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Ethan Frome (Signet Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Edith Wharton
Creator: Anita Shreve
Publisher: Signet Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $4.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $4.94 (100%)
New (56) Used (97) Collectible (8) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  227 reviews
Sales Rank: 10586
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0451527666
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780451527660
ASIN: 0451527666
Publication Date: June 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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Product Description
Scraping a living in the New England countryside is Ethan Frome, a young farmer who lives with his suspicious, hypochondriac wife Zeena. But when vivacious Mattie Silver, Zeena's cousin and hired help, enters their household, Ethan becomes obsessed with her and with the possibility of happiness.
Book Description
Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students 14-18 years old in English-speaking classrooms.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 222 more reviews...
 A classic worth reading December 27, 2008
I think the main theme of this book is that societal mores create obstacles to the fulfillment of desire if you let them. Wharton was very good at detailed and telling portrayals of how society worked in her time, though she usually concentrated on the upper classes. But I think you can also view EF as an environmental novel, because the climate creates the atmosphere for the whole story: gloomy, stifling, oppressive (its original title was "Hiver" or "Winter"-- she originally wrote the manuscript in French, as part of an assignment in a French class). The ending isn't so much a moral consequence as it is a statement about how if you don't choose your own destiny, it gets chosen for you, and it could be really NOT what you thought it was going to be. Ethan is completely controlled by external forces and is too scared to defy them to get what he really wants, and he's so enthralled by Mattie that he ends up letting her decide their fate with the results you see at the end of the book. And of course Wharton's sense of irony is extremely bitter, that has to be one of the cruelest and most wrenching endings I've ever read. If you like EF at all, check out The House of Mirth.
 Shoot me now September 28, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I got to know: what idiot decided this terrible thing should become a classic? It's depressing, overdramatic, and just plain silly. I realize that many people were deeply moved by this novel, but why? It seems to defy the very purpose of writing a novel. Call me a romantic, but I believe that the greatest stories, even the tragedies, did something to edify the human spirit--there was some aspect of them that was uplifting! This monstrosity did not. In fact, all I can think to say of it now is that it was something that desperately wanted to be inspiring. So, like a stick-in-the-mud English teacher this story pulled out all the obligatory ingredients of nice prose, various themes, angsty characters. But without heart, those ingredients cooked into nothing.I will not apologize for hating this novel. It is the kind of novel that exists only to lose itself in its self-pride and congratulate itself.
 Sucks August 8, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love Edith Wharton's work. I read it mostly for the mellifluous prose. This book, however, is dull in every sense. The prose are flat and spare. The story is flat and spare. And I hate it. It was boring. Usually her stories are engaging, interesting, and hard to put down. I knew when I bought this book it would be bad. I asked myself, "What the hell does Edith Wharton know about indigent peasants?" And after reading "Ethan Frome" I realized she knew nothing! Stick to the glittering affluent New York life that you knew and were a part of. I admire Edith Wharton's attempt to branch out and I'm sure she meant every word she wrote (since apparently her own marriage was falling apart), but the book is still boring. Read any other book by her, especially The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth.
 one of the bleakest tragedies in American literature May 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is no doubt one of the bleakest tragedies in classic American literature. