Edith Wharton: The Custom of the Country

I was pleasantly surprised how many times I laughed out loud during the first half of this novel! There is some fine black comedy. At first. During the second half of the novel things are not so funny, in fact quite bleak. What seemed coldly humourous in Undine Spragg at first, slowly and steadily reveals the disturbed mind of the narcissistic sociopath, a full blown clinical case. Undine is downright frightening, and makes for a chilly, yet strangely delicious read. Once again, Warton's observations of human emotion and society are amazing and astute, leading to feelings of recognition, commiseration and even disgust.

This is a very good study of someone whois never satisfied with what she has. As the Bible says, "a lover of silver will never be satisfied with silver, nor a lover of wealth with income......." Too true in this case.

This is a plot that feels like it could be taken from today's news. Wharton's prose is such a pleasure to read that even while you are repelled by the actions of her protagonists you cannot put the book down.

Parents spend their wealth and time trying to place their daughter in the most advantageous position to make a good marriage.
When she does marry well, into an established and restpected family, she continues to be shallow, selfish and has nothing to give
in character and widom to her husbands family and her own son. Ms Wharton's documentation of this gilded age is a different type
of writing, rich in vocabulary and description. There are few real opportunities for women even in this upper level of society. The
theme of this book reminds me of Candice Bushnell's book Trading Up. The central character is successful in meeting her personal
goals no matter who is harmed along the way.

A deeply insightful view of the various personality types that make up our communities. Highlights the character traits that are often seen as the "most successful", and that personally, we feel are the most unlikable.

I love Wharton, and this is a classic. No one should be unaware of what she means by "the custom of the country," since it's still with us today. But the novel seemed longer than it needed to be --dragged a bit. I'd recommend her House of Mirth or Age of Innocence without qualification.

Perhaps the most selfish and self centered character I've ever read of in a novel... It is not easy to write an entire novel about a character totally lacking "character" but Edith Wharton does it brilliantly. Not one saving grace did this woman possess. Like watching a car wreck...I was both too curious to quit reading and embarrassed that I did. Quite a ride on the wild and soul-less side of life. You will not be bored.

This was my first read of an Edith Wharton novel, and, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The (anti)heroine, Undine, is so deliciously selfish that one almost forgives her for her outrageous behaviour. Set in America, both New York and the rest, and Europe, particularly Paris, at the turn of the 20th century, The Custom of the Country clearly demonstrates how the cultural and social mores of both high societies had moved so far apart, while both remaining false and hypocritical. Undine is a gorgeously attractive, revoltingly egotistical gold digger; but one who doesn't even realize how evil she is because she has always been brought up to believe that she can do not wrong. I wonder if Graham Greene read this tale before he wrote Milly in Our Man in Havana.

I'm only a few chapters into this free Kindle version of this title and have already noticed the following problems:

- Every phrase or word that is italicized in the original text is rendered in ALL CAPS in the e-book. This is incredibly annoying to me - it feels as though Wharton is shouting at me, when we all know she would never do such a thing :-) She is much more subtle than that!

--Every time Undine's name should be followed by a comma, it's followed by a period instead, thus bringing the narrative to a dead (and incorrect) stop.

--Typos are starting to appear, such as "Mrs. Fairford" being typed as "Mrs. Pairford."

If this kind of thing doesn't bother you, then this will probably be fine for your Kindle, but if you find these issues as annoying as I do, you may want to look around to see if spending a few dollars will get you a cleaner version of this classic.

The book is readable, but it gets a bit tiresome. Undine goes through husbands faster than some people go through underwear in a time when divorce was frowned upon.
However, there is a moral there. Undine always wanted more than she had, and was never satisfied with what she had.

I didn't realize what I'd bought until it came. The publisher is not named. It is 8 1/2x11 (hard to carry around and unwieldy) with some terrible typeface against pure white (not off-white). It strains your eyes and since you won't be able to put this wonderful book down you owe it to yourself to get a better edition. It's full of typos and the title is not printed on the spine.

This is a fantastic story that deserves better treatment. Get the Penguin or Modern Library (which is also cheaper) or other well-known publisher and stay away from this awful edition without a proper publisher name. It says something about a collection that chronicles the world's greatest writers or something along those lines on the the store description.

I admire Wharton's writing and this one is one of her best. As a matter of fact, I learn many subtleties of English language in the grand American literary tradition from Wharton's impeccable use of it. I wound up purchasing a collectible copy, not because I am crazy about collectibles but because it was very inexpensive. The volume came in great condition. Need I say that I recommend this one to all literature loving individuals I know.

Wharton may have disliked New York high society of the early 20th Cent., but she didn't have much sympathy for the new class of gate crashers. The novel accompanies an ambitious and manipulative but constantly discontented young woman on a destructive tour through New York's and Paris' high society.

This is Edith Wharton's earlier foray into the world of New York Society in the Gilded Age, written several years before her Age of Innocence. Wharton draws you in, whether you like the character of the Anti-heroine Undine Spragg or not, you want to know what happens to her! As well written as any of her other works.

I love this book and plan to buy a hard copy just to more easily peruse my favorite parts. The characters are fully born and some of the descriptions magical. Undine is mean, yes, but fascinating. I like it much more than "The Age of Innocence".

This is a beautifully written novel slyly mirroring the posturing and silliness of an aspiring American social class in the 30's. The heroine,if so she can be called, is the most self obsessed, vain, callous and nauseating character in literary history who makes all the men in her life dance to her tune in her quest for pleasure and riches. This book is funny, witty, and totally readable and women will love the description of the clothes.

Edith Wharton's books always fascinate me, and this was no exception. Her characters are often unbearable--each step they take towards self-destruction is small enough to be reconcilable, but the tragic result is inevitable, as the reader knows from the beginning. The discomfort one faces in reading fuels the desire to continue and to see if it can really be! It always is.

What a pleasure to read beautifully crafted compound-complex sentences filled with apt descriptions and cogent observations. Undine Spragg is a memorable protagonist who aspires to the best the society of her day can offer a woman on the make.

Edith Warton employs her penetrative writing to describe a totally self-absorbed heroine painfully and with humor. I have once again been drawn into an engaging story by the quality of her writing and the characters she places in opposition to each other. I recommend it.

This is an excellent book, much above the quality of much current fiction. If you are looking for a world that will enter your heart and stay there, this is a book for you. Be warned- once you read this, it will be forever more be a part of you and that part will be sad . No sadder than life but a true reflection of life.

Dr.Zilbergeld

Edith Wharton is not for those who need action packed adventures,obvious sex or violence. Her work is of a different time and that, I suppose is why it appeals to some of us and not to others. Her books and stories are not quick reads, but are of a quality that makes the time always well spent. But then I love Henry James also.

Loved the character Undine, she is a spoiled brat that always gets what she wants, but you can't help but admire her devious mind. You will enjoy "hating"her as she plays the evil woman, but the book is great.

Novel is a very interesting story, but this publication of it has print that is way too small. Don't know why a publisher would do this. I am sure others would have been better. It would be nice to know what visual experience is going to be like before purchase.

I enjoy reading books written around the turn of the 20th century; life is so similar to ours in many ways, and yet so different in others. So this book, written in 1913, seemed right up my alley. It's the story of Undine Spragg, who is around 18 or 20 at the beginning of the story. She has browbeaten her father into moving from Apex, somewhere in the midwest, to New York City, so she can enjoy the "right" people and an "exciting" life. I spent the entire book despising Undine, marvelling at her husband, who was "to the manor born," and therefore had a familial allowance of $3000 per year, and didn't work (Ford paid about $30 per week, or $1500 per year, at that time). Undine's father was required to give an allowance to her husband, as well, to pay for her upkeep, and she never thought anyone ever gave her enough. The book follows her through New York, Italy, Paris and back. It was well written, and fast enough paced, but the world was so foreign to me, and Undine so spoiled and selfish, that I just didn't enjoy it.

I hope to report only subjective responses to this novel, After Ethan Frome the only Wharton I've ever read. And having got through this one, I shan't be tempted to take on any more of her work. I leave it only puzzled as to why she is a major figure in the history of American letters.

I disliked all of her characters. They are thin, stereotypical representatives of time, place and behavior, and Undine -the central character - is the worst. Her frail and uxorious husband, Marvell, [the ironic names given to people and places are redpaint obvious] had no better future than suicide, although facing his problems directly would have resolved them. Apart from the acquisitive Elmer Moffat none of the major characters even sensed a moral imperative and Elmer's morality is limited to relationships.

I wanted to put the book down early in Book I but slogged on thinking at first it must be satiric then realizing it isn't satire at all but a realistic attempt to portray characters typical of the preWWI world Wharton knew so well. And I've no doubt her's is an honest portrayal of that world. Yet, I grew so grouchy when reading my wife said I ought stop reading it. My mood grew darker with every page. Undine is the most odious female character I can remember ever reading .

I do credit Wharton for her felicitous prose style and her narrative structure because nothing else kept me turning pages. Yet even the narrative is melodrama at best.

Surely I've overlooked important issues and have revealed more about me than about Edith. As they say in theatre, not everybody can be part of your audience.

After reading about a quarter of the novel, I decided that any more time spent among this group of characters was very unlikely to enrich my soul. After a few days I reconsidered, and went on reading it to the end. It held my interest, but the book offered no redeeming insight to reconsider my original impression. A painstaking portrait of such self involved characters and their ambitions, however ably depicted, is most unsatisfying in a work considered a "classic".

The problem here is not the book, which I can't bring myself to read, because of the format. I'm sorry I didn't read the description more carefully. I'm not going to return this book but as an author myself I'm disturbed that this series has been put together in this way at all. No copyright acknowledgment, no royalties to the author's estate. Just an 8-1/2X11 print out of the Kindle version apparently. Someone is publishing these books (apparently this is just one) via CreateSpace. Yes they're very cheap but from a world in which we need to respect authors and their words, this is really cheap. I wish I could give it a 0.

One of the cardinal principles of literary fiction is that the reader must be made to care about the protagonist. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred this means we are meant to empathize with the character, that we want what they want. In Undine Spragg Edith Wharton creates a character whom we intensely desire to fail. If not fail then at least change. Maybe grow up. After she ruins her father we pray that she will not ruin her wonderful husband, Ralph Marvell. Undine is a fatal combination of self-absorption, ostentation, and is blithely unaware of the consequences of her selfish frivolity. She leaves Ralph for Peter van Degen but he surprisingly dodges a bullet and spurns her. Raymond de Chelles and despite his short leash on her she manages to destroy him anyway. She ends up where she always belonged but even then she remains unsatisfied, longing for what can never be. Novelists create few characters like Undine Spragg, because readers are nice people and they like to read about other nice people. But when a character is driven by forces difficult to comprehend (Captain Ahab comes to mind), those characters can be absolutely riveting. The Custom of the Country is a slow motion train wreck and it is clever and compelling.

The character of the constantly dissatisfied, beautiful, and determined young woman has been portrayed repeatedly throughout literature. Becky Sharp in Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair’, Emma Bovary in Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’, Scarlett O’Hara in Mitchell’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ have all been women with strong wills who indulge in deception and heartbreak to get them closer to their respective goals. This kind of character has never been more perfectly embodied than in Undine Spragg of Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel, ‘The Custom of the Country’.

Undine is presumably an only, spoiled child of the Spragg’s of Apex City in the Dakota/Nebraska region where Mr. Spragg turned enough businesses into profitable ventures to be considered one of the wealthiest men in that Midwestern town. Undine has acquired this insatiable hunger for wealth and material possessions and has been blessed with the beauty and charm to find plenty of suitors in Apex. However, she deserves a much bigger arena. She persuades her parents to move to New York through social connections so that she can find more and better choices. One of her favorite habits is to always gaze at herself in the mirror to see herself as she thinks others may see her:
‘Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She wanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she could not help modelling herself on the last person she met, and the confusion of ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had to choose between two courses.”

Her past in Apex is a mutually understood unspoken topic between Undine and her parents. There was an elopement that was a first marriage, hastily annulled by her father and never mentioned among the influential New York acquaintances, who include the Marvell’s, whose sensitive and handsome son Ralph is as smitten with Undine as she is with the Marvell fortune she thinks Ralph will inherit. They marry and have a transatlantic honeymoon where Undine’s materialistic appetites put a strain on Ralph’s finances, forcing them to return to New York before they incur any more rising debt. Added to this is the fact that Undine is pregnant and so her autonomy will be significantly curtailed.

A reminder of her misspent past appears in the form of Elmer Moffat, the husband of her annulled marriage. Elmer is a financier of mysterious origins who seems to appear specter-like in Undine’s world, sometimes in more prosperous circumstances than others but always relentless in his pursuit of a good business venture and always ready to take the risks necessary in gaining potentially large returns. No one other than Undine’s parents know of his role in Undine’s past and she wants to keep it that way. Nevertheless, Elmer offers to include her father in a new investment opportunity, which does turn a profit although not enough to substantially increase the allowance her father gives her regularly.

Along the way, Undine embarks on an affair with Ralph’s cousin’s husband who refuses to leave his wife, even though he’s always open to some amorous activity on the side, files for divorce from her husband, meets a charming French nobleman who can’t marry her because she’s divorced so she has her marriage annulled, enabling her to marry the Frenchman, Raymond de Chelles. However, life as a duchess comes with some unwanted side effects: namely, that her in-laws have very definite expectations for how she should behave and uphold the family tradition. She bristles at this enforced life and rebels against the reluctance of Raymond to finance trips to Paris, fancy balls, and all the other trappings of wealth to which Undine feels she’s entitled.

She blackmails Ralph into paying an enormous amount of money to keep their son with him or send him back. As the parent with sole custody, she’s legally entitled to have him with her. Ralph turns to Elmer Moffat (yes, him again) to lend him the amount she demands. When the business venture that Elmer was so sure about is delayed beyond the date Undine demanded he pay her before she reclaims her son, as well as the knowledge of exactly who Elmer Moffat is, Ralph kills himself.

With her son, and his inheritance with her, Undine should be satisfied. Yet Raymond is becoming as tiresome as Ralph was with his obsession with their finances. Realizing the value of all the tapestries and works of art in the household Undine thinks they would bring in enough to fund four villas, completely disregarding the fact that Raymond views them as part of the family heritage and refuses to consider parting with them.

Of course, Undine ultimately gets what she wants, until she can’t get the next thing that she wants. At the end she is back with Elmer, the man she should have stayed married to from the beginning, newly affluent from the venture that Ralph couldn’t afford to wait to benefit from. The Moffats are in now in possession of other lucrative investments as well, including some of those centuries-old tapestries from the Chelles estate that Raymond has been forced to sell in the wake of his divorce and some unfortunate losses from another formerly affluent relation.

Undine’s story is the total inverse of Lily Bart’s in Wharton’s ‘The House of Mirth’. Lily refused to sacrifice her moral conscience for material gain, leading to her tragic fall. Undine has no such conscience, merely a voracious appetite that sustains itself on fresh new, and often short-lived, gratification. Undine is a beautiful monster. We travel through her tale with her, and the contortions and maneuvers she forces herself to undergo are fascinating. However, she is a complete sociopath. Whenever there is remorse, as there is for Ralph’s suicide, it quickly evaporates as a new object of pleasure comes into view. Her son Paul is a lonely, confused little boy who doesn’t know which father he should miss the most as he has almost given up missing his mother.

Wharton’s gift for anatomizing and eviscerating the affluent society she knew so well is as astute as ever in ‘The Custom of the Country’. It takes a writer of immense skill and confidence to hold our attention with such an unappealing character as Undine Spragg. Even if she gets her comeuppance it won’t last for long; a new victory will always take its place.

Could not even finish this book. I hated the main character. Didn't care what happened to her.
Worst book I have ever attempted to read. I've heard how good the author is, but I won't be reading any other books.

I confess to being baffled. I can (just barely) understand why Undine is so relentlessly social climbing, always wanting more and despising it once she has it, but I'm completely puzzled by what the men see in here. There is only one man who has enough insight to realize that if she treats her husband so cruelly that she is likely to treat him that way too, and he drops her.

I think part of her attraction must be the high value she puts on herself. She's pretty enough, all right, but it is her own self-worth that bedazzles the eyes of the men who surround her. She holds herself so high that they think by possessing her they are enhancing their own value.

Wharton sums up her greediness and ignorance in one sentence: 'She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.'

I've known women like Undine and have always wondered about the attraction they hold for men. Other women don't seem to like them, but men can't get enough of them. A mystery.

Poor Ralph.

Poor Paul.

Everyone who comes into contact with Undine Spragg ends up regretting it. She pulls them in with her beauty and appearance of innocence, but this girl knows what she is doing - if only she could figure out what she wants. Constantly striving for whatever it is she doesn't have, Undine has a sense of entitlement that knows no bounds. If her parents can't provide it, then she must need a husband. If he is incapable, well, she'll find a lover who can meet her bills. She seems to feel no remorse for those she tramples in her quest to get . . . . well, she's not completely sure where.

I know that this novel is Wharton's big hit, but I honestly enjoyed others more, especially Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome. This novel is conspicuously missing the big surprise ending that haunts the reader long after finishing her other works. While not my favorite, this is still a very worthwhile read as anything by Wharton is beautifully written and thought provoking.

Few social climbers are as surreally despicable as Edith Wharton's Undine Spragg, who doesn't care what happens to anyone else as long as she can shop and party. And "The Custom of the Country" is the perfect example of what such people do to the people around them. It's nauseating and brilliant, all at once.

Undine Spragg is a mesmerizing beauty from a tiny town, whose parents made a small-scale fortune and have moved to the glitzy world of New York. Undine wants the best of everything, more than her family can afford, but she thinks it's all worth it -- so she marries a besotted son of "old New York," but it doesn't take long for him to realize how incompatible they are.

And he doesn't realize that Undine is hiding a (then) shameful secret -- she was once married and quickly divorced from a vulgar businessman. In the present, Undine continues her quest for a life of pleasure, moving on to a French nobleman and getting just as dissatisfied with him. The only way to succeed lies in the one man who sees her for what she is.

Undine Spragg may actually be one of the most despicable, selfish characters in all of classic literature -- she literally doesn't care about anyone but herself, or who she hurts. You'd think a book about someone like that would be dreary, but instead it's one long needle at the people like Undine, who care only for money, status and fun.

But it's also about the changing fortunes in late 19th-century America (and Europe). New money -- symbolized by Undine and her shrewd, megarich ex-hubby -- was squeezing out the old guard, who were never terribly rich to start with. Wharton's observations on their rise and decline have a sharp, biting edge. Although compared to the anti-heroine, the old traditions seem pretty innocent.

Lots of celebrity socialites could take a lesson from Undine's story: she's a snob of humble stock, thinks she's a great person, and utterly selfish -- if her husband shoots himself, that's great! She can marry again without the disgrace of a divorce! Yet in the end, you know that Undine will always be craving something more that she thinks will make her happy, but she will never find it.

The characters around Undine are usually nice, but blinded by her nymphlike beauty -- and even her parents, who know what she's like, are too beaten-down by her whining to resist. Only her ex-husband, Ralph Marvell, is really right for her -- not only is he obscenely rich and just as grasping as Undine, but he's smart enough to know what a monster she is.

"The Custom of the Country" is a wickedly barbed, brilliant piece of work, with one of the nastiest anti-heroines ever, and a great look at the rising tides of "new money." A must-read.

Undine Spragg, a provincial girl who sets her sights on obtaining wealth and social status, has two things: great beauty and great ambition. Both of these attributes almost take her where she wants to go. The problem is that when she thinks she has finally arrived, she discovers that she hasn’t.

Rich men (or men who seem to be rich) are, of course, the means to an end for a Wharton heroine, and Undine has a succession of husbands. So crass and self-absorbed is she that she must hide her past, neglect her child, neglect her parents, and even cool her heels in a divorce-granting town in the Dakota Territory. From time to time, she takes a stab at acquiring the educational polish she lacks, but high culture doesn’t interest her. She wishes to shop and to be admired, extravagantly.

Undine isn’t as sympathetic a character as a Lily Bart or a May Archer. In fact, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for any of the characters in this novel, unless it’s little Paul, a child of divorce as unhappy as James’s Maisie. She doesn’t evoke humor, either, like Howells’s Silas Lapham, a man surrounded by women trying to break into society.

Still, it’s hard to put this novel down. How far will a woman go to establish herself in a flashy, money-mad culture that is itself in the process of overturning an older, more genteel version of “society”? She’ll do anything.

M. Feldman

Few social climbers are as surreally despicable as Edith Wharton's Undine Spragg, who doesn't care what happens to anyone else as long as she can shop and party. And "The Custom of the Country" is the perfect example of what such people do to the people around them. It's nauseating and brilliant, all at once.

Undine Spragg is a mesmerizing beauty from a tiny town, whose parents made a small-scale fortune and have moved to the glitzy world of New York. Undine wants the best of everything, more than her family can afford, but she thinks it's all worth it -- so she marries a besotted son of "old New York," but it doesn't take long for him to realize how incompatible they are.

And he doesn't realize that Undine is hiding a (then) shameful secret -- she was once married and quickly divorced from a vulgar businessman. In the present, Undine continues her quest for a life of pleasure, moving on to a French nobleman and getting just as dissatisfied with him. The only way to succeed lies in the one man who sees her for what she is.

Undine Spragg may actually be one of the most despicable, selfish characters in all of classic literature -- she literally doesn't care about anyone but herself, or who she hurts. You'd think a book about someone like that would be dreary, but instead it's one long needle at the people like Undine, who care only for money, status and fun.

But it's also about the changing fortunes in late 19th-century America (and Europe). New money -- symbolized by Undine and her shrewd, megarich ex-hubby -- was squeezing out the old guard, who were never terribly rich to start with. Wharton's observations on their rise and decline have a sharp, biting edge. Although compared to the anti-heroine, the old traditions seem pretty innocent.

Lots of celebrity socialites could take a lesson from Undine's story: she's a snob of humble stock, thinks she's a great person, and utterly selfish -- if her husband shoots himself, that's great! She can marry again without the disgrace of a divorce! Yet in the end, you know that Undine will always be craving something more that she thinks will make her happy, but she will never find it.

The characters around Undine are usually nice, but blinded by her nymphlike beauty -- and even her parents, who know what she's like, are too beaten-down by her whining to resist. Only her ex-husband, Ralph Marvell, is really right for her -- not only is he obscenely rich and just as grasping as Undine, but he's smart enough to know what a monster she is.

"The Custom of the Country" is a wickedly barbed, brilliant piece of work, with one of the nastiest anti-heroines ever, and a great look at the rising tides of "new money." A must-read.

Few social climbers are as surreally despicable as Edith Wharton's Undine Spragg, who doesn't care what happens to anyone else as long as she can shop and party. And "The Custom of the Country" is the perfect example of what such people do to the people around them. It's nauseating and brilliant, all at once.

Undine Spragg is a mesmerizing beauty from a tiny town, whose parents made a small-scale fortune and have moved to the glitzy world of New York. Undine wants the best of everything, more than her family can afford, but she thinks it's all worth it -- so she marries a besotted son of "old New York," but it doesn't take long for him to realize how incompatible they are.

And he doesn't realize that Undine is hiding a (then) shameful secret -- she was once married and quickly divorced from a vulgar businessman. In the present, Undine continues her quest for a life of pleasure, moving on to a French nobleman and getting just as dissatisfied with him. The only way to succeed lies in the one man who sees her for what she is.

Undine Spragg may actually be one of the most despicable, selfish characters in all of classic literature -- she literally doesn't care about anyone but herself, or who she hurts. You'd think a book about someone like that would be dreary, but instead it's one long needle at the people like Undine, who care only for money, status and fun.

But it's also about the changing fortunes in late 19th-century America (and Europe). New money -- symbolized by Undine and her shrewd, megarich ex-hubby -- was squeezing out the old guard, who were never terribly rich to start with. Wharton's observations on their rise and decline have a sharp, biting edge. Although compared to the anti-heroine, the old traditions seem pretty innocent.

Lots of celebrity socialites could take a lesson from Undine's story: she's a snob of humble stock, thinks she's a great person, and utterly selfish -- if her husband shoots himself, that's great! She can marry again without the disgrace of a divorce! Yet in the end, you know that Undine will always be craving something more that she thinks will make her happy, but she will never find it.

The characters around Undine are usually nice, but blinded by her nymphlike beauty -- and even her parents, who know what she's like, are too beaten-down by her whining to resist. Only her ex-husband, Ralph Marvell, is really right for her -- not only is he obscenely rich and just as grasping as Undine, but he's smart enough to know what a monster she is.

"The Custom of the Country" is a wickedly barbed, brilliant piece of work, with one of the nastiest anti-heroines ever, and a great look at the rising tides of "new money." A must-read.

Poor Ralph.

Poor Paul.

Everyone who comes into contact with Undine Spragg ends up regretting it. She pulls them in with her beauty and appearance of innocence, but this girl knows what she is doing - if only she could figure out what she wants. Constantly striving for whatever it is she doesn't have, Undine has a sense of entitlement that knows no bounds. If her parents can't provide it, then she must need a husband. If he is incapable, well, she'll find a lover who can meet her bills. She seems to feel no remorse for those she tramples in her quest to get . . . . well, she's not completely sure where.

I know that this novel is Wharton's big hit, but I honestly enjoyed others more, especially Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome. This novel is conspicuously missing the big surprise ending that haunts the reader long after finishing her other works. While not my favorite, this is still a very worthwhile read as anything by Wharton is beautifully written and thought provoking.

If you enjoy luxuriating in the perfumed baths of those lost worlds of Merchant Ivory period pieces and Masterpiece Theatre series set among lavish interiors, where ambitious American socialites scheme to marry millionaires and conquer Paris, then this brilliant comic novel by Edith Wharton is a must-read.

This is a witty and cynical look at a world Henry James thought he ruled, but James had no idea that Wharton would create Undine Spragg, a determined heroine who never met a fortune that she didn't envy or a parure that she didn't covet. This is a world where one goes to the opera only on the right night, and not for the music or the singers, but in order to be seen (in a new gown and excessive jewels) by the right peope, who, one hopes, will invite you to a spectacular dinner party in a Fifth Avenue mansion, where you might meet a rich potential husband, who, of course, is probably already married, but that's never a problem to a beautiful young schemer on the make, who probably has more ambition than brains.

This is a glamorous world that perished forever with the Titanic and World War I--obscene luxury for those least deserving it. It's a world where educated upper middle-class people with uncontrolled ambition use "ain't," where "blent" is the accepted past participle of "blend," and where we get the necessay footnote to inform us what "lincrusta" is and why it is frowned upon by people with ostentatious taste. An art object is important only if you can impress people with how much you paid for it. This year's spouse is only a stepping stone to next year's higher goal.

Wharton surrounds Undine with a rogues gallery of types. Whether they are stereotypes or archetypes depends on how many of those comedies of social manners you have already read. But it must be said that this novel is one you should read.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Undine's only interest and talent is in looking beautiful, spending money, and getting what she wants. The story of Undine Spragg and her pursuit of the trappings of wealth and success (as she sees it) was entertaining. It was also a kind of object lesson in the danger of grasping for more to the point that nothing and no one is enough. I mostly listened via Audible and thought the narrator was quite good.

Undine Spragg is considered to be one of literature's most disturbingly evil characters. No doubt, Wharton could create the most dastardly of female villains--consider Bertha in "House of Mirth." I'm torn if Undine is Wharton's most evil villain, or is it Bertha Dorset, who destroys Lily Bart with one skillful blow. This novel, an earlier one than "Age of Innocence" but later than "House of Mirth" is absolutely a masterpiece and I was stunned to realize I had not read this great American novel. I was pretty sure before that Edith Wharton was my favorite American author, now I'm certain. This is brilliance.

The story follows the young, spoiled, Midwestern beauty Undine from her embarrassing first moments assailing sophisticated New York society to her tainted conquests of society in France and finally New York again in the last moments of the golden age just prior to World War I (which so many authors, Thomas Mann and Colette tell us was the absolute end of a fairy-tale like era.) Wharton shows us the era on the cusp of change; motor cars are commonplace and broughams and landaus "lumbering"--telephones, elevators and subways are woven completely into New York life, heralding the 20th Century's revolutionary changes to come. Undine is as beautiful, captivating and cold as the soulless water nymph she is NOT named after--here, a delightful bit of Wharton's irony--THIS Undine is named after a patent hair product created by an enterprising grandparent.

Undine is clever in focusing on what she needs and wants, though completely uneducated and resistant to literature, arts and any science that does not immediately gratify her wishes. She is the PERFECT portrait of a "borderline personality disorder" who uses and abuses people as a means to her satisfaction, and who is constantly coveting the next, better thing that someone else has. She destroys her husband (a model for the later Newland Archer) and nearly destroys a few other people in her quest for celebrity, unbridled spending and having everything her way. The episodes in the book could come right out of "Dr. Laura"--parents fearful of their own child and giving in to their every whim, neglected and abandoned children used as pawns in divorce, lying, deception, retail therapy gone wild, serial divorce and general destruction of the institution of family values.

Undine matures only in her ability to "go slow", as Mrs. Heeny puts it, or to delay her gratification by making at least a few chess moves ahead on the board of her self-absorbed game. Her ability to blame others, never herself and to lay destruction in her path is a thread that never varies in the novel's unfolding.

The interesting thing is that Wharton, far from burning the seed corn of her bank of ideas, is astonishingly economical and uses all her characters in her novels over and over again, re-costuming them on her play stage and recycling the scenery. Undine has elements of Bertha (House of Mirth) and is the "anti-Ellen-Olenska (an exact opposite.) She has some of May Archer's stolid stupidity but surprising insight when it deals with her own survival. She has Lily Bart's heedlessness and willfulness. Elmer Moffatt, her foil and match, can be recognized in Beaufort from "Age of Innocence." It's fascinating to watch the similar characters appear in a new drama on Wharton's stage, and she is not only a master at drama but also a keen sociologist and anthropologist. We peep into French nobility, New York society and the demi-monde, all drawn with her exquisite sense of customs and mores.

If you love "Age of Innocence" and "House of Mirth" you can't help but love this novel. I'm not sure if it isn't her greatest--and it is almost on a par with Eliot's earlier "Middlemarch"--of which Virginia Woolff said was "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." "The Custom of the Country" was not only written for grown-up people, but is as fresh and modern and as filled with the same dilemmas people face today as in 1913.

The amazing thing about Edith Wharton is that she not only produced excellent novels but she produced such realistic characters. The majority of the her characters were from the upper class sometimes trying desperately to hang on to the trimmings of their fortunes, much like Undine Spragg's father who although beaten down into debt somehow manages to keep his wife and acquisitive daughter in the luxurious manner they believe they deserve.

Undine like some underwater creature (for which she is named) tries and mostly succeeds in swallowing up anyone who seeks her affection. Most impacted is her son Paul who is passed on from step father to step father while his mother burnishes her wardrobe and social status as is the custom of the country.

In The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton creates one of the most unlikable, even despicable, characters I know of in American fiction. Undine Spragg is not a murderer, sociopath, or monster, but an ambitious young woman determined to climb New York's social ladder to the very top. The ambitions in themselves are not inherently bad, and other characters clearly share them. It is Undine's utter lack of regard for anyone else, from her aging parents to her neglected son, that makes her contemptible. What makes her chilling is the odd combination of ingenuousness and its opposite; with rare exceptions she is oblivious to the rights, aspirations, and feelings of others if they do not pertain to her own objectives.

In Wharton's world, choosing the right man was as important to a society woman's future as selecting the right college, graduate school, or first job is today for a professional woman. For Undine and her friends, divorce carries no more significance than as a means to get out of the wrong job. As she tells her fiancé's shocked traditional New York family, "I guess Mabel'll get a divorce pretty soon . . . They like each other well enough. But he's been a disappointment to her . . . Mabel realizes she'll never really get anywhere till she gets rid of him." This dinner conversation foreshadows the rest of the novel.

Wharton reveals Undine's competitive nature through her childhood rivalry with Indiana Frusk, and her unsatisfied, reaching one through her travels with her parents. Undine will never be happy because there will always be someone with something she doesn't have, whether it is greater wealth, fame, or a title or position.

By marrying Undine, Ralph hopes to save her from "Van Degenism," which helps to set up the irony after irony found throughout The Custom of the Country. Ralph doesn't know that Undine not only desires "Van Degenism," but she wants to define it. A would-be poet, Ralph cannot seem to separate surface beauty from inner ugliness. "When she shone on him like that what did it matter what nonsense she talked?" Raymond de Chelles, who reminds Undine of Ralph, first sees her on an evening when, as even the cynical Charles Bowen thinks, " . . . she seemed to have been brushed by the wing of poetry, and its shadow lingered in her eyes."

More than greed, selfishness, or hedonism, Undine's defining characteristic, lack of empathy, shapes her actions. "It never occurred to her that other people's lives went on when they were our of her range of vision." What dooms her relationships with Ralph and Raymond is not money, attention, socializing, or any of Undine's numerous desires and complaints, nor is it simply the gulf between their values and her own. The failure lies in her inability to grasp that anything of importance exists outside her own system and their inability to see this in her until far too late. Because her parents cannot deny her anything, ". . . her sense of the rightfulness of her own cause had been measured by making people do as she pleased."

Undine wants everything, but especially that which she does not have. Her counterpart, Elmer Moffatt, exhibits this "new money" behavior through collecting objects. "To have things had always seemed to her the first essential of existence," while Moffatt says, "I mean to have the best, you know; not just to get ahead of the other fellows, but because I know it when I see it." Raymond's tapestries have no more deeper emotional value to Moffatt than last year's dresses do to Undine; all are markers of money and success.

Ironically, Undine is little more than an attractive object to the people around her. As Madame de Trézac tells her, " . . . they're delighted to bring you out at their big dinners, with the Sèvres and the plate." Later, when she visits dealers with Moffatt, she sees that "the actual touching of rare textures--bronze or marble, or velvets flushed with the bloom of age--gave him a sensations like her own beauty had once roused in him." To Moffatt, who knows and understands her insatiable hungers, she may be at least in part an object for his collection. He tells her, "You're not the beauty you were . . . but you're a lot more fetching." The "oddly qualified phrase" could be used of Raymond's tapestries and many of the other old valuables that Moffatt has acquired.

For Wharton, Undine and Moffatt represent those aspects of contemporary American society that she most disliked. As Charles Bowen says, " . . . in this country, the passion for making money has preceded the knowing how to spend it . . ." Undine, like the Wall Street of Peter Van Degen and Elmer Moffatt, is voracious, self-centered, reaching, and without conscience or moral center (choosing to sell an ill-gotten string of pearls for the money rather than to return it). Unlike Mrs. Marvell, with her hospital committee activities, Undine does not contribute to society; she was born to take. Symbolic and symptomatic of the new America that Wharton left, Undine remains ignorant and without taste.

