"...But All Their Intercourse Had Been Made Up Of Just Such Inarticulate Flashes, When They Seemed To Come Suddenly Upon Happiness As If They Had Surprised A Butterfly In The Winter Woods..."

I'm sure this has been said many times before by many different individuals who have read works by Edith Wharton, whether it be a casual reader or a more seasoned literary expert, but damn ya'll, girlfriend has a gdamn way with words.

Ethan Frome felt more like a really long short story to me because it had that feeling of every single word being filled with intent, to convey a specific meaning and evoke an exact emotion. There wasn't anything superfluous. The story begins with a narrator telling of his discovery of and interaction with Ethan Frome and how he puts together the story or Ethan's past that has made him the way he is. The storytelling then shifts to the actual events of Ethan's life, of his "sickly" (and kind of awful) wife Zeena and her young cousin, Mattie, who has come to take care of Zeena, having no other family to turn to. Mattie becomes the shining light of Ethan's otherwise dreary life and he aches with the uncertainty of her feelings for him and it only accentuates the dismal circumstances of his own marriage to see the beauty and joy in Mattie, in spite of her own challenging upbringing. 

The longing in these two characters and trepidation in bridging a gap that could ruin them both is so well-written. You feel their heartache, most acutely, Ethan's. And you want to root for them, but there are enough foreshadows early on to alert the reader that no happy ending is going to be possible. The end was a bit of an unexpected surprise, which I very much appreciated (again, it felt like you knew exactly how things were going to end based on the portrait given of Ethan in the beginning, but Ms. Wharton had just one last surprise up her sleeve). 

There really isn't anything I can fault about this book. It's so carefully well-crafted, it makes me appreciate Edith Wharton even more than I already did (cos I sure did love me some Age of Innocence). She is certainly an author I would want to read more of after I finish her one remaining title on my list. 

Next up is Regeneration by Pat Barker. A British officer refusing to continue in World War I being treated as psychologically insane? Sounds like something I'm going to enjoy. 

201 to go! (Almost going to break under that 200 barrier!!).