The Reef

Written by Edith Wharton

Narrated by Kristen Underwood

Anna Leath, an American widow living in France, has engaged in a love affair with George Darrow, a diplomat. However, when Darrow is on his way to consolidate marriage plans at Anna’s French chateau, he encounters Sophy Viner, who is as sprightly and spontaneous as Anna is restrained and demure. Soon after, Anna’s affair with Darrow becomes the reef on which the lives of four people are in extreme danger of foundering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio
• Release date: Jan 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9780786109814

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.

Reviews for The Reef

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

But Ross says THEY WERE ON A BREAK!

[fhudnell-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Young diplomat George Darrow is on his way to meet Anna Leath, an old girlfriend who is now a widow with a young daughter and a grown stepson. When Anna abruptly postpones their rendezvous without explanation, Darrow concludes that she is no longer interested in him. A chance meeting with Sophy Viner leads to their brief affair. Unfortunately, the lives of Darrow, Anna, Sophy and Anna's stepson Owen become linked and the extremely discreet sexual relationship between Darrow and Sophy complicates their lives.This story might have been easier to take if it had been written as a romantic comedy, but instead it's a soap opera. Everyone in this book is so ernest and humorless and they just yammer on endlessly about their feelings. The women change their minds on every other page. Anna's jealousy and obsessive indecisiveness was particularly annoying. The book also had a ridiculous non-ending. As far as I know, Anna is still obsessing. This is not good Edith Wharton and if you have not read her before do not start here. These characters are tedious and the book lacks the social commentary that often adds an edge to her books. The narration by Kristen Underwood of the audiobook was ok, but she didn't do a very good job with the male voices.

[bookish59 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this. Definitely "old-school" by today's standards, it describes the consequences of taking affairs of the heart lightly. Wharton timing, pacing and tone are excellent!

[stephkaye-923485 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Edith Wharton’s New York novels, and I teach Ethan Frome, so I was delighted to recently come across a book of hers I’d never heard of, The Reef. It is neither a New York novel nor a New England one, like Frome and its counterpart Summer, though one of The Reef’s main characters, Sophy Viner, reminds one of Summer’s heroine. After I finished the novel, I was nonplussed – what had just happened? -- so I did a little research. I found it is considered Wharton’s most “Jamesian” novel, and that it was Henry James’ favorite of her oeuvre. Its plot is minimal and frustrating, but as in a James novel, plot is secondary. This novel must be read on another level.

A quick summary: George Darrow and Anna Summers were childhood sweethearts, but Anna went on to marry Fraser Leath; she adopted his son by a former marriage, Owen, and had a child with Leath. Now Fraser Leath is dead. Anna and Darrow meet again by chance and renew their romance. The novel opens with Darrow on his way from London to Paris to meet Anna, who resides with her former mother-in-law on a provincial French estate. Darrow is deeply in love, so he is anguished to receive a telegram from Anna, pushing off their meeting for two weeks, citing an “unexpected obstacle.”

While Darrow is agonizing over the meaning of Anna’s deferral, he runs into Sophy Viner, a young woman who once acted as secretary in a home where he was a suitor. She is also going to France, alone and jobless, so he takes her under his wing and they travel together. Darrow waits in vain for an explanation from Anna, and by week’s end, he has a fling with young Sophy.

Months later, Darrow and Anna are reconciled. He goes to her country home to propose, and whom does he find there but Sophy – acting as governess to Anna’s young daughter. You might think this would be enough of a dramatic twist, but no -- Sophy is also engaged to Anna’s step-son, Owen. The irony is that the “unexpected obstacle” of Anna’s message to Darrow was literally Sophy: Anna delayed Darrow’s visit in order to find a governess, which turns out to be Sophy. However, Sophy is able to become an obstacle between Anna and Darrow precisely because of that delay. Indirectly and unwittingly, Anna brings her main conflict upon herself.

The ensuing psychological drama makes up the rest of the novel. Anna forces the truth out of Darrow. Sophy declares her love for Darrow and breaks with Owen. Owen suspects the real reason, but does he ever learn the truth? The novel ends with the news that Sophy has returned to her original employer and is bound for India, a conclusion that reminds me of the idealist St. John Rivers of Jane Eyre, who exiles himself to India after Jane’s rejection, never to love again.

Wharton tells us early on that this novel is not meant to be read for plot. When Darrow takes Sophy to the theater in Paris, he is disappointed to find she is focusing on “the story” and the acting craft, not on the internal “conflict of character producing” that plot (47). This can be taken as Wharton’s advice to us on how to the read the novel in our hands. Anna has also focused on the superficial aspects of life. This is symbolized by the name of her husband’s family’s home, Givré, which means frosted with ice, indicating the Leath family’s lethal lack of emotion and depth, as well as by her late husband’s trivial hobby of collecting enameled snuffboxes. Anna has yet to dive beneath the surfaces of experience to explore the reef, a phenomenon simultaneously alluring and threatening.

When Anna learns that Darrow has had an affair with Sophy, it is not the class discrepancy or even the adultery that bothers her. Of course, the usual tensions of class conflict and social expectations are present in this novel, as in all of Wharton’s other work. Before focusing on her imminent marriage to Darrow, Anna’s first priority is persuading her staid mother-in-law to approve of Owen’s engagement to the governess. Social mores are changing: Anna and Darrow are part of a transitional generation that thinks less rigidly about class, while Owen has flung all such prejudices aside. But by setting these American characters in France, rather than under the microscope of New York society, Wharton signals that she is paying less attention to the constant social control seen in the New York novels.