Wharton's last paragraph is brilliant, for it cleverly shows how even an Undine who has achieved wealth, position, fame, and power can still find something to desire--something that she has put out of her own reach through her actions. " . . . . she said to herself that it was the one part she was really made for." Undine is a young woman; Wharton hints at the potential she still has to leave yet more misery in her wake as she yearns for yet more of what she believes she deserves. She is like a living Tantalus, but one whose every attempt to grasp destroys.

Published in 1913, two years after Ethan Frome, but in gestation since 1907, The Custom of the Country is a novel that combines the tradition of the 'money' novel with Wharton's customary depiction of New York society and, in this case, also Parisian society. Undine Spragg is a beautiful, domineering, and spoiled young woman from somewhere in the Midwest who enters this society with the baggage of one divorce already behind her. Wharton's satirical prose envelopes Undine, her parents, and the New York social crowd, as Undine attempts to join it in her effort to get ahead. Never satisfied with her lot in life (sometimes anxious and always observant of those around her imagining what they expect from her), she is impatient and makes mistakes including marrying Ralph Marvell whose family is pedigreed but impecunious. Her attempts to live in a lifestyle which she considers worthy of her grand ambition quickly leads to difficulties that engulf the marriage. Her story continues with financial intrigue on the part of her first husband, who has also migrated to New York from the Midwest for greater financial opportunities. Undine in the meantime lives in Europe chasing after a Prince before settling on a marriage to Count Raymond de Chelles. However, her all-consuming greed leads to the end of that marriage; while further financial dealings bring vast wealth to Elmer Moffat, her first husband who has become more and more interesting to her throughout the story.

Undine is one of Edith Wharton's greatest creations, who resembles Thackeray's Becky Sharp, a heroine from an earlier age. With her reliance on men of questionable financial character and the increased rate of change in society in the new century Undine devastates the social landscape before her as its representatives are shown to have feet of clay. I found myself unable to generate any sympathy for her character, unlike my experience reading about Wharton's other leading ladies (Lily Bart in The House of Mirth and Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence).

In its structure the novel covers new ground for Wharton with the introduction of a journalistic narrator, Mrs Heany, in the second half of the book. The result is a more modern novel than her other great works. The story ultimately is one of a self-made woman who, while lacking moral character, is able to create a world through her ability to use the people around her for her material advantage. The novel is one in which satire is omnipresent and the result is a brittle yet brilliant achievement.

Few social climbers are as surreally despicable as Edith Wharton's Undine Spragg, who doesn't care what happens to anyone else as long as she can shop and party. And "The Custom of the Country" is the perfect example of what such people do to the people around them. It's nauseating and brilliant, all at once.

Undine Spragg is a mesmerizing beauty from a tiny town, whose parents made a small-scale fortune and have moved to the glitzy world of New York. Undine wants the best of everything, more than her family can afford, but she thinks it's all worth it -- so she marries a besotted son of "old New York," but it doesn't take long for him to realize how incompatible they are.

And he doesn't realize that Undine is hiding a (then) shameful secret -- she was once married and quickly divorced from a vulgar businessman. In the present, Undine continues her quest for a life of pleasure, moving on to a French nobleman and getting just as dissatisfied with him. The only way to succeed lies in the one man who sees her for what she is.

Undine Spragg may actually be one of the most despicable, selfish characters in all of classic literature -- she literally doesn't care about anyone but herself, or who she hurts. You'd think a book about someone like that would be dreary, but instead it's one long needle at the people like Undine, who care only for money, status and fun.

But it's also about the changing fortunes in late 19th-century America (and Europe). New money -- symbolized by Undine and her shrewd, megarich ex-hubby -- was squeezing out the old guard, who were never terribly rich to start with. Wharton's observations on their rise and decline have a sharp, biting edge. Although compared to the anti-heroine, the old traditions seem pretty innocent.

Lots of celebrity socialites could take a lesson from Undine's story: she's a snob of humble stock, thinks she's a great person, and utterly selfish -- if her husband shoots himself, that's great! She can marry again without the disgrace of a divorce! Yet in the end, you know that Undine will always be craving something more that she thinks will make her happy, but she will never find it.

The characters around Undine are usually nice, but blinded by her nymphlike beauty -- and even her parents, who know what she's like, are too beaten-down by her whining to resist. Only her ex-husband, Ralph Marvell, is really right for her -- not only is he obscenely rich and just as grasping as Undine, but he's smart enough to know what a monster she is.

"The Custom of the Country" is a wickedly barbed, brilliant piece of work, with one of the nastiest anti-heroines ever, and a great look at the rising tides of "new money." A must-read.

In CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY Edith Wharton created a most unlikable protagonist that is certainly easy to deplore. Undine Spragg is the epitome of a spoiled individual who doesn't bother to care how her financial demands negatively affect those around her. After moving to New York with her parents she has the full intentions of entering the ranks of high society. She studies the society columns in the local newspapers and dreams of residing in a splendid home on Fifth Avenue. Undine is both charming and beautiful and she doesn't hesitate to rely on various schemes and methods to get what she wants.
During the course of this book the reader follows Undine as she strives to enter the fashionable social circles of New York at the beginning of the 20th century. She studies the prominent players in the upper classes and desires to join them during their dinner parties in New York and their annual spring trips to Paris. Unfortunately her father doesn't possess the type of financial resources to accommodate Undine's wishes so she seeks to marry a man who can provide. Undine's climb to the top of New York society is not without incident. At times her ascendancy is marked by setbacks and controversies that aim to keep Undine away from the social limelight.
Edith Wharton provides insightful commentaries on how Undine Spragg is so self-centered and ignorant and the general superficiality of high society during this time period. Undine completely ignored the concerns of her husband(s) and her child as she strived to join the fashionably conscious social circles. The social and religious sentiments towards divorced woman are also explored during this era of general disapproval of broken marriages. CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY provides a revealing glimpse into the workings of the upper society circles of New York before the Great War. Highly recommended.

The unsympathetic protagonist is still a tough sell in literature. You can't admire Lolita without mentioning your dislike of Humbert. A discussion of A Confederacy of Dunces-comic as it is- is incomplete without mention of the creepy neurosis of Ignatius Reilly, and so on. For the unlikeable protag to be a woman is a virtual invitation to have your book ignored or disparaged on that account alone.

So Wharton's decision to put the amoral Undine Spragg at the center of The Custom of the Country was bold.Spragg bullies her parents into moving to New York from Kansas because she senses that the city is the center of the world that she wants to conquer. Wharton's treatment of the character and her perceptions is splendidly ironic. When Spragg is invited to a posh dinner, she is disappointed to note that the fire in the grate isn't a gas log or an electric light, but an old-fashioned wood fire.

It is because Spragg is, unlike Wharton, devoid of any introspection or sense of right and wrong that we have to read this as a deadpan piece of satire. Wharton's prose is wonderful and although this book is not read much these days, she considered it her masterpiece.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
 bang BANG: A Novel

Undine Spragg, the highest-maintenance of Edith Wharton's heroines, is so neurotically obsessed with climbing the social ladder that even when she is at the very top she is dissatisfied because she can see still another rung she would like to attain. Money is not her sole objective; there are less tangible rewards like prestige, flattery, her name mentioned with admiration in the society pages and in dinner conversations, and possibly--but not necessarily--love, of which she, like Madame Bovary, seems incapable. "The Custom of the Country" is not Wharton's version of Flaubert's novel, though; it is the curious and intricate psychological construction of a woman with a bizarre addiction that only worsens as her situation improves.

We first meet Undine as a young woman in New York, where she is living with her parents in a swank hotel suite in the upper West Side. Her father is an entrepreneur who has earned a small fortune in the Spraggs' Midwestern hometown of Apex City and has decided to move his family to New York so that his daughter may enter high society, which, as it turns out, is guarded by an almost impenetrable barrier of snobbery. However, with the help of a high-class manicurist named Mrs. Heeny and her own beauty and charm, Undine is able to make the acquaintance of some of the city's most fashionable families.

Thus Undine embarks on a twisted odyssey through the jungles of high society, first marrying a young man named Ralph Marvell, scion of a prominent New York family. Ralph is a nice guy but too much the romantic and not quite rich enough to entertain her in the way she demands, and so he is forced to put aside his dream of becoming a writer and take a lifeless job in a real estate firm to support her. Like the mischievously seductive water nymph that is her mythical namesake, Undine draws her adoring poet into a bittersweet affair that ultimately destroys him while she proceeds to other men with greater promise--the ugly but wealthy Peter Van Degen, the gallant French count Raymond de Chelles, the shady schemer Elmer Moffatt.

Like a portraitist who uses exterior details to help define the character of her subject, Wharton is keenly aware of the little things in society that create the big picture. Undine, for example, feels entitled to everything she wants and stands up to her men (whether her father or a husband) with the indignant assertiveness of a spoiled child. It is of no concern to her that de Chelles rebukes her for her American indifference to the European sentimental value of heirlooms when she tries to sell his tapestries, or that her neglected son Paul, oblivious to his mother's machinations, has developed no traditional familial ties and is continually moving to homes, opulent though they are, belonging to new stepfathers he barely knows.

