Ethan Frome aka Bad Times with Sleds
Our novel for next Monday is Wharton's Ethan Frome . Finished it last night and was very irritated by the cruelty of the ending and also distraught be the fact that I could not imagine anyone else as the character of Ethan except for Liam Neeson , who played him in the movie version I have never seen. But anyway, poor Ethan! He's in love with the beautiful, innocent, blond, crooked toothed in a cute way, mirthful, whimsical, delicious Mattie (as imagined as Patricia Arquette ). However, he is also married to the stern and silent woman who could not be described any more unfavorably by Wharton unless she had added warts and chronic flatulence. Zeena , the wife, is a sickly, pale, hatched-faced, brooding woman who breathes loudly. Seriously. Wharton cannot let her have one good attribute. This is how she describes Ethan's experience of lying in bed next to this creature. Oh, darn, the book is at home, but it's something like, "After leaving the warmth of light in M...