Glimpses of the Moon

By Edith Wharton

Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young, attractive, but impoverished New Yorkers. They are in love and decide to marry, but realise their chances of happiness are slim without the wealth and society that their more privileged friends take for granted. Nick and Susy agree to separate when either encounters a more eligible proposition. However, as they honeymoon in friends' lavish houses, from a villa on Lake Como to a Venetian palace, jealous passions and troubled consciences cause the idyll to crumble. Edith Wharton has perceptively described the choices faced by Nick and Susy; the same dilemma still facing those seduced by the pleasures of society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781908968821

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 Glimpses of the Moon

[kaitanya64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Nick Lansing and Susy Branch agree to marry for a year and live entirely in the money of others. They also agree that when and if one of them gets a better opportunity, the marriage contract is void. However, they find as time passes that financial arrangements are easier to manage than human emotions such as love, trust and jealousy. A beautifully written book about the nature of romantic love and the meaning of modern marriage set in 1920s Europe.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Edith Wharton is known for her frank portrayal of New York society, often exposing their pettiness and hypocrisy. The Glimpses of the Moon is no exception. Nick and Susy are recently married, and while they care for one another it is primarily a marriage of convenience. Neither come from wealth, but both have recognized they could probably live for a year or more off of the wedding checks and invitations from their wealthy social circle. The novel opens during their honeymoon at an Italian villa belonging to a friend; after a few weeks they move on to another friend's property in Venice. Susy quickly finds that some of her arrangements come with a cost -- like looking after a child -- and one matter in particular comes between she and Nick. The rest of their story plays out as a classic case of two people who are completely unable to communicate openly with one another, and along the way they learn some valuable truths about the real value of material possessions.

[etxgardener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is one of Wharton's later novels. It's been compared with the House of Mirth, but I did not see the resemblance - particularly since this book has a happy ending.Susy and Nick Lansing are newlyweds. They have fallen in love against their better judgement, since neither has the means to make a living and they both love society life. They decide to get married figuring they an live at least a year off their wedding gifts and the kindness of their wealthy friends who are more than willing to loan them lovely villas in Italy or pick up the check at dinner. Both agree to an open marriage where they will divorce if a better marital prospect enters the scene.All is fiine until Nick gets scruples in Venice when her realizes that he's been given an expensive gift for being complicit in a friend's extra-marital affair. He and Susy have words and he storms off. This, of course, is rather hypocritical of him since he storms right onto a yacht of some nouveau riche friends. Susy, meanwhile, is busy landing an English friend who has found himself inheriting a dukedom, thanks to a fortunate death in his family. Both flit around the upper (but not quite since they seem to be spending way too much time at places like the Nouveau Luxe) reaches of society. But neither one is truly happy. Could it be that Nick & Susy love each other for real?Wharton, as usual paints a vivid picture of high society. However, without tragedy, her writing seems to lack some of her usual acerbic punch.

[sandyamcpherson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wharton was a new author for me at the time I read this (2015) and I am hesitant to make assumptions based on one novel. I recently skimmed a later edition, so I could remind myself of 'The Story'. It has the flavour of The Great Gatsby but I like it better than Fitzgerald's portrayal. Wharton was exposing the cynicism of an artificial society that died with the First World War: the views of the wealthy socialites were crystal clear; I was a bit slow to see the fallacies of such thinking and the demise of such a mode of life. The novel had a tinge of mortality, true of all eras. I wouldn't call this a romance, since the characters were more business-like and contemptuous of the social environment they were sponging off.

[pife43-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable read. Enjoyed the main characters along with several others. Descriptions of the times and the locations were enticing, and the prose from that time period always draws me up a level in my own imagination and thoughts.

[burritapal · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A love story with a sweet, if unreal ending. Susy and Nick, who found each other while living a parasitic life off their rich friends, begin living married life in friends' villas, palaces etc in Europe and for household expenses, living off their wedding checks. They figure they can last at least a year in this manner, but this matter of having to"beg" for a living causes unforetold problems to their little love-nest.

[anesamiller · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is that rarest of beasts: an Edith Wharton novel with something resembling a happy ending. Well, happy from the standpoint of what the author might wish for her characters if they were beloved members of her family. (In sort of a limited way for an off-night…) I found it engaging, believable, replete with the ethos of its milieu--the gypsy lifestyle of privileged, though not wealthy, Americans gadding about Europe in the early years of the 20th century. The implications for this lifestyle of a near-total lack of birth control are remarkable.

[armchairauthor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When will I learn not to read “Introductions”? They always spoil the story. As billed, The Glimpses of the Moon is an imagined sequel to a House of Mirth that ended happily. Nick and Susy Lansing read like slightly dopier versions of Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden, which I suppose makes sense as they are honeymooning. The novel itself is good, Wharton was in fine form creating her nuanced social puzzles to draw feeling from her readers. Reading the novel is a bit like imagining what would happen after the end of a romantic comedy: the pair marries, gets to understand each other more intimately, and comes up against the daily struggles of “managing” (and their gendered approaches to it). The novel escapes the feeling of “fan-service” by honestly mining the realities Susy and Nick face, even if they do get some lucky breaks. It’s a sweet summer read, it just doesn’t have the impact of House of Mirth.