The novel's title refers to one character's theory about a man's duty to work hard for his woman without telling her anything about his work--the implication being that, in 1913 in the type of society Wharton knew, a woman was expected to rely on her husband for all her income and not to ask questions or have an opinion about how he made the money. A single woman would have to depend on an allowance from living relatives or an inheritance from dead ones or (worst of all) have to take a job as a governess or something even more menial. The most pressing theme of "The House of Mirth" (1905) is that there is nothing worse than being a society woman without money; "The Custom of the Country" observes what a society woman must do to ensure that she never finds herself in such a situation.

Difficult one to assess. One of the 'literary' works, and I came into this one with an assumption of complexity and excellence in writing that was only partially born out. It's overall an effective work, however, and renders the core characterizationg effectively. Thinking back to the novel after reading it, the point that emerges clearly is how the protagonist grapples with and manipulates American class structures from personal ambition and general access to resources. It not a hugely distinguishable personality that stands memorably beyond the story, and in a way the lack of true complexity weakens the force of the book. There are certainly advantages to tying the main psychology so closely to the unfolding of events. It's elements like this that linked with engaging prose and control over time that make for a good energy to reading the work.

The strongest critique in the novel and the point where it's most compelling is it's representation of marriage in the early twentieth century class structure. The fetishes of bourgeois marriage are well presented, particularly the ritualized protestations of love and respectability that bound fundamentally mercenary structures. In exposing general social hypocrisy and framing dramatic situations that specifically embody such facets the novel succeeds, and it must have been a sensation when published in 1913. It hasn't aged entirely well, however, and in some ways suffers from the specificity of its scenario. Certainly basic issues with marriage, capitalism and aristocracy remain relevant, but the book lacks a certain force, a necessary drama that would lift this work into truly great literature.

I feel at this point that I've been somewhat too harsh, after all this book is effective both in the core mechanics of constructing the narrative as well as rendering a biting social message without resorting to cliche or preaching. It delivers a strong central character and a plot that's unique as well as relevant. Still, measured on the grounds of sheer engrossment with the process of reading or endurance for the force of the social critique I see Wharton's novel as second-tier to the best.

Nearly the end of Edith Wharton's "The custom of the country", a character, an European Princess says to her American friend, the protagonist of the novel, Undine Spragg that Americans are `the only innocent women left in the world'. It is because she, who declares this sentence, is unaware of her friend's adventures in order to achieve a higher social status.

Undine Spragg is somehow an evil Lily Bart (from Wharton's "The house of mirth"), who is not ashamed of using marriage in order to be richer and more respected. Love hasn't much to do with her ways. There is some love, indeed she loves some men, but she doesn't have scruples to dispose them after she finds a better catch.

Writer after "The house of mirth" and before "The age of innocence", in "The custom of the country" we find a fully developed writer who is able not only to describe social conventions but also to analyze them through critical prism. There is something of Henry James in this novel - specially the juxtaposition of American and European society. One of Undine's husband says with not reason that Americans `come among us [French] from a country we don't know, and can't imagine, a country you care for so little that before you've been a day in ours you've forgotten the very house you were born in - if it wasn't torn down before you knew it!".

The protagonist is a very intense character with a big aim, too much vanity and very spoiled, and not much clue how to achieve it. Her parents, for this, are very useful, since they are relatively rich and not very brilliant as well, so they fulfill all her desires. Luck has a key role in her way up, and, no matter how stupid Undine can be, there always is something that will come and help her.

In Wharton's work, male characters are, mostly, brainy and sensitive. In "The custom of the country", Ralph Marvell is the best character in the whole novel - not only as a human being, but also as a fictional creation. He is the one with best values and the one who keeps them until the end.
Wharton was one of the master social commentators of her time. Virtually a century later, her novels are still important and relevant, because in the center of them, the writer handled the human aspirations and condition. These are subjects that will never be out of fashion.

"Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She wanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she could not help modeling herself on the last person she met, and the confusion of ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had to choose between two courses." p.457

The characters in Custom of the Country were fabulous, especially Elmer Moffatt. The story itself proved to be an almost inexhaustible weave of aspirations and setbacks. The up-and-coming young New York socialite, Undine Spragg, with her country background and concealed past, pushes incessantly to better her personal station. Whether it is compromising her parents financial stability to marry into New York's society, crushing her first husband in favor of a richer more social benefactor, or finding her way into a scandalous second marriage with one of France's oldest families, Undine never stops aspiring for more. She ultimately concludes (seemingly so) with her very first love, Elmer Moffatt. Wharton leaves the reader with an unpredictable and winding path, to an inevitable conclusion.

This is the fourth Edith Wharton book I have read. I read it a couple of months after reading The House of Mirth, and The Custom of the Country actually makes a great companion piece to it.

Custom of the Country is hard to love. We loathe the selfishness of its main character, Undine Spragg, who always gets her way even if it ruins her parents or husband. We marvel at her self-centeredness and her lack of awareness of what she is doing to others. And she doesn't even have the spirit that a similar character, Scarlett O'Hara, has--something that make us root for Scarlett despite her character.

On the other hand, the House of Mirth is easy to love. Its protagonist, Lily Bart, cries out for our sympathy and love. She realizes she is caught by unfair societal requirements and wants to break free of them. She is unable to do so, and it causes tragedy.

But both Undine and Lily are caught in the same web. They both cannot be truly happy because they cannot see a way out of their upbringing. The main difference is that Lily is aware of her problem and Undine is not.

But we should have sympathy for Undine, and we should judge Lily more harshly. Shouldn't Lily, being aware that making her way in society is not a way to happiness, figure a way to break through of society's rules? Shouldn't we feel sorry for Undine who never figures out that social climbing will not make her truly happy?

It is Wharton's genius to show us the flip-sides of how American aristocratic society harmed its great society ladies in these two richly written, beautiful books. Everyone who has read and loved The House of Mirth should read this book.

This is a novel of manners set in the early 20th century primarily in New York and France. The selfish and intelligent protagonist, who is well drawn and charming, drives the story, which takes the reader through 4 marriages and many escapades as she schemes and strives for status and wealth. It is an engaging book. Plot tension and characterization are handled well. The omniscient narrator - traditional storytelling voice - is well done. Her choices of what to include and how to tell the story are masterful.

Pre-flapper Undine Spragg flaps her mouth and metaphorical wings into infamy in this elegantly written novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald included "The Custom of the Country" on his College of One (the one being girlfriend Sheilah Graham) reading list. One can detect why -- Undine was Daisy Buchanan (see "The Great Gatsby") before Daisy Buchanan was Daisy Buchanan. Actually, Undine shows much more daring in swinging from man to man (but with a net of money -- old, new, her father's, always somebody else's -- always underneath).
Daisy's loyalty to old money makes her a conservative (Ann Coulter variety) compared to Undine.
Wharton delivers a great meditation on the endlessness of appetite and its first cousin -- boredom. "She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them."
Undine's life foreshadowed the shallow culture of "busy-ness" and "going out" that's everywhere around us today. Her emotionalism is also very modern. Undine probably represents to Europeans and others the prototype of the piggish and priggish wealthy American. Edith Wharton cleverly drew a character of her present, the future and one of timelessness.

I loved this book, it didn't drag at all like the uneding descriptions of Mingott in the Age of Innocence. The story was fast paced and with a modern language that you can really get it without knots on your brain. Edith's main characters are made real by their flaws, both girls (Lili Bart and Undine ? ) are women with things you hate and also admire, but they have opposite features. Undine is ambitious, immoral, can make you hate her but at the same time admire her for her coolness and determination.

The story is also sad, tragic specially for her husband, Ralph, who loved Undine but lived in denial about her real self, trying to fit her as his damsel in distress, the perfect wife. He had hopes that she will change and it cost his son and his life. In the first part of the book, you could easily think about how to kill the woman, but you go ahead and after her second marriage, with that French husband and his prejudices against Americans and his whole family under the same roof, you start rooting for Undine and admiring her for leaving the guy for her first love and husband, Mr. Mofatt, the one who really understood, accepted and loved Undine the way she was, flaws and everything.

