Ethan Frome

By Edith Wharton

Burdened by poverty and spiritually dulled by a loveless marriage to Zeena, his older and ailing wife, Ethan Frome is emotionally stirred by the arrival of their youthful cousin, Mattie Silver, who becomes employed as household help. Mattie's presence not only brightens a gloomy house but also stirs long-dormant feelings in Ethan. However, their growing love for each other is discovered by the embittered Zeena, and it presages an ending to the tale that is both shocking and savagely ironic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media
• Release date: Sep 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781520046082

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) published more than forty books during her lifetime, including the classic Gilded Age society novels Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence, for which she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

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ETHAN FROME

By

EDITH WHARTON

This edition published by Dreamscape Media LLC, 2016

www.dreamscapeab.com * [e-mail]

1417 Timberwolf Drive, Holland, OH 43528

877.983.7326

dreamscape

Table of Contents

ETHAN FROME

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

ETHAN FROME

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was.

It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the natives were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.

He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's twenty-four years ago come next February, Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.

The smash-up it was—I gathered from the same informant—which, besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window. He used to drive in from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the grating. I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put without a glance into his sagging pocket. At intervals, however, the post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia—or Mrs. Zeena—Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of his specific. These documents my neighbour would also pocket without a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.

Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for a word. When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.

It was a pretty bad smash-up? I questioned Harmon, looking after Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were bent out of shape.

Wust kind, my informant assented. More'n enough to kill most men. But the Fromes are tough. Ethan'll likely touch a hundred.

Good God! I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box—also with a druggist's label on it—which he had placed in the back of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought himself alone. That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell now!

Harmon drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and pressed it into the leather pouch of his cheek. Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away.

Why didn't he?

Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn't ever anybody but Ethan. Fust his father—then his mother—then his wife.

And then the smash-up?

Harmon chuckled sardonically. That's so. He had to stay then.

I see. And since then they've had to care for him?

Harmon thoughtfully passed his tobacco to the other cheek. Oh, as to that: I guess it's always Ethan done the caring.

Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. But one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I grouped my subsequent inferences: Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters.

Before my own time there was up I had learned to know what that meant. Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which the youth of the hills could descend for recreation. But when winter shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life there—or rather its negation—must have been in Ethan Frome's young manhood.

I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield—the nearest habitable spot—for the best part of the winter. I chafed at first, and then, under the hypnotising effect of routine, gradually began to find a grim satisfaction in the life. During the early part of my stay I had been struck by the contrast between the vitality of the climate and the deadness of the community. Day by day, after the December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of Starkfield. When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister force of Harmon's phrase: Most of the smart ones get away. But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?

During my stay at Starkfield I lodged with a middle-aged widow colloquially known as Mrs. Ned Hale. Mrs. Hale's father had been the village lawyer of the previous generation, and lawyer Varnum's house, where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable mansion in the village. It stood at one end of the main street, its classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational church. It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs. Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping with her pale old-fashioned house.

In the best parlour, with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle. It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with detachment. She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the facts I knew. Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote and any question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent. There was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low Yes, I knew them both... it was awful... seeming to be the utmost concession that her distress could make to my curiosity.

So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an uncomprehending grunt.

"Ruth Varnum was always as nervous as a rat; and, come to think of it, she was the first one to see 'em after they was picked up. It happened right below lawyer Varnum's, down at the bend of the Corbury road, just round about the time that Ruth got engaged

Reviews for Ethan Frome

[eadieb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome is a story with a tragic ending. It expresses the power of love and how far one will go for love. Even though Ethan is married, his love for Mattie Silver causes the two to partake in an unthinkable act. Edith Wharton uses this theme, illicit love to present "a drama of irresistible necessity." The emotion of Mattie and Ethan was very evident and could be felt by the reader. It's hard to believe that anything so classic could be such a page turner. This novel is recommended for anyone who wants to read a short, simple love story.

[rozax_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed invasive oral surgery more than I enjoyed reading this book. All three of them, actually. The first one made me rather sick, due to the general anesthesia. At least the dentist provided anesthetics during the procedure. There was nothing dulling the pain of reading this book. It should NOT be on the required reading list for any high school.

[sbsolter · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I think there was supposed to be some deeper metaphor in the story, but it didn't do much for me.

[juglicerr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very well written and constructed, but rather nasty and ugly story. I would recommend it most to fans of Shirley Jackson. Others may find that their dislike for the plot overwhelms any admiration for the prose.

[shadowofthewind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I often shy away from the classics because of their length. It’s quite daunting to read something with very old language at great length. Many of them are so long because they told in parts in periodicals, the more parts, the more funds for the author. My favorite quote about long books comes from Kurt Vonnegut in the introduction of his short story collection Bagombo Snuff Box: ““Reading a novel, War and Peace for example, is no Catnap. Because a novel is so long, reading one is like being married forever to somebody nobody knows or cares about.” As a result, I skipped over Ethan Frome often. I put the book on the list when I added some of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die on my list. I picked it up and was surprised by how much I really loved it. Wharton is a master at quiet storytelling, how the characters and the landscape tell the same story. The character’s desperation is palpable, but oh so quiet like a snowy winter evening, all sounds muffled. Something ominous hangs in the air, it slowly builds, and at the last moment, the big reveal. It’s no wonder she was a master at ghost stories. A young woman in Starkfield on business, sees Ethan Frome, and with it the story of life in a small town and the desperation to get out of it. Ever burdened with his parents poor health and then his wife, he sees life in a young Mattie, his wife Zeena’s cousin. For a year he has an unhealthy fixation on her that represents the yearning for something new, to get out of the small town, to make a fresh start. As time wears on, Zeena begins to suspect something and the action of all three lead to a terrifying reality. This would be a great book for a discussion. It’s short with such strong symbolism of the town, the weather, the characters and their actions. It ends like a ghost story, something you definitely wouldn’t expect. Favorite passages:Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters. 18He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters. P. 22His father's death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature end to Ethan's studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things. P.30But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it. He did not even know whether any one else in the world felt as he did, or whether he was the sole victim of this mournful privilege. Then he learned that one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder... P.33For years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for change and freedom. "We never got away-how should you?" seemed to be written on every headstone; and whenever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a shiver: "I shall just go on living here till I join them." But now all desire for change had vanished, and the sight of the little enclosure gave him a warm sense of continuance and stability. P.44All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others. P.85For the life of her smile, the warmth of her voice, only cold paper and dead words! P. 92Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him. He was too young, too strong, too full of the sap of living, to submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes. Must he wear out all his years at the side of a bitter querulous woman? Other possibilities had been in him, possibilities sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena's narrow-mindedness and ignorance. And what good had come of it? She was a hundred times bitterer and more discontented than when he had married her: the one pleasure left her was to inflict pain on him. All the healthy instincts of self-defence rose up in him against such waste... P. 93The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way out-none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished. P.95

[joririchardson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I chose to read this as the first of Edith Wharton, due to it's small size. I loved her writing style, and plan on reading the rest of her books as well."Ethan Frome" was the romantic, sad story of a man who became caught up in a loveless marriage to a woman who is very sick. Ethan struggles between his contradictory feelings of love and guilt when he begins to develop deep feelings for their servant girl Mattie, who is also his wife's young cousin.This book is beautiful in it's simplicity and precise dialogue, never too drawn out, never including a scene or word that is not necessary and relevant to the story. An intriguing plot and the three well written main characters made me enjoy reading this book very much.Don't read this if you are in the mood for a cozy, warmly romantic story, however.A tragic, heartbreaking story of love and loss.

[tess_schoolmarm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hauntingly sad and beautifully written describes Root #89, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. This reminds me of the works of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. It is the story of Ethan Frome and his icecube of a wife, Zeena, who is also a hypchondriac. Zeena's cousin, Mattie, comes to live in and help and of course she is verbally abused by Zeena. This abuse and neglect draw Ethan and Mattie together. Zeena notices the attraction and sends Mattie off. ""The inexorable facts closed in on him like a prison-warder handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished." The story is told as a flashback, 24 years in the past and takes place in the brutal northeast of Massachusetts. This may be the best book I've read thus far in 2017!

