the fashion. as you said and I

20:44

would like to give a set out to

20:47

cats and Jocelyn wonderful book called on his

20:49

for in the making of Fasten It gives

20:51

us a whole new sense of ordinance. Really

20:53

deeply committed to fashion. I

20:55

think that's of sustaining angle was withstood to

20:58

look at. Age of Innocence is through the

21:00

fashion. I came to it through the food.

21:02

I came as a food historian and really

21:04

looking at when she describes a certain does

21:06

his scrotum were to talk about a dinner

21:09

scene coming up to very precise about what

21:11

she says and why she says it ends

21:13

true of the Sas an interest in reading

21:15

in preparation for the So I'm astonished at

21:18

how many common she makes about the we

21:20

dresses are made and of the fashion and

21:22

style and the pot it's really it's really

21:24

extraordinary. Right, I agree and so with

21:26

that, Emily and I are going to

21:29

take a brief break, but we'll come

21:31

back because there is so much more

21:33

to. On.

21:36

April nineteenth: Nineteen Ninety Five

21:39

of Federal Building in Oklahoma

21:41

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domestic terrorist attacks just days

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Take a deeper look into this

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In the decades before the Civil War,

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24:30

we're back. I'm Carl Raymond, the host of the Gilda Gentlemen History Podcast.

24:54

And today I'm with Dr. Emily

24:56

Orlando, and we are taking a

24:58

deep dive into Edith Wharton's The

25:00

Age of Innocence. Now,

25:05

so many listeners will actually

25:08

likely know The Age of

25:10

Innocence through the Scorsese film

25:12

adaptation. And my question

25:14

is, well, what did you think

25:16

of that translation to the screen?

25:18

It seems it's

25:20

my observation that Wharton's work is a

25:23

little challenging to adapt to the screen.

25:25

So I'd love you to talk about

25:27

what you thought of

25:29

the Scorsese adaptation. And secondly, do

25:32

you think Wharton's work is hard to

25:34

adapt to the screen? Why don't we

25:36

have more Wharton films? So

25:39

I have to confess, I actually

25:41

saw the film before I read the novel. And

25:44

I think it's like the novel a

25:46

masterpiece. I really do. I

25:49

thought that it's quite remarkable that

25:51

Scorsese, who's known for these very

25:54

violent taxi driver narratives

25:56

of New York, is drawn to this

25:58

novel. But it makes

26:00

perfect sense. And when I teach the novel,

26:03

I playfully call it the gangs of old

26:05

New York, as a riff

26:07

on his film, The Gangs of New York.

26:10

To your question, I do think

26:12

it's a challenge. And Edith Wharton

26:15

was famously distrustful of film. And

26:17

there's a wonderful article by Donna

26:19

Campbell in the Bloomsbury Handbook to

26:21

Edith Wharton that is really a

26:24

brilliant overview of Edith Wharton's relationship

26:26

to film. And again, her weariness

26:28

around it. I

26:31

just think that it was a new medium.

26:33

And I think that she would have come

26:36

to appreciate it. I don't think

26:38

that every adaptation succeeds in

26:40

the way that Scorsese does. And again,

26:43

I'm going to go out and say

26:46

that I really think it's the finest adaptation of

26:48

any novel I've ever seen in my entire life.

26:51

And I tell students when I teach with

26:54

the film, I tell them, OK, heads up.

26:58

Deliberately, he chose to let

27:00

Winona Ryder keep her

27:02

dark hair, where in the novel, it's

27:04

important to remember that Maywell and is

27:06

the fair, the blonde, the innocent. And

27:10

Ellen Olenska, and by the way,

27:12

Michelle Pfeiffer has just earned my

27:15

love always for her portrayal of Ellen

27:18

Olenska. And Scorsese allowed her

27:20

to keep her hair color

27:23

and didn't switch it up.

27:25

And that's fine. I think it's a

27:27

masterpiece. And there's a wonderful moment.

27:29

A lot of our listeners will, I think,

27:31

know Ted Lasso. And I think it's season

27:33

one where Ted Lasso gets up

27:35

and he talks about how Scorsese finally won

27:40

the Oscar for the departed. But he's like,

27:42

but we all know he should have won

27:44

for, I think he says, Goodfellas. And

27:46

then people all chime in. And one person rightfully

27:49

says, The Age of Innocence. And I think it's

27:51

100% Oscar worthy for everything, not

27:53

just costumes. I believe it won, perhaps,

27:55

only for costumes. And I think it's

27:57

a masterpiece. And I know I keep

27:59

you. using that word. Well, I

28:01

would agree with you. I mean, it's an

28:03

incredibly faithful adaptation for all the important points,

28:06

shall we say. One of the things I've

28:08

always felt about Wharton in terms

28:10

of looking at her work to be adapted

28:12

to the screen is she's very hard to

28:15

edit, right? And

28:17

Age of Innocence is in many ways

28:19

a tighter work, I think, because it

28:21

comes later in the canon. But

28:24

when you look at something like, well,

28:26

House of Mirth and the Terrence Davies

28:28

adaptation, which came later than The Age

28:30

of Innocence, it's a beautiful film

28:32

to look at. But it's

28:35

challenging because so much is cut,

28:37

so much is inferred. My

28:39

opinion is you really have to

28:41

know the novel to understand what's

28:43

going on there. And

28:46

then you look at something like The Custom of the Country,

28:48

which I would dearly love to see an adaptation of. That's

28:52

an incredibly long, involved, complex... And I

28:54

would probably make, today, in our world

28:56

of miniseries, it would probably make

28:59

a good miniseries. But do you know what I mean? I

29:01

do agree that she's hard to edit,

29:03

which may be a problem translating her for the

29:05

screen. I do agree. I

29:07

also think that often what is

29:09

lost is the interior consciousness. And

29:11

that's one of the reasons that

29:13

the Scorsese film really succeeds, one

29:15

of the many reasons. You have

29:18

this wonderful Joanne Woodward voiceover, and

29:20

she's almost embracing the voice of

29:22

Edith Wharton. It certainly lines

29:24

right out of the narration, and it's

29:26

pitch perfect. And to your point,

29:28

I love Gillian Anderson's performance as

29:30

Lily Bart in The House of Mirth. I

29:34

was sad that Gertie Farish was

29:36

eliminated from that narrative because she is

29:38

so important to the novel The House

29:40

of Mirth. And I was sorry

29:42

that the Table of Yvonne was changed because that

29:44

is really one of the most important scenes in

29:46

all of Wharton's fiction. But I agree with your

29:49

point. She is hard

29:51

to take on, and it's just a

29:53

formidable task. Scorsese

30:00

has actually been quoted as saying that

30:02

Age of Innocence was quote, the most

30:05

violent film I ever made.

30:07

And you alluded to a little bit of that

30:09

a couple of minutes ago, but what does he

30:11

mean by that? And how do you feel about

30:13

that? Well, I love that comment.

30:15

And I know what you're speaking of.

