Book Review: The Writing of Fiction, by Edith Wharton (1925)

 

Paperback of The Writing of Fiction, by Edith Wharton, 1925. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Edith Wharton, one of the great American authors.

I’ve read several of Edith Wharton’s novels, and one book of her short stories, but I hadn’t heard of her 1925 book The Writing of Fiction until recently, as was looking through her bibliography. Wait, Edith Wharton wrote a book about writing? I need to get it!

The Writing of Fiction is a short read, only 125 pages in the paperback edition. The book contains Wharton’s thoughts and theories about fiction writing. There’s not much in the book about American authors, as most of the influences that Wharton discusses are French, English, or Russian—very typical for the time Wharton was writing. I had to look up a fair number of the authors and novels Wharton discusses as I read the book, and chances are you will too, unless you’re very well-versed in 19^th century European literature.

My favorite name that I had to look up was Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. I had to make sure that Edith Wharton wasn’t pulling my leg with that one. She wasn’t. Quiller-Couch published using the pseudonym Q, which seems to me a tragic waste of a fantastic name. I learned that Quiller-Couch was also a literary critic, and he coined the phrase, “Murder your darlings,” meaning sometimes you must sacrifice what you think is best in your art.

I liked Wharton’s quote about artistic inspiration: “Many people assume that the artist receives, at the outset of his career, the mysterious sealed orders known as ‘Inspiration,’ and has only to let that sovereign impulse carry him where it will.” (p.18) I think this is a common misconception about art: that you simply need to sit down at the pad of paper, typewriter, or computer, and you will be visited by the mysterious muse of artistic creation. Of course, it’s usually more complicated than that.

Throughout The Writing of Fiction, Wharton mentions authors she admires, such as Tolstoy, Stendhal, Jane Austen, and Balzac, to name a few. Wharton is generous with her praise and reserved in her criticism. Wharton mentions specific novels and short stories, but she doesn’t focus exclusively on one author until the last chapter of the book, when she does a deep dive on the work of Marcel Proust. She writes of Proust: “His endowment as a novelist…has probably never been surpassed.” (p.119) That’s high praise indeed.

When I finished reading The Writing of Fiction, it struck me that Wharton never tells the reader that she’s a novelist herself. I understand that Wharton came from a more restrained era, and she obviously didn’t write this book in order to blow her own horn about how great her own novels were. Nevertheless, what’s missing from The Writing of Fiction are any examples from Wharton’s own work as a writer. How did she come up with the marvelous beginning of The Age of Innocence, where Newland Archer surveys the crowd at the opera? How was she able to get inside the minds of characters like Newland, and Lily Bart in The House of Mirth? Wharton knew New York City society very well, but how did she also successfully write rural novels like Ethan Frome and Summer? I’d love to know the answers to those questions, but unfortunately Wharton doesn’t reveal anything about her own work in the book. For that reason, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed by The Writing of Fiction.