[tess_w · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hauntingly sad and beautifully written describes Root #89, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. This reminds me of the works of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. It is the story of Ethan Frome and his icecube of a wife, Zeena, who is also a hypchondriac. Zeena's cousin, Mattie, comes to live in and help and of course she is verbally abused by Zeena. This abuse and neglect draw Ethan and Mattie together. Zeena notices the attraction and sends Mattie off. ""The inexorable facts closed in on him like a prison-warder handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished." The story is told as a flashback, 24 years in the past and takes place in the brutal northeast of Massachusetts. This may be the best book I've read thus far in 2017!

[majesdane-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love it; the prose is beautiful. Everyone I've ever met seems to hate this book. It's Wharton's most famous book. Make of that what you will.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not a favorite.

[k6gst · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Louis Auchincloss, a favorite of mine, thought very highly of Edith Wharton, and wrote a short biography. They were from the same world, though separated by a couple of generations.

I found this charmer about doomed, wasted lives, forbidden passion, and deathwish tobogganing in the bleakest patch of late 19th century New England to be more fun when I read the dialogue aloud in an old-timey Yankee accent.

The ending is a bang-up twist.

I enjoyed it, but I’m ready to read about rich people’s problems again.

[siok-76276 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A thin book but it contains so much within its pages. The sorrow weighs you down. Anytime you think you are unfortunate, think of Ethan Frome. He wanted to pursue happiness but was thwarted every time. Finally, he agreed to a suicide pact with Mattie, the girl he loved, by sledding into a tree. But he changed his mind at the last minute. He didn't save themselves but ended up crippling himself and paralyzing Mattie. It was the wife he wanted to leave who nursed Mattie who ended up disgruntled. And the three of them lived in the same house. What misery!

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome is a classic. I don't remember ever reading it though I saw the movie with Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette a long time ago. Both of my sons love this book and talk about it frequently. The younger one mentioned it recently, and I decided to give it a read.
Ethan Frome is married to Zeena, a hypochondriac. They're very poor but have taken in Zeena's cousin Mattie Silver to help Zeena around the house. Mattie is everything Zeena isn't; she's young and a breath of fresh air in Ethan's life.
This book is deservedly a classic. The pacing of the plot is excellent with the beginning and end told by a third-party narrator and the main story told as it happened. The setting is western Massachusetts in the small fictional town of Starkfield, and the author captures the scenery and time period well. The dialogue fits, and the ending is a surprise.
I'm glad they encouraged me to read this book. It truly is a must-read.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Digital audio narrated by C M Hebert

From the book jacket: Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.

My reactions:
I love Edith Wharton’s writing. I love the way she explores relationships and unfulfilled desires. The tension is palpable, the yearning almost unendurable.

She’s a little heavy-handed with the allegory / metaphor in this case. The setting is Starkfield, Massachusetts, in winter; as if the reader needs a reminder of how depressing and lacking in color Ethan’s life is. Though I was reading in the midst of a summer heat wave, I felt chilled. And then I felt that spark of attraction between Ethan and Mattie. Felt Ethan’s heart soar with the possibilities, only to sink with the realization that he was trapped in a device of his own making.

C M Hebert does a fine job narrating the audio book. He reads at a fine pace, and his tone is suitable to the material. After listening, however, I also picked up the text and read through several passages. I think I prefer the text so that I can savor Wharton’s writing.

[narshkite · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I read this to satisfy a Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read a book you were assigned and hated or did not finish.

Positive Bonnie thought "You hated Faulkner in college and have come to love his work, maybe the same will happen for Ethan Frome." Positive me is feeling mighty disappointed because this is straight up shit. The book is far worse than I remembered. The first half is nothing but unbelievably boring people doing mundane things. Think Big Brother without the possibility of sex. The story is so loaded with symbolism (oh the barren cold!) that I get why high school teachers love it as a teaching tool, but for the common reader it is ridiculous. The second half pivots into nauseating melodrama acted out by people who, until the very moment of DRAMA suffered from clinically flat affect. Suddenly they long for one another in a manner common among 12 year old girls and those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and launch themselves into a tragic final act that made me laugh so hard I almost gave the book another star for bringing the (clearly unintentional) fun. You will never look at pairs sledding the same again.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton; (5*); VMC; the Classics; New England; (dark); VIRAGO MONTHLY AUTHOR READ; (1911)