30:17

And I there's a wonderful documentary that's

30:19

available on YouTube where he says that

30:22

he suggested it's the most violent film

30:25

he ever made. I mean, I respectfully

30:27

don't. I mean, there's no bloodshed, but there's

30:29

social violence. And I love what he says

30:31

when he follows up on that. And he

30:33

says, he's like, okay, the disclaimer is I

30:35

don't come from that world. But he of

30:37

course comes from New York and he tells

30:40

the New York story. But he does

30:42

say sort of analogous to

30:44

the sort of mafioso

30:47

narrative, if somebody is

30:49

going to be taken out, they're

30:51

taken out. And that's, of course,

30:53

what happens to Ellen Olenska. And

30:55

so she's excommunicated. She's expelled from

30:57

the sacred cloistered community of old

31:00

New York. But there

31:02

are no horse's heads and

31:04

in master beds, thank

31:06

goodness. No, but I think

31:08

the interesting point that will surprise people is the

31:11

emotional violence and what went

31:13

on below the surface illustrates

31:16

so much of what Wharton was trying to tell

31:18

us about the Gilded Ages. We think it's the

31:20

beautiful dresses and the mansions and all the food

31:22

and all of that. But under it, it

31:25

was very cutthroat. It was extremely violent. And

31:27

you could be, as we see with Ellen

31:29

Olenska, completely expelled out of the society. We

31:31

even see it with Lily Bart in House

31:34

of Mirth, right? Yes. So

31:36

I'd like to discuss the three main characters in

31:38

Age of Innocence. Take a little visit

31:41

with each one of them. Ellen

31:43

Olenska, May Welland and Newland

31:45

Archer. So let's start with Ellen

31:47

Olenska. She is my favorite. And

31:50

it's it's arguably Her

31:53

arrival back in New York from her time

31:55

away in Europe. That really propels a lot

31:57

of the story here. So, Emily, can you

31:59

just. Give us an overview

32:01

of just who elena landscape

32:04

is. I wanted to say

32:06

that on there on the matter

32:08

of Alan Alan Scott I am

32:10

Michelle Pfeiffer. Performance really to my

32:12

mind was oscar worthy in her

32:14

at the adaptation of the Age

32:16

of Innocence. That Elena landscape is

32:18

probably my favorite literary. Heroines

32:20

are and I said as much

32:22

in my phd exam and his

32:24

sense of and I also think

32:27

she's the most like Edith Wharton.

32:29

Have any one that is warden

32:31

ever created see share So much

32:33

with Edith Wharton's sees European eyes.

32:35

She spends a lot of too

32:38

much time made overseas. She's come

32:40

back to New York. She's artistic.

32:42

she embraces Are this? She embraces

32:44

the premise of us salon in

32:46

the same way Edith Wharton did.

32:48

It's weren't always entertains. You know

32:51

magnificently in the afternoons of course after

32:53

her after her period of of a

32:55

private writing every morning Elena land stop

32:57

she lives in the same neighborhood in

32:59

Paris Aunt Edith Wharton lives in and

33:02

at the end of the novel she

33:04

Smokes as It's were in did not

33:06

a well known fact but she did

33:08

say discreetly she is a real Us

33:10

in the way that is it worth

33:12

is and one of the most meaningful

33:15

to me. Scenes and the whole book

33:17

is when she tells new and arts

33:19

are basically disabuse. Himself of his romantic

33:21

visions are and she famously says,

33:23

oh, you know we're going to

33:26

sit right here. We're going to

33:28

look not at visions, but that

33:30

realities And I think that that

33:32

season Wardens whole, I'm sort of

33:34

that like that. That's her philosophy

33:36

for six and she will never

33:38

give you the Jane Austen ending

33:40

civil always diffuse, the Edith Wharton

33:43

realistic, you know, and truthful endings

33:45

a little as guess faces. a

33:47

lot of the same distrust set

33:49

Edith Wharton does. we are told

33:51

early on that old new york

33:53

his quotes distrustful and afraid and

33:55

quote of elena landscapes and this

33:58

is a culture that dreads Dandel

34:00

more than disease, that's another direct quote.

34:02

Edith Wharton felt that as well. I

34:04

mean, there's a reason she left the

34:06

United States and she got a French

34:08

divorce, which was very, you know, had

34:10

she gotten a New York divorce, it

34:13

would have been all over the papers and

34:15

it would have been such a scandal. And

34:17

so I think it's also, it's just important

34:20

to kind of think of Ellen Olenska as

34:22

a kind of alter ego, not

34:25

precise, but she certainly echoes Edith

34:27

Wharton in so many meaningful ways.

34:30

How do you feel the character

34:32

of Ellen Olenska functions in the novel?

34:34

What is her role as a character?

34:38

Well, here's something that we're probably going to

34:40

invariably get to is, you know, who's the

34:42

most innocent in this book? And that question comes

34:45

up when I'm teaching this novel. I

34:47

would suggest that Ellen Olenska is. And

34:50

I mean, Mae Welland is not innocent.

34:52

Mae Welland knows exactly what's going on.

34:54

And she has to work within the,

34:56

you know, the hieroglyphics, to use Edith

34:58

Wharton's word, of old New York, she

35:01

has to work within a limited set

35:03

of codes and she has to use

35:05

her role as a wife and

35:08

an eventual mother to get

35:10

rid of Ellen Olenska. And,

35:13

you know, she pulls it off

35:15

masterfully. Ellen Olenska comes back and

35:17

thinks, oh, these people are so

35:19

nice and I'm paraphrasing, but she's

35:21

really wrong. Like she doesn't

35:23

realize that she's on trial from the moment

35:25

that we see her up in the opera

35:27

box in the first scene of the novel.

35:29

But to your question of how does she

35:32

function, well, she's a temptation for new

35:34

Lynn Archer. She represents, and this was

35:36

another direct quote, she is the composite

35:39

vision of all that he had missed, right?