But I think the story was incomplete, I wanted to know what happen to Clare after Ralph's death, but it didn't have anything. Though Undine was an immoral woman, the secondary's characters were so flawed themselves, so it made Undine's flaw pale in comparison. I hate Clare, passing judgement and rumours about Undine when she actually is Peter's wife, enjoying his wealth, having Ralph at her side and pointing the finger on Undine's ambition. So what ? If Peter is so detestable, immoral, why did she marry him anyway? Clare was after the same thing as Undine, was also a social climber. But for her to criticize Undine made her seem mean. And that family, Dragonet, Marvell, no money but with the right ? to be snobbish, I was hoping to see Clare's face after knowing that at the end, Undine got it all AND her Peter as side amusement for her smart dinners. Though my heart felt for Ralph and his little boy, in a way, at the end Undine didn't sound so bad at all, she didn't go and kill Ralph, he was sort of a weak bone anyway.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY is a great novel, arguably Wharton's finest, although she is better known for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. The primary character Undine Spragg is certainly one of the strongest and most significant in American literature, but this novel has many interesting, poignant, and exasperating secondary characters such as Paul Marvell, Elmer Moffatt, and Raymond de Chelles. THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY is a novel about the clash of cultures, the war between and among the sexes and generations, and the dichotomy between the old and new world as represented by Europe and America. It is also an insightful and incisive examination of selfishness and insensitivity in the person of Undine, a small town girl with big ambitions, whose sense of self entitlement and voracious appetite for improving her station in life will leave a string of unfortunate victims in her wake.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY has a riveting plot, is wonderfully written, and gives us a fascinating picture of high society both in early 20th century New York and in France, where the Nouveau riche mix and mingle to various degrees of success with established families in America and the nobility in France. Given Edith Wharton's background and experiences both in the States and abroad, every page is written with an air of authority and the resounding ring of truth. If I were asked to recommend one Wharton novel above all others, it would be this one.

Nobody tortures their characters like Edith Wharton. There is always some mortifying moment in the tale which will have you flinching with the full force of toe-curling social terror. So it is with the feckless Undine Spragg. If you have a socially sadistic streak in your soul, read this book. If Lily Barth took a sucker punch from her dear friend Bertha in House of Mirth (and so begins the hideous slide), Undine gets it good midway through her tale, but hang on to the end. It's a great bumpy ride as only Wharton can deliver. To understand the soul of women you have to be one, and Edith is The Woman. Highly Highly entertaining.

To anyone who has read The Custom of the Country, the idea that Undine Spragg is the perfect personification of America would be something to think about. To those who haven't read it, my humble advice is that they read it and form an opinion on that subject. For now, I'll explain my reasoning: Undine is decidedly ambitious,and the levels of her ambition are often praised and lamented by other characters. She is a social climber, and she uses other people as the rungs in her ladder. So do many business moguls, however. So do normal people. We simply refer to it as 'doing what has to be done,' or 'having a way with people,' or even 'brown nosing.' Monopolies are built with these adverbs as their hammer and nails. Our way of life is founded on them. Yet we relish our dislike for Undine Spragg for attempting to build her life in this way, the only way she was taught. We do not notice that the essence of Undine is floating all around us. It built the house we live in and produced the computer we are using right now. It is the essence of Cold Ambition. It builds itself up with or without help, reaches its peak, sees a better peak, and climbs even higher. Success is never achieved, because to profess success is to say that we can do no better now. We are raised to believe that that idea is profane. We can always do better and go higher. Just read the last line of The Custom of the Country. It's a killer.
I think Undine was dangerous, personally. If I knew her, I would stay away from her as well as I could. But just look at the thoughts that this book brings out. Read it and join in the fun.

Edith Wharton is certainly one of the most accomplished authors in American history. I don't think there is ONE of her books that I don't completely LOVE. And, "Custom of the Country" is certainly one for the record books. Wharton creates a completely new and different novel in "Custom" than in her previous books. As in the others, you may have found yourself really cheering or rooting for the main characters. You felt affection and fondness for them. But, in this one could you have found more fault with Undine? She's everything a reader should just loath. But, for some strange and heartwarming reason, you don't care. You move past that and just enjoy this wonderfully written American Masterpiece. Wharton's gift for words, story and characterization is fabulous. I just love her. She's one of my top 3 favs.

To anyone who has read The Custom of the Country, the idea that Undine Spragg is the perfect personification of America would be something to think about. To those who haven't read it, my humble advice is that they read it and form an opinion on that subject. For now, I'll explain my reasoning: Undine is decidedly ambitious,and the levels of her ambition are often praised and lamented by other characters. She is a social climber, and she uses other people as the rungs in her ladder. So do many business moguls, however. So do normal people. We simply refer to it as 'doing what has to be done,' or 'having a way with people,' or even 'brown nosing.' Monopolies are built with these adverbs as their hammer and nails. Our way of life is founded on them. Yet we relish our dislike for Undine Spragg for attempting to build her life in this way, the only way she was taught. We do not notice that the essence of Undine is floating all around us. It built the house we live in and produced the computer we are using right now. It is the essence of Cold Ambition. It builds itself up with or without help, reaches its peak, sees a better peak, and climbs even higher. Success is never achieved, because to profess success is to say that we can do no better now. We are raised to believe that that idea is profane. We can always do better and go higher. Just read the last line of The Custom of the Country. It's a killer.
I think Undine was dangerous, personally. If I knew her, I would stay away from her as well as I could. But just look at the thoughts that this book brings out. Read it and join in the fun.

Edith Wharton is certainly one of the most accomplished authors in American history. I don't think there is ONE of her books that I don't completely LOVE. And, "Custom of the Country" is certainly one for the record books. Wharton creates a completely new and different novel in "Custom" than in her previous books. As in the others, you may have found yourself really cheering or rooting for the main characters. You felt affection and fondness for them. But, in this one could you have found more fault with Undine? She's everything a reader should just loath. But, for some strange and heartwarming reason, you don't care. You move past that and just enjoy this wonderfully written American Masterpiece. Wharton's gift for words, story and characterization is fabulous. I just love her. She's one of my top 3 favs.

Edith Wharton is still one of America's most well-known female novelists and writers. She creates Undine Spragg who aspires to adapt and adjust into New York City high society which is a recurring theme in Wharton's books like Age of Innocence or House of Mirth. Unlike House of Mirth, Undine is more comical, flawed and a challenge to any actress. This book should be made into a film if it hasn't already. I don't know why we have so much junk out there. Undine is not only comical but she is scheming to break into high society regardless of how it affects her husband and friends. This book is an American masterpiece and I have rediscovered it again since I took a course in college entitled American Novel as my seminar. This is an American Classic Piece of Literature.

You can read this as a portrait of a gold digger, a dame out to make a kill - to find a husband to support a life style of luxury a rich husband can provide. Short on education and long on looks, the dame knows how to catch a man. Wharton's protagonist lives in a world worshiping mone. The ascendancy of capitalism creates reverence for money for its own sake. The heroine's passion for clothes surpasses any loe for her child and husband. Wharton's portrait is a criticism of a clture idolizing money. it sharply contrasts a rise in capitalism with the puritanical values of America's early settlers.

Under a veneer of great beauty, what a despicable character, Edith Wharton has created. One shudders to read of her and yet it is almost impossible to put the book down. She is a torture to her poor husband Ralph and a torture to her readers. There is no one like Edith Wharton to bring to life such a woman. I have downloaded all of Edith Wharton's novels onto my Kindle for almost nothing and am having a fascinating time immersing myself in her genius.

"She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them."

This week, I finished reading Edith Wharton's, The Custom of the Country, starring my least favorite heroin: Undine Spragg (perhaps the ugliest name an author has ever bestowed upon a character). Undine Spragg: material-girl, ladder-climber, MERCENARY.

I should point out that her initials are in fact "US" and some -- some -- have suggested that Wharton was using social commentary on the obsession with materialism in her home country. She grew up in New York City (Wharton, that is), got married to Teddy Wharton (who suffered from severe depression), won a Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence, eventually divorced Teddy, then left the states to continue her writing in Europe. She died in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt.

Her unlikable (understatement! understatement!) character, Undine, is a pathetically self-centered, loathsome (albeit gorgeous) young woman. The worst wife, mother, daughter, human being you could possibly imagine. (She's no Jack-the-Ripper, killing instantaneously, but spins her web slowly; manipulating good people into a slow kind of death; bankrupting them of their souls....and finances).

She's set on making her way up the nouveau riche ladder by landing a rich husband, buying expenses dresses and getting in with "the right set." The ladder never seems to end for Undine. But one has to wonder if she is solely to blame. Because monsters (like Undine) are not born monsters. They are created. Spoiled rotten from crib to alter, she managed to dictate the lives of her middle-class (and eventually poor) parents via childhood/teenage dramatic tantrums and dark moods.

The symptoms of Undine's nervousness were unmistakable to Mr. and Mrs.
Spragg. They could read the approaching storm in the darkening of her
eyes from limpid grey to slate-colour, and in the way her straight
black brows met above them and the red curves of her lips narrowed to a
parallel line below. -- The Custom of the Country

So although I may be completely exasperated with Undine, I'm not with Wharton.

Not by a long shot. The Custom of the Country may be one of the best books I've ever read.

A horror show novel about an unbelievably beautiful but selfish, amoral, gold digger, social climber, trader upper; and the suffering she inadvertantly inflicts upon the people she uses. The reader is hooked in anticipation of the bad karma that's going to come down on her. But the plot takes unpredictable turns.