One of Wharton's very best, if not her best! The story is about the seamier side of life and what can happen in a cold clime when one makes a snap decision. Sometimes one ends up paying for that second in time for the remainder of their lives.
This is a wonderful, but dark, Wharton novel. Very intense and very good. Highly recommended.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a haunting tragedy told in a quiet subdued manner that nevertheless I found emotional and moving. The author wastes not a single word in this short bleak novel that speaks so eloquently. I was totally taken up by this story which I read by internet installments through the Daily Lit program.

Originally published in 1911, it is set in a fictitious New England village and tells the sad story of Ethan Frome, his wife Zeena, and Mattie a young relative of Zeena’s who has come to live with the Fromes’ in order to help the sickly Zeena. Ethan develops feelings for Mattie, and we learn that she returns these feelings. Of course Zeena picks up on this and makes arrangements for a serving girl to be hired and for Mattie to leave. At different points in the story I was sympathetic to all three of these characters. They were caught up in something that could never end well but Edith Wharton’s ending left me speechless. This was a story that pointed out exactly how trapped people were by the rules of society, and in particular how difficult it was for a woman to chose any path that was not strictly what was required of her.

This beautifully written novella evokes feelings of pain, isolation, desperation and, of course, regret. The cold, sparse setting was perfect for this sad morality tale, but a word of warning, this book is not for people who are looking for a happy ending. For me, Ethan Frome was a story to savour and will long be a story that I remember as just about perfect.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods.”

An engineer finds himself spending the winter in the small New England town of Starkfield. The narrator becomes intrigued by a mysterious and isolated local farmer Ethan Frome who scrapes out a meagre living whilst tending to his demanding wife Zeena. He sets out to learn about Frome's life and the tragic accident that Ethan had some twenty years earlier. The narrator questions the locals but during a violent snowstorm he is forced into an overnight stay at the Frome homestead. He finally comes to learn the details of Ethan’s “smash-up”.

Ethan Frome is a tale of missed opportunities and of characters trapped in circumstances they seem unable to escape. Moral and social constraints on individual desire is perhaps the book's most prominent theme. Again and again, Wharton displays the hold that social convention has on Ethan. Caring for the sick and the lame become to define Ethan’s life. Firstly years before the novel begins he tends to his ailing mother and when she dies he has to care for his hypochondriac wife.

Much of the imagery in the book is built around cold, ice and snow thus the author is able to emphasize that the harsh New England's winters can have a psychologically stifling force. Most readers will no doubt agree that whilst we initially find beauty in the drifts, flakes, and icicles, but after a prolonged period of time these same wintry scenes often become oppressive. So the weather becomes more and more bleak in tune with the tone of this tale.

This is only a novella and as such quite a quick read but is nonetheless a powerful tale filled with rich, at times unsettling, vocabulary. Well worth the read IMHO.

[librisissimo · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Substance: What was audacious and ground-breaking in 1911 is just old-fashioned and obvious today.The plot was clear as crystal from the end of chapter one (yes, she even writes that clichéd line, among others); however, the arc of the story is well-crafted, and the seeds of the final tragedy are fairly planted.
Unfortunately, Ethan is boring, and Mattie is too too precious; the most interesting character is Zeena, who hints at submerged suspicions that Wharton never really develops, and who would have made a satisfying psychological study if she had been treated as something more than just an obstacle to Ethan's happiness.
In addition, I don't think Wharton really motivates his change from dutiful responsible-ness to reckless irresponsibility between one chapter and the next (the motivations are accessible, just not explained).
Style:
Wharton overuses suggestive punctuation, and the narrative is full of annoying and intrusive slang-quotes - almost every paragraph had one or more words marked out, and all of them are now part of our everyday language, but the sole idiomatic word I didn't know had none.

As for historical "color" and regional description, there is more and better writing in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.