35:42

She becomes to him like an imaginary beloved

35:44

in a book or a picture. That's another

35:46

quotation from Wharton. But that's, she didn't ask

35:48

for that. That's an important

35:50

detail. She's just living her life and she

35:52

just wants to be around, you know, good

35:54

art and good conversation and thinkers

35:57

and writers and intellectuals.

36:00

and people who want

36:02

her around. And so she has to kind

36:04

of gravitate towards people who will tolerate

36:07

her even though she's kind of like the

36:09

black sheep from the moment that she enters

36:11

the novel. She is likened

36:13

to the black sheep of the family.

36:16

And what a perfect segue into a little

36:18

look at May Welland, because you said a

36:20

couple of minutes ago that she is not

36:22

as innocent as she seems, and she appears

36:24

to be the dutiful daughter,

36:27

the dutiful wife. Can you

36:29

lay out a little bit about

36:31

who May Welland is and how

36:34

she contrasts to Ellen? I

36:36

find her increasingly fascinating with

36:39

each reread or reteach of this

36:42

novel. I do think that May

36:44

Welland embodies what Edith Wharton was

36:46

supposed to be. She was supposed

36:49

to be the good wife, the

36:51

good hostess, the best

36:53

dressed woman in New York, the good

36:55

mother, all of these things. And

36:58

of course, May becomes that.

37:00

But I think it's really important to watch

37:03

her eyes in

37:06

the novel and in Winona

37:08

Ryder's brilliant performance on film.

37:11

She really knows exactly what's

37:13

going on. She understands the

37:15

romantic tension between her fiance

37:18

and eventual husband, new and

37:20

archer, and her cousin, Ellen

37:22

Olenska. Everything she does

37:25

seems to be calculated. And

37:27

yet, new and archer, again,

37:29

not a good reader, is

37:31

continually asking us to

37:33

trust his readings of May as an imaginary,

37:37

not creative, sort of

37:39

a blank slate, and

37:42

almost like an automaton, when

37:44

in fact, she is

37:46

one of the smartest persons in

37:48

the novel, and she works the

37:51

system. And she weaponizes her pregnancy

37:53

to get Ellen Olenska out of

37:55

Dodge, so to speak. At

37:57

this point, I really would like to ask you

38:00

about the title because that relates to a lot

38:02

of what we've just been talking about. So the

38:05

Age of Innocence. Emily, what

38:07

does that really mean? And you've

38:10

answered a bit of this. Are these

38:12

characters really so innocent at all? Yeah.

38:15

So I love the title and, you

38:17

know, it's raised a lot of

38:20

questions. My understanding has always been

38:22

that it's taken from a painting

38:24

by Sir Joshua Reynolds who, again,

38:26

was very important to Eith Wharton's

38:29

body of work. I mentioned briefly the Tableau

38:31

v. Bond in The House of Mars. Arguably

38:34

the centerpiece of that novel is

38:36

when the protagonist, Lily Bart, embodies

38:39

a famous portrait of Joanna Lloyd

38:41

by Sir Joshua Reynolds. So in

38:44

this case, it's a lovely

38:46

profile of a young girl with

38:48

a bonnet and she's embracing, you

38:51

know, this theme of

38:53

innocence. And you know,

38:55

I really think that Mae Welland is

38:57

presented to us as

38:59

possibly this picture of innocence. But

39:02

again, any good reader knows she's

39:04

anything but, but she has to

39:06

feign it because good young women

39:08

were not supposed to be women

39:11

of experience. I think that Neelan

39:14

Archer also has some naivete in

39:16

him. I think that he fancies himself

39:18

a real, you know, ally to women

39:20

and women's rights. And he famously says,

39:22

you know, women ought to be free,

39:25

you know, as free as we are.

39:27

I don't think he really believes it

39:29

though. So I would

39:31

say that the title is very

39:34

apt and the portrait of innocence,

39:36

you know, represented in the Sir

39:38

Joshua Reynolds image. It just

39:40

also reminds us how important visual art is

39:42

to Eith Wharton. It's all over the pages

39:44

of this novel and again,

39:46

all over the scenes of Scorsese's

39:49

film. So certainly the message

39:51

to listeners in Reading the Age of Innocence is

39:53

be wary of

39:55

anyone who seems so innocent. Perhaps

39:57

they are not. As

40:00

the final piece of our trio here, let's talk

40:02

a little bit about Newland Archer.