A little hard work to get into but worth it. Some challenging vocabulary. Maybe a little slow for some.

This is one of Edith Wharton best loved books, along with Age of Innocence and House of Mirth, depicting the social life of the wealthy in New York City in the 1900's. It is an audio book, read by a wonderful reader.

Now this is what I call a novel! I'm still astonished by this character Undine. I will never forget her. This is the kind of novel that you dream about - brilliantly written to perfection with a can't put it down story. That Undine is quite something! Pure pure reading pleasure.

This is exactly what it feels like to write a review stating the obvious: Great literature as exemplified by this spectacular classic seems to have less value for its merit as a masterful work of art, or that thing called currency. Now there all kinds of currency. An exchange rate. So, what will one get in exchange for buying this book used or brand new? Knowledge, Truth, Love, Passion, Tragedy and profoundly deep Wisdom packaged in the most glorious way (inside and out) with prose that may remind you of dreams you once had that are still possible. Do we really need how-to-books to tell us what's important or how to live? Maybe all we need is to visit museums of art more; or read grand literature that will stand for ages. Bottomline: authors like Edith Wharton and this book can make all the difference as to whether we, as a culture, will survive ourselves.

I am a big fan of E.W. This novel, to my mind, is her second best right behind The House of Mirth and just ahead of The Age of Innocence. If you have not read any of her works, these 3 are certain to reward the effort. Since she lived in Society, both in New York and in Europe, her views are very international. Her fearless attacks on New York city and the Society norms of the late 1880' are a marvel to read. Naturally some of the words today seem somewhat stilted and, of course, the treatment of marriage is completely at odds with today's standards of morality.

I somehow missed reading this wonderful book, but glad I finally have. It's got unforgettable terrible characters that could be living in our own decade, and a cautionary story of a woman that is completely shallow and cannot ever be content.

Wharton captures time, place, societal stratification and cultural clashes in this tale of a woman without a center who spins from one man to another trying to move up but, ultimately, only spinning out. Apparently the lives of the nouveau riche at the turn of the century were characterized by acquisition and changeability at the expense of meaning and depth of feeling. One has the sense 100 years later Undine Spragg would be content with a People cover and a spot on Entertainment Tonight. Or would she?

Edith Wharton uses language in such beautiful ways, and to read her prose is a literary experience to crown all others. Her similes and metaphors are genius, incredible. Her acute sense of humor is there as well, for example when she speaks of Mrs. Spragg's having more to fear now than simply the horse (the horse instructor had eyes upon her daughter). Her social commentary is sharp, and classification for this writer as an anthropologist is correct. It all comes together in one pivotal scene in which "the custom of the country" is specifically mentioned, and we recognize the relationships between men and women as they stand, and how women cannot truly be blamed for their faults in a society in which they are allowed to practice no crafts of their own. Custom's protagonist has ample faults to be sure. She is selfish and lives life only looking to acquire the next best thing, but as a reader, one surely never comes to hate her. She is an interesting character study, even if her motives are always one dimensional. One almost wonders at her lack of sympathy, and can only grieve at the wake of sorrow left in her trail. This book is beautiful and exceptional! - made me think of Henry James. Also amusing pondering the differences between Americans and our European equivalents and the differences that living in this country has instilled in us.

What a marvelous author Edith Wharton is! I like to copy passages from her books just to feel how beautifully she constructs her sentences and paragraphs. I've also read Ethan Frome, Summer, House of Mirth, and Age of Innocence; they are all terrific novels. But The Custom of the Country is her best. Could there be a worse mother, wife, or daughter than Undine? And yet, she is too pathetic to hate; she is so needy and dependent upon material things. She's perhaps the most unliberated woman in literature! Do read this novel; you will love it and learn from it.

A beautiful woman trapped by her own superficial values, riding her beauty along a path to all the expected goals. Society encouraged her (or didn't condemn) in these pursuits until she ultimately reached the end the novel demands of itself. Wharton manages to entrap the reader despite a host of (realistic) characters all too human to respect or admire. As always, Edith Wharton has done a marvelous job for her readers. Every woman cursed with beauty should read this work, but so should everyone else.

The first time I tried to read this book, I couldn't get past the first couple of pages. I must have had a premonition that I was about to meet one of the most toxic characters I've encountered in a long time, a narcissist with the ugly name of Undine Spragg. I don't know if Edith Wharton knew she was writing about a narcissist, whether she knew about the concept of narcissistic supply and the victims of narcissists. But, wow, did she ever nail it. If you have had your life destroyed by a relationship with one of these vampires, you will be riveted. I'm always astounded by how modern Wharton's writing is -- it's not just the style, it's the psychological insight that amazes. I'm sure on the main level this book is about old world vs. new world, the crassness of America and social climbing, materialism, etc. But this book resonated because Wharton got into the mind of Spragg as well as her victims, particularly Ralph Marvell. He has all the signs of a victim of NPD. Spragg spun a web for her victims and trapped and destroyed them. There is nothing to admire about this character -- she is a sick piranha.

A horror show novel about an unbelievably beautiful but selfish, amoral, gold digger, social climber, trader upper; and the suffering she inadvertantly inflicts upon the people she uses. The reader is hooked in anticipation of the bad karma that's going to come down on her. But the plot takes unpredictable turns.

A little hard work to get into but worth it. Some challenging vocabulary. Maybe a little slow for some.

Though I love Wharton's writing style, this book sometimes had a poor little rich girl perils of Pauline quality to it. Age of Innocence and even The Children were much richer and more complex in story line. Nevertheless, it was a fun read.

Almost every screen ridled with missing spaces, missing words, randomly placed punctuation . . . A nightmare to slog through this first-class work. Ms. Wharton must be spinning in her grave! Spend a few more dollars and---unike me---spare yourself the aggravation of this non-proofread edition.

Despite the fact that Undine Spragg is an appalling woman, I found myself quite mesmerised by her (she would expect nothing less). We've all met Undines and been staggered by their total lack of empathy and their reckless indifference to the impact they have on the world around them. It should leave you quite cold, reading a novel centered around such an unpleasant person. Instead I couldn't put this book down and that must surely be because Ms Wharton has created a convincing world where the "good" don't always triumph over the "evil". Undine's only comeuppance must surely be that like the rest of us, one day she will be old and unattractive and ultimately forgotten.

This book deserves another 5 star review. I place it at #1 of EW's big 3. If you've read Age of Innocence and House of Myrth, but missed this one, make sure to read it. It is timeless, imho. The year may be 2011, but there are still plenty of Undines in NYC.

I happened upon a commentary concerning this book in a book about divorce and the effects on children. It sounded very interesting so I bought it and started reading it. I have found it extremely fascinating. I have never read any works by Wharton nor have I watched the movie, Age of Innocence. This has been such a wonderful find. I plan on reading all other of her books, including her autobiography. She must have been a fascinating person to know. She has wonderful insights into the machinations of humankind. Wharton reminds me alot of Ayn Rand, whom I also loved. I sincerely recommend this book to anyone interested in the inner workings,thoughts and motives of people.

What I've always loved about Edith Wharton is her detailed descriptions of societal labyrinths and how those subtle constraints wreak havoc on people who are...more. She weaves stories tinged with regret, surprise, disappointment, hope, and some level of tragedy. Roman Fever, Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome (and more) all transported me to the time and place of the story, and left me feeling the triumphs and tragedies of its players. They made me care about the characters.

Where Custom of the Country is successful is in its portrayal of the ugly side of New York society, the ruthlessness created by the rules and social constraints. But ultimately, it didn't matter because I didn't care about any of the characters. They were all pathetic, self-absorbed, and shallow -- most of all the protagonist! I didn't care if a single one of them succeeded or failed. In fact, I had trouble getting through it at all because they were so grating. Certainly, with EW, I don't expect the triumph of flawless characters in a classic battle of good versus evil. But I do expect to look forward to the ending for more reasons than because I just wanted it to be over.

Ayn Rand must have loved Undine Spragg - the epitome of ruthless greed in the prettiest possible package. This novel is still a fascinating read after so many decades! Edith Wharton - a premier and prophetic American novelist.

I am a big Edith Wharton fan, however, Custom of the Country has made me question my loyalty. I loved both the plot and narrative style of "Ethan Frome" and "The House of Mirth," and was deeply disappointed in the lackluster writing style of "Custom." Undine is a predictable, tiring character - her parents and multiple husbands do little in the way of adding excitment to the plot. I would reccomend interested readers to chose a different work by this reveared author.

What is the point of exalting an author's talents if they are as poorly used as in this travesty? Mafia kingpins use their exquisite brains for evil and criminal means. Edgar Alan Poe used his talent for the dark and disturbing. This author uses hers for depression. What is the difference? It doesn't take a very high IQ to figure out that this is not the best use of any gift or attribute. Edith Wharton has chosen to bring us down. As for me, I see no reason to cooperate. I understand her other works are of the same ilk. Put me down as being smart enough to pass.