[addictedtomorphemes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Blackstone Audio, narrated by C.M. Hebert

I think this may have been Wharton's warning to her readers to avoid making a hasty decision on whom you will marry. Avoid the shrews! Ethan Frome was the most handsome man in his little town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. He was a quiet man with dreams of becoming an engineer. He thought running his father's farm would be temporary, but he was devoted to caring for his ailing parents before they died. He received help one winter from a woman named Zeena; and once both parents were gone, Ethan realized he had gotten used to her and asked her to stay. They married and shortly after, she started evidencing what surely must have been hypochondria (and general laziness). Her days were spent lying in bed with her false teeth in a glass, complaining about her symptoms, and working Ethan to the bone to provide for her.

When Ethan was 28 and Zeena 35, they took in Zeena's cousin, Mattie Silver. She was to help with the household chores and whatever else Zeena desired. She was there for about a year when Ethan started becoming quietly fascinated by her happiness and vibrancy--such a polar opposite from his wife and his life in general. Zeena notices, and we witness what transpires from her jealousy, manipulation, and mean-spiritedness. Ethan has been given one difficulty after another in his life and takes it on the chin. You can't help but wish for him to be pulled from his life's downward spiral and have his brief moments of hope for a different life to be fulfilled.

[epictale · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bottom line: "Ethan Frome" (EF) is a kick-ass great book.

My son (a Wharton fan) suggested it as an introduction to Wharton's writing, but cautioned that it was a glum tale. Even reading the book while living alone in chilly northern Japan last winter, I felt mesmerized by the quality of Wharton's writing and her sympathetic tone.

The story was very compelling, the main characters all seemed plausible and worthy of sympathy, and the agony of unrequited passion between Ethan and Mattie felt palpable. Maybe I am naive...but, for me, the ending was a great surprise. It pleased and saddened me. Finally, the author's masterful and confident prose floored me as well. Not to sound like a pedantic twit, but Wharton's use of semicolon constructions struck me as unusually impactful and exemplary.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Despite being a huge Edith Wharton fan, I put off reading this book for years. I picked it up after reading Henry James’ Daisy Miller, to see how Wharton handled a short novel about love and loss. The two novels deal with somewhat different themes, but Wharton’s treatment is far superior. Ethan Frome’s hypochondriac wife Zeena is needy and bed-ridden, and takes Ethan for granted. His days are enlivened by Mattie Silver, a destitute cousin who manages the household in exchange for room and board. Wharton paints a vivid scene of Frome’s isolated New England farmhouse in the middle of a snowy winter, with horse-drawn carriages taking people and goods to and from the town:

The afternoon was drawing to an end, and here and there a lighted pane spangled the cold grey dusk and made the snow look whiter. The bitter weather had driven everyone indoors and Ethan had the long rural street to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk play of sleigh-bells and a cutter passed him, drawn by a free-going horse.

When Zeena travels overnight to see a doctor in another town, Ethan and Mattie spend their first evening alone sitting in front of the fire enjoying one another’s company. But when Zeena returns, the romantic tension between Ethan and Mattie is palpable, and not lost on Zeena. Manipulative and determined, Zeena sets events in motion that change their lives forever.

I’m amazed that in just 100 pages I became so emotionally invested in the fates of Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena. This is not a happy story, but it is brilliantly written.

[lkernagh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my first Wharton read, which was recommended by a couple of other readers here on LT as something I could easily fit into my October reading plans. One of the things I really liked about this one is Wharton's ability to paint a realistic picture of a northern winter in a small farming community where life can be a hard scrabble and everyone knows - or thinks they know - everyone else's business. Wharton has the ability to tell a story in straightforward language, almost with a meagerness of descriptive prose, as if she was writing in a manner to reflect the bleak the New England winter landscape of its setting. The book is described as being "a powerful tale with compelling characters trapped in circumstances they seem unable to escape." From a strictly character analysis perspective, I am not quite sure I wholly agree with that statement. For me, Mattie is nothing more than a vehicle - and a bit of an air-headed one at that - to drive the story forward. Ethan has his interesting aspects but I found him to be limited, and not just by his circumstances. It is really Zeena who I found to be the most compelling of these three characters and I found myself pondering over her character more than the other two.

