I began to read
The Best of Everything, but then I lost interest. And then I thought I’d revisit
The Custom of the Country. I felt like I needed a little Undine Spragg in my
life. And I wanted to write about The Custom of the Country again, because I
feel as though I can express my love for this book better than when I first
started my humble little blog.
I’m not sure
that I even wrote what The Custom of the Country was about in my first post. Well,
here goes: The novel is set, at the beginning, in post-Civil War New York.
Young and beautiful (and extremely ambitious) Undine Spragg persuaded her
parents to move there from Apex, Kansas, in order for her, Undine, to achieve
social success. However, it’s not easy to break into the insular world of New
York society. But Undine is nothing if not determined, and after some shrewd
moves, she marries Ralph Marvell, a member of one of the old New York families.
And that’s where things get interesting. Undine Spragg is the kind of person
who has unrepentant ambition, and uses marriage as a substitute of business
success that, because she is female, is off limits to her at the time. If
Undine Spragg were around today, and actually able to use her mind in a public
arena, she’d probably be like Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer or Sheryl Sandberg.
I like to think
of The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence, and The House of Mirth as
Wharton’s trifecta of perfect fiction. I mentioned before that Undine Spragg
was a foil for Lily Bart from The House of Mirth. It’s true. Whereas Lily Bart
was passive, Undine Spragg was very active. Undine Spragg didn’t let setbacks
stand in the way of reaching her goals (and, without being too telling, this is why I needed a little Undine Spragg
in my life). I think Lily Bart should have fought back against those who were
out to get her. If only Lily Bart had Undine’s spunk…but then again, I must
remember that these are fictional characters!
While rereading
this book, I realized how the novel really ties together a lot of what I’ve
read and seen since I started this blog. Eve Harrington from All About Eve is
reminiscent of Undine Spragg. Eve elbows her way into the theater world in the
same way that Undine Spragg fights her way into New York society. Both women
are shrewd and calculating, although Eve is portrayed as more of a villain than
Undine Spragg. I also mentioned in my original TCOTC post that Undine is a bit
like Michael Corleone from The Godfather. Both are ruthless when it comes to
getting what they want. There’s a line from The Godfather Part II, said to
Michael by his wife, that I think also applies to Undine: “I suppose I always
knew you were too smart to let any of them ever beat you.” Undine Spragg is
also like Cleo Judson from The Living Is Easy. Both women are cunning and,
though they are mothers, they are not very maternal. And they like to get shit
done and don’t mind stepping on a few feelings to do it.
Also, I love how
The Custom of the Country is pretty funny. I think it’s great how Edith
Wharton, who was such a classy writer and a paragon of American literature, could
be humorous. I believe that the subjects and themes Edith Wharton wrote about
are universal, despite being set in a rarefied world. That is why I love her so
much. And because she wrote a sentence like this: “Where had she seen before
this grotesque saurian head, with eye-lids as thick as lips and lips as thick
as ear-lobes?” Love it.
Great passage:
Undine, hitherto, had found more benefits than drawbacks in her marriage but
now the tie began to gall. It was hard to be criticized for every grasp at opportunity
by a man so avowedly unable to do the reaching for her! Ralph had gone into
business to make more money for her; but it was plain that the “more” would
never be much, and that he would not achieve the quick rise to affluence which
was man’s natural tribute to woman’s merits. Undine felt herself trapped,
deceived; and it was intolerable that the agent of her disillusionment should
presume to be the critic of her conduct.
Up next: The
Book Thief
