The Age of Innocence

This is the review of the book "The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton".It is also a 1993 movie by Martin Scorsese by the same name.

I actually picked up this book after seeing 5 minutes of the movie and reading about it on wiki.I thought it looked like an interesting read. It certainly was :). I had not heard of Edith Wharton before. My exposure to period novels were restricted to British till now. "Gone with the wind" being the only exception.

This book served as a good introduction to the American period drama. The story will be a familiar one for Indian movie buffs. The husband(Archer Newland) is in love with the wife's(May's) cousin (Countess Hellen Ollenska),who has had a bad marriage and has left her husband. The American society in the late 1800's is very similar to orthodox Indian societies of the present day.This orthodox society which sees only good everywhere, has no solution for a woman who has left her husband other than that "the wife's place is with her husband". It turns a blind eye to anything bad , like a promiscous husband always has a dumb pretty wife who has no clue about her husband and worships him. Also like the old English societies, title is given more preference than profession. A Count has more standing than a writer or an artist."Gentelmen have no profession, they do not work for a living" . This books does a good job of portraying that society with all its stereotypical and colorful people. The protagonist is always drawn between his idealistic New york society represented by his wife and the faults of it that get visible when he meets his wife's cousin.

It is a story of sacrifice by "the other woman" for the well being of her cousin and her family.

The scene where May gives a farewell to Countess Olenska is my favorite.That is where Newland gets an impression that everyone in the party knows that he loves Helen and are behaving as if they have no clue about it and also that it is not true and cannot happen in their society.

The Novel ends with the era of their children showing how the society has evolved to become more progressive, Their children focus more on their career and individual lives than on the society. Newland's son wants to marry the daughter of a dishonoured member of his father's society and it does not matter to the society he lives in.

This novel made me wonder: Is the story of Mankind similar everywhere : does it move from being orthodox towards progessive?

Europe: Itinerary

So now that our return flights were booked, courtesy my scheming husband :). The next question was where all were we going? . It turned out here too Omkiran had it all planned out, you see if he had his way he would have gotten up on 16th morning and asked: "Sweet heart , What would you say to dinner in Paris tonight ?".Seriously if we did not need a visa to go there, Omkiran would have done that :). His original plan was to have it all planned out and tell me only a week in advance, then he had shifted it to coincide with my birthday on August 16th , but now I had caught him much before. The only satisfaction he had was now I could do all the work that needed running around like visa and travel insurance and stuff. I was more than happy to do all that and more for a trip to Europe :).
Omkiran had thought out many itineraries, but the one that appealed to him most was only France and Switzerland with one day in Belgium. He had most of what to see in France covered.He wanted me to work on Switzerland.Fixing the itinerary was not as easy as I thought it would be.The more I would read about different places, the list of places to go to would get bigger.

Then we thought we will do a single country at a time, the popular choice being France this time. So , the entire itinerary was turned upside down and restarted. When we had almost finished with list of places in France,Omkiran goes "Do you want to do a city tour of Europe, All the famous , must see cities?". That definitely got a thumping "Yes!!!" from me. So, now we start again with the whole map of Europe, We finally zeroed in on the following:

France: Paris, Marseilles, Nice, Aix en Provence, Eze

Monaco

Belgium: Brussels

Switzerland: Montreux and Lucerne,Golden Panaromic Train.

Rome in Italy

Austria: Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck

Germany: Dusseldorf

and may be Amsterdam and Luxemburg.

So our Itinerary was ready :) .

Europe: How it all started.

Europe, has always been a dream destination. Switzerland, France,Germany.. far away beckoning lands. We had always been planing a trip to Europe. It started to get serious when a couple friend of ours showed interest and wanted to join us.This followed fervent planning,Zeroing on the places, working out visa and monetary details,Figuring out travel options. It all came crashing down with the recession. Caution with monetary expenditure followed,No one was willing to risk a month holiday from work. So the dreams had to remain dreams, till it found an escape into the reality.
The reality struck like a lightning ,blinding me so much that I could hardly see anything else the whole of that day. It was one of the first few days of August.It was a lazy morning for me, meaning I had chosen to stay in bed till 9 in the morning instead of rushing to GYM at 7. I got up around 9 wondering why Omkiran had not woken me ,pushing me out of bed demanding Tea. I came out to discover that he was at his favorite hang out at home,his PC, No surprise :).I thought he had found something interesting to get him hooked.A closer observation revealed he had his credit card with him and was entering its details. He had not noticed me sneak up behind him till then. I decided to announce myself with " what are you upto?", He sprang up like a stealthy cat ordered me away," Go take your bath, get ready". Then , I was suspicious, but all my efforts to get near the PC were thwarted with Growls and meows :). So I stayed away. Then he came to me with a smug look.I resumed my interrogation, He ws reluctant to reveal any details. I persisted and cajoled, then the cat purred, "I just booked our flight to Paris, for our Europe trip!". My first reaction was: "am I hearing it right?". I asked in daze: "For when?". He said: "September 16th", I asked "Next year?". He said " No, this year!". It was at that exact minute the lightning struck and our trip to Europe became a reality :) .