Overall, a great introduction for me to Wharton's writing style and I will be adding more of her books to my future reading list.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss. After sampling about a dozen more well-known offerings, I was left to select those with which I was less familiar. That is how I came across Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

This is essentially a novella that relates the sad life of Ethan Frome, a poor New England farmer who, after enduring an unhappy marriage to a sickly woman eight years his senior, falls in love with his wife’s destitute cousin, twenty year old Mattie, who has come to live with them. If you like stories with happy endings look elsewhere. A look at life on a late 19th century New England farm, coupled with the customs and mores of that society made this an entertaining “read”. The reader in this case was a poor choice, making Ethan sound like an old man when, in fact, he was 28 years old.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Dreadful and boring.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My favorite of Edith Wharton's novels are those set in the center of the New York Society of the "Gilded Age". By contrast Ethan Frome is set in the fictional New England town of Starkfield, where an unnamed narrator tells the story of his encounter with Ethan Frome, a man with dreams and desires that end in an ironic turn of events. The narrator tells the story based on an account from observations at Frome's house when he had to stay there during a winter storm.
The novel is framed by an extended flashback. The first chapter opens with an unnamed narrator spending a winter in Starkfield. He attempts to learn about the life of a mysterious local figure named Ethan Frome, a man who had been injured in a horrific “smash-up” twenty-four years before. Frome is described as “the most striking figure in Starkfield”, “the ruin of a man” with a “careless powerful look…in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain”. Throughout the novel Ethan Frome makes ample use of symbolism as a literary device. Reminiscent of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (also set in New England), Edith Wharton uses the color red against the snowy white background of her Massachusetts setting to symbolize Ethan's cousin Mattie’s attraction and vitality as opposed to his wife Zeena, as well as her temptation to Ethan in general. Wharton uses the cat and the pickle dish to symbolize the failing marriage of Ethan and Zeena; the cat symbolizes Zeena’s presence when Ethan and Mattie are alone, and when it breaks the pickle dish, this symbolizes the final fracturing of the marriage that is rapidly coming as Mattie and Ethan slide closer and closer to adultery.
The story is tragic and very dark in character. Yet Wharton's prose style makes it worth every moment spent reading about Ethan Frome.

[lisamorr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't know how Wharton packed so much emotion in 103 pages. While reading it I felt the cold of the severe winters, the quiet of the countryside and the anguish of Ethan Frome. A sad, sad story about people who got together who shouldn't have and how some families just can't get out of a rut.

Great read - 5 stars.

[ricefun · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A short but powerful story. Wharton is a master of soft-footed suspense. Her tales are delicate, and her language is gentile, so it is always a gut-wrenching surprise at the end when a powerful, life-suspending event occurs. I don't read Wharton to feel happy, but I do read her to feel elevated and immersed in my senses as her stories unfold.

This particular story has three strong but broken characters. Told in flashback after learning early that some tragic, body-mangling event has occurred in the past, I was compelled to keep reading because I so wanted these characters to have some moments of wholeness and grace. Those moments exist, but through a glass dimly. I can only hope that some easing of heavy burdens happens for Ethan and his two women in some unwritten future.

[sandydog1_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not sure why this is considered one of her weaker works. I've read a couple others and this seemed to be the same-o story of failed love.

Although a novella, it plodded like an old arthritic sorrel, through the hoary, biting ghostly whisps of evening snow, on an inky country road...

[moonshineandrosefire · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A farmer in turn-of-the-century New England struggles to survive and to make his farm successful. First he is tethered to the land by his helpless parents; then by his ailing wife. When Ethan's wife's alluring cousin comes to stay, she and Ethan become trapped in a hopelessly passionate love affair. Trapped by fear of public condemnation and the bonds of a loveless marriage, Ethan starts down a path which could eventually lead to tragedy for all involved.

I had originally wanted to read this book after seeing the movie with Liam Neeson. Mareena and I caught the last part of the movie and were shocked at how sad it was. I love a sad book and Mareena loves the classics. I give this book an A+!