40:04

And you've mentioned several of his qualities

40:06

as we've discussed the other two women.

40:09

But in general, who is he?

40:12

And does he grow at all as

40:14

a character? What do you think?

40:16

So it's a really wonderful question.

40:18

Who is he? He's

40:20

a product of old New York. He's

40:23

literally and metaphorically married

40:26

to convention. He

40:28

would have us believe that

40:31

he's very worldly, very modern.

40:34

But to quote the narrator, he is,

40:36

quote, held fast by habit, end

40:39

quote. Newland Archer's sort of status

40:41

as someone who's surprisingly old fashioned

40:43

is signaled even by the furniture

40:46

that he has in his private

40:49

library. He clings to this Eastlake

40:51

writing table, which is by the

40:53

way a kind of furniture that Edith

40:55

Wharton did not approve of. She thought

40:58

of it as old fashioned. He

41:01

is a dilettante. We hear that by the

41:03

second page of the novel. And

41:06

that is not really something that Edith

41:08

Wharton would have admired. That's a cursory

41:10

knowledge of arts and letters. He's

41:12

certainly contemplative. He's

41:14

fundamentally passive. And he's

41:16

passive right up to that final theme, which

41:19

is why I think it's a consummate ending,

41:21

that he has to remain on

41:23

the park bench outside of Ellen Olenska's

41:26

apartment in Paris, even

41:28

though he's free now. And

41:30

he always said, hey, if I was only free

41:33

and if May might die, I could have my

41:35

shot with Ellen Olenska. He is

41:37

very Jamesian insofar as he is the man

41:39

to whom nothing was ever to happen. And

41:41

that's a line from Wharton. And

41:44

God bless him. He's human. He

41:46

is human. Yeah, but it's

41:48

interesting when you think about it,

41:50

the two women, May and Ellen,

41:53

actually they do far

41:55

more. They have far more strength. They

41:57

have far more control in various... ways.

42:01

And Newland at the end is the one that

42:03

perhaps has the least and is the most constrained.

42:05

Do you agree with that? I would very

42:07

much agree with that. And I

42:09

would also underscore that the two

42:11

women really read him so much

42:14

better than he can read himself and far

42:17

better than he reads either

42:19

of them. He's constantly misreading May

42:21

and undermining her. Even after she's dead,

42:23

he still reads her as a

42:25

simpleton. And it's like, not really,

42:27

buddy. And he's always

42:30

misreading Ellen Olenska and she's

42:32

much savvier. She understands, she's

42:34

been around the block, and

42:36

she knows that this pipe

42:39

dream that he has is

42:41

never going to materialize. And

42:44

so with that, Emily and I are going to

42:46

take a brief break, but we'll come back

42:49

because there is so much more to say.

42:53

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44:28

we're back. I'm Raymond, the host

44:30

of the Guild of Gentlemen History Podcast

44:33

and today I'm with Dr. Emily Orlando

44:35

and we are taking a deep dive

44:37

into Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

44:43

Emily I'd like to really take a look at

44:45

one particular key scene in the novel. We've talked

44:47

about some of the characters but I'd like to

44:49

look at a scene here. And

44:52

towards the end of the novel

44:54

it's the dinner party scene that

44:56

Newland Archer and May now Archer.

