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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9781420925210
ISBN number: 1420925210
Label: Digireads.com
Manufacturer: Digireads.com
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 100
Printing Date: January 30, 2005
Publishing house: Digireads.com
Sale Popularity Level: 451950
Studio: Digireads.com
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A tale of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams played out against the lush, summer backdrop of the Massachusetts Berkshires Edith Wharton called 'Summer' her 'hot Ethan'. In their rural settings and their poor, uneducated protagonists, 'Summer' (1916) and 'Ethan Frome' represent a sharp departure from Wharton's familiar depictions of the urban upper class. Charity Royall lives unhappily with her hard-drinking adoptive father in an isolated village, until a visiting architect awakens her sexual passion and the hope for escape. Exploring Charity's relation to her father and her lover, Wharton delves into dark cultural territory: repressed sexuality, small-town prejudice, and, in subtle hints, incest.
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Rated by buyers 
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Edith Wharton's 2nd novel set in New England was written during
World War 1 from her expatriate's home in Paris in 1916. Her style does not reflect sentimental reminiscence for gentle hills and bountiful earth, for she continues her evocation of the starkness of social existence, set against the desolation of the heartless landscape of New England, which she began in ETHAN FROME. While the former story is related by an objective narrator during a prolonged winter sojourn, SUMMER in contrast is presented by the omniscient narrator--opening
in June, culminating on July 4th and ending bleakly in early frosty autumn. In both cases it is the arrival of a stranger which serves as a catalyst to set the stories in motion. Here it is precisely during these months of Nature's extremes of heat and color, perfume and growth, that passion blooms in the [...] of the youthful protagonist.
Raised as a charity child and brought down with human compassion from the wretched Mountain community, Charity at 17 treads a wary existence in the blue house. At home she bolts her door against the possible repetition of attempted lechery on the part of her sexually-frustrated guardian; by day she sits bored in the decaying library--a legacy from old Hatchard. Books may gather dust and mold but the heroine recognizes the siren lure of Nature in this season of ripening desire. She has no wish to rot inside, unappreciated by locals and unloved by any man, until Lucius Harney--doing research on quaint, historical residences--arrives to spend the summer with his elderly aunt. As an objective outsider he can not possibly be tainted by the shameful whispers about Charity's past. Or can he--a man of the world, able to judge for himself.
But how does a young woman of the in early 20th century
seriously hope to escape the social prison of a post-Victorian mindset?
Does she have the right to shape her own destiny, to challenge and disown her negative heritage, and carve out her own role in backwater North Dormer--whose very name suggests a window into what should be an indiviudal's privacy. The village rumour mill churns with delicious, malginant glee, despite the platonic nature of Charity's nighttime vigil. After the innuendoes about a certain fallen girl's visit to a particular House in a larger town, it is inevitable that Charity's ownindiscretions will be magnified and distorted--until they ultimately prove true. Is she doomed to be trapped among these small minds with even less heart for life? Does the man she passionately loves have the stuff of true romantic heroes or will he succumb to expediency? The controversial ending may puzzle readers, but in some sense it is a mild victory for decency and practicality--if not for actual happiness.
A thought-provoking novel for older teens and adults.
Rated by buyers 
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Edith Wharton is clearly one America's best writers, not only of her time, but of all time. Much, if not all, of her writing clearly conveys real emotion, raw honesty and more than a glimpse of how oppressive life was to women in the early 20th Century. He novel, Summer, is no exception. I have read nearly all she has written and pulled down this novel for a second read (a rare thing indeed) and found it to be even better the second time around. Arguably her second best effort to The Age of Innocence (and differentiating between her works is difficult at best given the level at which she writes).
Charity, Lucius Harney, Mr. Royall and North Dormer leave lasting impressions on her readers as she paints her story of the summer and maturation of this young woman in a small and judgmental society. Wharton is able to describe and convey scenes, emotions and a young woman's coming of age in a way all writers should comb over again and again. Overstating her ability to write is quite literally impossible. A master. A timeless piece. A wonderful and powerful book.
Rated by buyers 
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Written in 1917, Summer is Wharton's most explicitly sexual novel, tracing the awakening of Charity Royall to the sweetness of love and its power. Charity was born on "the mountain," a place of poverty and degradation, and given over to Lawyer Royall and his wife, residents of the town of North Dormer, to be brought up. When his wife dies, Lawyer Royall is hard pressed to deal with this child, choosing to ignore her most of the time, and bringing her up with little feeling of warmth of affection.
Anxious to have some independence so that she can escape, at some point, from the closed society of the village, Charity becomes the town librarian, a part-time job which gives her a small amount of her own money. There she encounters Lucius Harney, the nephew of one of the town's leading citizens, an architect studying some of the old houses in the area. His interest in Charity soon develops into affection and then passion, and the two become lovers, a relationship which quickly develops complications. Charity, with few options in life, is starved for affection and yearns to escape the village, while Harney, educated but personally weak, can already come and go as he pleases.
Wharton uses the seasons symbolically to illustrate the development of the relationship between Charity Royall and Lucius Harney from the earliest stirrings of their interest when they meet in early June to the full passion of their love in mid-August. Fall brings reality to Charity, and winter freezes her soul. Throughout the novel references are made to the mountain where Charity was born and to the ignorant people who live there without hope of improving their lives. Charity's own return to visit her family shows her the desperation of their lives, and her need to grasp whatever escape route is available to her.
Wharton's bold depiction of sexual themes makes this novel unusual for its period. She depicts a young woman who has a fierce desire for independence but who has few opportunities to escape her environment, a young woman who latches onto a relationship which broadens her world. She minces no words in showing scenes in which sexual abuse rears its ugly head, and she is realistic in the options she gives for "fallen" women like Charity to deal with the complications of their lives in the "fall" of the relationship. Though the beginning of the novel may seem sentimental or melodramatic, Wharton has a clear vision of the limited possibilities open to young women of the day, and her conclusion emphasizes this. n Mary Whipple
Rated by buyers -
I loved Charity. I think her biggest flaw was lack of self confidence, but that probably was Lawyer Royall's fault for thinking she owed him her life for rescuing her. It was a beautiful book. I loved her romance with Lucious. I loved the scene where she went to see her birth mother. I loved the whole book, except the ending. That was awful.
Rated by buyers -
SUMMER is one of Edith Wharton's best novels, in many ways on par with ETHAN FROME, to which it is often compared, especially with regard to its rural setting. As a child Charity Royall, born of degenerate parents and living in squalour on "the Mountain," is adopted by Lawyer Royall after her drunken father is sent to prison. Years later after Charity has grown up, Lawyer Royall wants to marry her, but she rejects him.
Later she meets Lucius Harney and they have a "summer" affair. When she learns she is pregnant, Harney abandons her, telling her he is already engaged to a respectable girl in his hometown. Charity returns to the "Mountain" where she attends her mother's burial and then stays on until Lawyer Royall rescues her again and this time marries her.
Wharton captures the sordidness of the "Mountain" and the oiliness of Lawyer Royall with unrelenting realism. These are hard people living in a harsh environment (as were the characters in ETHAN FROME), and no one escapes. The burial scene with Charity and her mother is among the best scenes in all of Whaton's works. This is a powerful novel, published just as America was about to enter the Great War.
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