Straight up, Edith Wharton is one of my favourite authors. So when I come across her autobiography in the bargain bin, it was a no-brainer to pick it up right away and shuffle it into my ever-growing to-read pile. And even though she’s one of my favourite writers, I know very little about her life. I suppose for most authors, we know their work on a superficial basis. We know their stories better than the milestones of their lives — who they’re married to, their friends, and why they prefer rosemary instead of basil. Maybe these details don’t matter, but their work matters more.
Many writers lead ordinary lives which cannot be said to be “exciting” as we know it. Not many writers live the life of adventure that Jack London, Kerouac or Orwell had. But we know that no life is ordinary, and these pockets where the ordinary falls away are always worth writing about. The anecdotes from the writer’s childhood, the relationships that they craft and the ones which implode, the details in the places they visit are worth reading.
Wharton argued that her life was not interesting until World War I happened. And I can see why — her family comes from a decent background. It is said that the term “keeping up with the Joneses” referred first to her family. She became a polyglot as she lived in various parts of Europe as the US currency goes further in Europe. This upbringing also influenced her latter life to become a nomad who was never settled as an American. All things considered, her life was pretty good. She travels a third of the year with her husband to escape from the dreariness of America.
Through Wharton’s eyes we see a glimpse of the bohemian art scene of the day. The highlight is the relationship she formed with Henry James. A name more famous for the name itself than his body of work (especially his latter writings). I wasn’t aware that Wharton was very close to James, but in all honesty I couldn’t care much about Henry James and his wanky writing. In A Backward Glance, Henry James is a stately man, albeit eccentric. He has a bit of an ego which may treat other writer’s work with contempt, including Wharton’s herself. He’s a large lad whose passion for going for car rides rely on other people’s petrol. His obsession with the form of a novel keeps him in a prison of his own making. Yeah, I couldn’t care less about Henry James, who takes up many pages of this book.
It’s a shame that Wharton’s most interesting part of her life, which happens during World War I, only takes up a chapter. Wharton practically became a war hero during that time, providing work for unemployed women to aide France’s war effort. She made a few trips to the front to gather information of what the soldiers need, putting herself under great risk. But her writing during this time had already been covered in a series of articles which culminated in Fighting France and The Book of the Homeless. The brevity of the chapter does not do this period of her life justice. Some of her best work, such as Summer and Age of Innocence came after the war.
However, much of the book reads as a travelogue for the places that she had visited. In some ways, Wharton was right that her life was not too interesting until the war happened. But it is still a snapshot of what life of the gentry was back then. Lucky bastards. She did not reveal much of her personal life in the autobiography, and some significant relations were deliberately omitted from the book. It is a good read nonetheless — Wharton never disappoints. But I prefer her fiction.