44:59

Newland and May give. It's

45:01

their first dinner party and

45:03

it's really essentially Ellen's farewell

45:05

to New York. She's returning

45:07

to Europe. But it's a

45:09

really important scene both from what Wharton tells

45:11

us and what's going on beneath

45:14

the surface. So can you talk a little bit

45:16

about that scene? What do we see and

45:19

what is she saying? Sure. It's

45:21

presented as the farewell dinner

45:23

for the Countess Olenska. Archer

45:26

as he often is is a

45:28

little bit confused about what exactly

45:30

is going on. And we

45:33

might say that Ellen Olenska is on

45:35

the menu, right? And it's

45:37

so brilliant the way that Edith

45:39

Wharton describes this scene. It's

45:41

called a handsome send off. The

45:44

people about the table are described as

45:46

quote the embodied image of the family

45:48

and the family is capital F,

45:50

initial capital. And That makes me

45:53

think of Scorsese's other narratives. It's

45:55

described as the tribal rally around

45:57

a kinswoman about the be who

46:00

live in a from the tribe

46:02

I mean, how perfect is that,

46:04

rights and Edith Wharton's Anyone who

46:06

knows her, her work knows that

46:09

she was drawn to anthropology and

46:11

this is and so many ways

46:13

and anthropological study of Old New

46:15

York. What's what's remarkable is that

46:18

unbeknownst to our dear New and

46:20

Arts or something has happened privately

46:22

behind the scenes to compel Alan

46:25

Alan Scott to leave. And we

46:27

alluded to it earlier, which is

46:29

said. May well and had

46:31

what she calls a really good

46:34

talks with her dear cousin our

46:36

A Landscape during which she disclosed

46:38

that she was expecting a child

46:41

when in fact she wasn't certain

46:43

rights. So again she uses that

46:45

as as an excuse to shut

46:48

down any affair that was really

46:50

about to happen between New and

46:52

and Alan Watts really almost. Hazel

46:55

in the scene is set new

46:57

and tries to get some face.

47:00

Time with Alan Alaska right at the

47:02

end of this dinner and and you

47:04

know and he's like oh you know

47:06

I'd love to come see you in

47:08

Paris And her my in a league

47:11

is where his most recent biographer wonderfully

47:13

notes that Paris is so important as

47:15

love With the last were that he

47:17

ever articulate to Allen Alaska spoke she

47:19

comes back with not what he wanted

47:22

a year and she says oh yes

47:24

if you and may sit coms and

47:26

he isn't when she starts so on

47:28

and it's all because because. As

47:30

you know is of the

47:32

machinations behind the scenes to

47:35

eliminate her from describe. know

47:38

only had like be talking about the

47:40

opening of the book we've talked about

47:42

the title now for just a moment

47:44

i'd like to address the ending and

47:47

you've alluded to it a couple of

47:49

times in our shot but i'd like

47:51

to talk about it in in generalities

47:53

let's just say that edith wharton was

47:55

no jane austen rights yes in the

47:58

sense than the did died as always

48:00

get the girl. In fact, most of the time, he

48:02

doesn't get the girl. There's a lot of

48:05

ambiguity. There are

48:08

endings that are open to interpretation.

48:10

Do you think that's accurate? And

48:12

do you have any comments in

48:15

general about a Wharton

48:17

ending? Yes. Well,

48:19

I really do think that in

48:21

this case, it is perfect closure.

48:24

And I think that Neil and Archer

48:26

is a beautifully drawn character. And I

48:28

think it would not be in keeping

48:31

for him to ascend the staircase. It

48:33

would be inconsistent with the character that

48:35

E.S. Wharton has created. And I know

48:37

what you're saying, and I agree with

48:40

what you're saying, and particularly, goodness, the

48:42

House of Mirth ending, there's so much

48:44

ambiguity there. And in this case, I

48:46

really think she knew where it was

48:48

going. And certainly, if you look at the

48:51

manuscripts, she, in her notes,

48:53

she tested out all kinds of

48:56

alternative endings, one

48:58

that actually involved them running off together. But

49:00

this is the one she decided on. And

49:02

it's just, it's perfect because

49:04

it honors her code of symmetry, order,

49:07

closure. And again, it's all laid out.

49:09

I mean, the opening scene of the

49:11

novel is the opera. And, you know,

49:13

it's probably most famous one of the

49:16

time, and it's, it's Faust.

49:18

And, you know, Neil and Archer is

49:21

certainly Faustian, and his desires and his

49:23

appetites, but he never really can follow

49:25

through. And he's late to the opera,

49:28

because it's a thing to do,

49:30

again, married to convention and profession.

49:33

So I do think it's, it's

49:35

a really perfect ending to

49:37

this story. And it's perfect that we

49:40

don't, you know, we don't see Elena

49:42

Lenska, we just kind of have to

49:44

imagine what she looks like. Now, she's

49:46

in her late 50s. He

49:48

imagines her, but he doesn't see her

49:50

and Edith Wharton doesn't show her to

49:52

us. Oh, I think

49:54

it's an absolutely perfect ending. But

49:56

it's not the ending that I

49:59

do. There's some of the characters

50:01

or us may have expected at the beginning.