[kasthu_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Glimpses of the Moon tells the story of Nick and Suzy Lansing, a young couple who married for neither love nor money—or, rather, they married for money but other people’s. Their bet is to spend a year honeymooning in their rich friends’ houses in France, Venice, and elsewhere; and if one or the other should wish to marry someone else who can advance themselves socially, they will be free to do so. What really happens surprises not the reader but Suzy and Nick.Nick and Suzy are characters who undergo a lot of self-growth. They start out as people who are only concerned with living in the moment; and enjoying life, or their perception of it, as much as they possibly can. They both come to realize that there’s much more to life than what appears on the surface. Their growth is pretty predictable, but it’s interesting to see how they get where they eventually do.Edith Wharton’s world of upper-crust New York jetsetting (or is that the wrong term considering this is the 1920s) society is an odd one. People in this set of people are pretty laissez-faire about marriage. Divorce is as commonplace as getting one’s teeth cleaned, and it’s de rigueur, apparently, for someone to announce an engagement before the divorce is finalized. Wharton’s novel is a critique not just on these particular characters but also the milieu in which they live. So she tends to reuse the same types of characters over and over; for example, the Hickses are watered-down versions of the Spraggs in The Customs of the Country (both families even come from Apex City), although Coral Hicks isn't quite as socially hungry as Undine is. Even Nick and Suzy are reiterations. The characters, even the main characters, aren't as important as what happens to them to make them change.One of my favorite things about Wharton’s novels is how she depicts and yet subtly skewers the society of which she writes. There’s a quote from someone, I can’t remember who, who said that comedy is only funny when it’s telling the truth. For that reason, Edith Wharton’s novels are, in a way, comic.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Edith Wharton's "The Glimpses of the Moon" is delightful. Written to reflect the easy-going ways of the 1920's, the novel tells the story of Susy and Nick Lansing, who have recently married and are celebrating an extended honeymoon. The Lansings, who have no money themselves, but know all the right people in society, have a marriage of convenience. They plan to spend a year or so together, sponging off friends and prepared to separate from each other if a better (read: richer) offer comes along. Of course, the plan doesn't quite work out the way they thought it would.Yes, the plot is sort of contrived and certainly predictable, but the book's charms make it easy to overlook that. The characters and their foibles are entertaining in this quick and easy read. The book doesn't quite measure of up to Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" or "Ethan Frome" but it is still a fun little read in its own regard.

[mynovelthoughts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just finished reading Glimpses of the Moon and thought that it was a delightful novel. It was humorous, thought-provoking and poignant.The novel revolves around Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, two popular socialites who hang with the rich set but are unable to afford the lavish lifestyle of their friends. So, they devise a plan; they'll get married (they suppose they'll be together for a year) and enjoy an extended honeymoon by staying with friends. Once one (or both) of them find a more suitable (meaning rich) partner they will separate amicably.Of course things don't go as planned.Nick discovers that Susy has compromised her morals to benefit from their friends' wealth and both grow disenchanted with their lifestyle and with one another. Pride and fear get in the way of Susy and Nick finding true happiness and admitting how they have grown to feel about one other.I really enjoyed The Glimpses of the Moon. The only complaint I have is that the plot was filled with coincidences that resulted in certain life-altering decisions being made (eg. someone being in the right place at exactly the right time). But the writing, and exploration of materialism and it's dark side more than make up for perceived shortcomings.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When the novel opens, Nick and Susy are newlyweds enjoying a glimpse of the moon from the country home that they've borrowed from a friend for their honeymoon. Nick and Susy aren't typical newlyweds though. They have a deal and figure they'll be married to each other for about a year. At the end of that time (roughly determined as the amount of time in which they, the vastly entertaining but poor couple, can live off of their incredibly wealthy friends), they assume they will divorce and each remarry someone more suitable, by which they mean rich.Although they've been living off the largess of their friends for so long, they have differing opinions about what is morally and ethically acceptable and so despite their growing care for each other, they come into conflict over the differences. Pulled apart by misunderstanding, each of them goes off with different friends and tries to slip back into the life led before their marriage. But the time together has changed them both, deepened them as people and made it possible for them to think of a life not led in the superficial, glancing world of the inordinately wealthy. It has allowed them to truly fall in love.While the plot might sound like many a romance novel, Wharton spends much time on the shallow foibles of the moneyed set shifting around Europe in search of entertainment. Nick and Susy are a lens through which to see some of these excesses. The writing is fantastic, with accurate descriptions, backhanded wit, and astute insights. The tone here is casual and light although Wharton does get in the expected rapier thrusts about the ennui and the callousness so characteristic of the social class she's describing. And in the end, the story is not so much about Nick and Susy's sponging off of others or about the friends who collect and discard relationships like last year's hats, but it's about a pair who, despite the company they keep, grow and learn and understand the importance of love. I've been a fan of Wharton's for a long time and this novel just re-confirmed my feeling.

[bookheaven_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting commentary on the trappings of the rich.