Rather, the obstacles for Anna are her knowledge -- and her imagined knowledge -- of Darrow’s past. She visualizes Sophy in Darrow’s arms, in restaurants where he now wants to take Anna. One irony that emerges from her suffering is that she is finally experiencing what Darrow may have felt for decades while she was married to Fraser Leath. One theme of the novel is to warn against this sort of naive hypocrisy: “…when she [Anna] had explored the intricacies and darknesses of her own heart her judgment of others would be less absolute” (307). Anna’s perspective has been broadened and deepened by learning of Sophy’s love for Darrow.

Wharton also includes a strangely Oedipal twist to the lesson Anna learns. Anna is almost too close to her step-son Owen. They bonded in the emotional frigidity of the Leath home, as she explains to Darrow: “Owen's like my own son--if you'd seen him when I first came here you'd know why. We were like two prisoners who talk to each other by tapping on the wall” (243). Owen calls her “dear,” and she treats him like her own, feeling that she owes him, as suggested by his name. Likewise, Darrow’s first impulses toward Sophy are fatherly and protective. Even when he questions her alliance with Owen, he seems to do so not out of a lover’s jealousy, but out of a paternal desire for her well-being. Like Anna, he feels that he owes the younger person his assistance, but in his case, it is because of their liaison. As other readers have pointed out, Anna’s jealousy is compounded by the possibility of having Sophy as a daughter-in-law, especially wed to her beloved Owen. The mother is willing to give up the son, but not when his fiancée is revealed as a rival.

Though Darrow may appear to be this novel’s protagonist at the beginning, he remains steadfast in his loyalty to both women. It is Anna who must change, when she realizes that others have pasts and feelings, and that if she wants to experience true passion, she must accept the abyss of potential heartbreak that is its counterpart. Anna’s vacillations -- hating and loving Darrow, resenting and respecting Sophy – are the frustrating outcome of these conflicts. Just as we think she has resigned herself to accepting Darrow and his past, she decides she must leave him and seeks to confront Sophy. Anna is irresistibly drawn to this girl who, in such a short time, and with such limited means, has lived a more honest and more passionate life than she herself ever dreamed of. Sophy is the reef. For Darrow, a man and therefore used to doing as he pleases, Sophy is a superficial fling, something just below the surface, not a true deep love. For Anna, Darrow and Sophy’s affair is her first glimpse under the waves at the possibilities of true love. And so they both flounder there, like ships run aground.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anna Leath is an American living in France and recently widowed, with an adult stepson (Owen) and a young daughter (Effie). On a visit to London she meets up with George Darrow, rekindling a romance from many years before. George agrees to visit Anna at her country house Givré, but just as he is preparing to cross the Channel he receives a terse communication delaying the visit. He continues on to Paris anyway, befriending a young woman named Sophy and enjoying a couple of weeks in her company. When he finally visits Anna a few months later, he is surprised to find Sophy employed as Effie's governess. Having already professed his love and commitment to Anna, he decides to keep his dalliance with Sophy a secret.The novel revolves around the fragile nature of trust and intimacy, and social norms that inhibit expression. It's clear that George adores Anna:They dined late, and facing her across the table, with its low lights and flowers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in seeing her again in evening dress, and in letting his eyes dwell on the proud shy set of her head, the way her dark hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness of her neck above the slight swell of her breast. His imagination was struck by the quality of reticence in her beauty. (p.127)Meanwhile he gave himself up once more to the joy of Anna's presence. They had not been alone together for two long days, and he had the lover's sense that he had forgotten, or at least underestimated, the strength of the spell she cast. Once more her eyes and her smile seemed to bound his world. He felt that her light would always move with him as the sunset moves before a ship at sea. (p. 220)Anna, too, is sure of her feelings, but completely unable to express them, expecting George to pick up on nonverbal cues and initiate all dialogue about their relationship. Even when Anna learns the truth about George and Sophy -- as the reader knows she will -- she is completely unable to work it out in an adult fashion. She wants to give George the benefit of the doubt and initially believes his explanations, but when they are apart, even for a few minutes, doubt sets in. Anna repeatedly shies away from confrontation, putting off the conversation that must take place for their relationship to continue.The reader knows Anna is capable of deep feeling and expression: early in the novel, she shows tremendous excitement when Owen returns from an afternoon away. It's frustrating to watch her mis-handle the one relationship that will bring lifelong happiness. Fortunately, the scenery is idyllic. Edith Wharton brings France, her adopted country, to life, taking the reader up and down Paris streets, and on long walks through country chateau gardens. She breaks the emotional tension with well-placed humor. For example, consider this description of Adelaide Painter, a friend of Anna's mother-in-law:After living, as he had, as they all had, for the last few days, in an atmosphere perpetually tremulous with echoes and implications, it was restful and fortifying merely to walk into the big blank area of Miss Painter's mind, so vacuous for all its accumulated items, so echoless for all its vacuity. (p. 212)Reading The Reef, it was easy to get frustrated with Anna, waffling over her commitment to George. And I was fairly sympathetic to George: he was no saint, but his fling with Sophy occurred before he'd reunited with Anna, and at a point where he thought she had rejected him. And while I longed for Anna to be stronger and more assertive, her inhibitions were not unfamiliar to me. The Reef is an excellent period piece in its scenery, characterizations, and portrayal of relationships between men and women.