50:03

That's what I meant about the ambiguity Yeah,

50:06

so Emily as we finish up here and

50:09

gosh There are so many different aspects and

50:11

angles and subjects that we can talk about

50:13

and and I hope we will be built

50:15

to do that One day I have

50:18

to ask you the classic trademark

50:20

gilded gentleman question And that of

50:22

course is if Edith

50:24

Wharton were sitting here right at the

50:27

table with us What

50:29

would you most want to ask her? Reading

50:32

her letters you can see that

50:34

she enjoyed a good story and

50:36

she enjoyed gossip So I think

50:38

that what I would want to

50:41

do is I would want to

50:43

ask her about our contemporary moment,

50:45

right? And did she anticipate as

50:47

I suspect she did, you

50:49

know this kind of Instagram influencer

50:52

culture did she imagine

50:54

and I say

50:57

this tongue-in-cheek that Elmer Moffitt

50:59

might one day rise to

51:01

power You

51:03

know, did you imagine that a divorcee could

51:06

now be the Queen of England? There

51:09

so I feel like I'd like to gossip with

51:11

her. That's what I would like to do I

51:14

don't know what that says about me, but I

51:16

think she would have so much to say and

51:18

I think she did see it Coming. I think

51:20

she anticipated it in One

51:23

of her greatest novels, which is the custom of the

51:25

country. I think she really sees Contemporary

51:27

culture and our current let's

51:30

say Gilded Age I

51:32

think she saw that coming but I'd also I'd

51:34

really just want to say thank you That's

51:36

what that's what I would want to say.

51:38

Thank you because I don't think I would

51:40

have a career without her What

51:43

would you most like her to ask you? Oh

51:46

my goodness. Oh Hmm.

51:49

Okay, that's a wonderful question

51:51

And I guess I would

51:54

like for her to ask

51:56

me to persuade her why feminism

51:59

has done good things for American women

52:01

because of course she would have

52:04

dismissed that label and she did

52:06

and she said some unfortunate things

52:08

about university women and I happen

52:10

to be a university woman. I

52:13

think that we could have a very

52:15

fruitful conversation and I

52:17

think that we might find some common ground

52:19

because really even though she didn't like the

52:22

label, she is fiercely

52:24

committed to the social construction

52:26

of womanhood and basically everything

52:28

she ever published in my

52:30

view. So I think that could

52:32

be a fruitful discussion. And I would love to

52:34

be there for that chat, I have to tell you.

52:37

Emily, thank you so, so much for

52:39

joining me here today to delve into

52:41

the world of not only the Age

52:43

of Innocence but gosh, we've looked at

52:45

Edith Wharton from so many different aspects

52:47

and angles too and it's certainly my

52:49

hope that listeners will, if you have

52:51

read Age of Innocence, please go read

52:53

it again and listening to

52:56

the conversation Emily and I had and

52:58

if you haven't read it yet, then

53:00

it's a place to start. Emily,

53:03

thank you so much. Please come

53:05

back on the show. Will you come back? Oh, Carl,

53:08

it would be my joy and thank you. This

53:10

has been an absolute delight. Well, for

53:12

me too. So thank you

53:14

so, so much and my listeners,

53:16

thank you for joining me for

53:18

another episode of The Gilded Gentlemen.

53:20

The Gilded Gentlemen is produced by

53:22

Bowery Boys Media and this episode

53:24

was edited and produced by Karen

53:27

Gannon. I invite my listeners to

53:29

become patrons of the show on

53:31

patreon.com/The Gilded Gentlemen. Your support

53:33

helps with the cost of research and

53:35

production to continue to be able to

53:37

do the show. I couldn't do it

53:39

without you. And I'll see you

53:41

soon. After all, what's

53:44

life without a little delight of

53:46

gold? Time

53:54

for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

53:56

up and bagel eyes. Get your taste

53:59

buds ready for McDonald's. breakfast bagel sandwiches.

54:01

Now just $3 only on the

54:03

app. Choose from a delicious steak egg

54:05

and cheese bagel, bacon egg and cheese bagel, or

54:07

sausage egg and cheese bagel. Just $3

54:10

when you order ahead on the app. Hurry and

54:12

seize this breakfast steal before it's gone. Offer

54:14

valid one time daily March 11th through April

54:17

7th, 2024 at Participating McDonald's. Must

54:19

opt into rewards.