Book Review: The Reckoning, by Edith Wharton (Originally published in 1902, Penguin Little Black Classics edition 2015)

The Penguin Little Black Classics edition of The Reckoning, by Edith Wharton. You can see my other Edith Wharton books in the background. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Edith Wharton, 1862-1937.

Edith Wharton’s 1902 short story “The Reckoning” was re-issued as part of Penguin’s “Little Black Classics” series in 2015. (I reviewed Joseph Conrad’s “To-morrow,” another title in that series here.) “The Reckoning” is paired with Wharton’s first published short story “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” which appeared in 1891. Both stories highlight Wharton’s depth as a writer.

In “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” we follow an aged widow, the titular Mrs. Manstey, who derives all of her enjoyment in life from looking out of her window and noticing the changes that occur slowly, day by day. The story is a deft little character study, and already it’s clear that Wharton has a real talent for describing people. I especially enjoyed this sentence:

“She loved, at twilight, when the distant brown-stone spire seemed melting in the fluid yellow of the west, to lose herself in vague memories of a trip to Europe, made years ago, and now reduced in her mind’s eye to a pale phantasmagoria of indistinct steeples and dreamy skies.” (p.4) 

“The Reckoning” is the tale of Julia and Clement Westall, who have founded their marriage on the intellectual understanding that it is not a bond for life, it’s merely an arrangement made until it no longer suits one of them, at which time they can break it off. Needless to say, what sounds fine in theory might not work so well in practice. One of my favorite quotes from “The Reckoning” is when Julia is describing her drawing-room:

“The prints, the flowers, the subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a superficial refinement which had no relation to the deeper significances of life.” (p.24)

Wharton is always superb when writing about marriage, and I thought this passage was marvelous:

“Her husband’s personality seemed to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting off the air, till she felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by some world-old conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature.” (p.29-30)

“The Reckoning” is another excellent piece of writing from Edith Wharton.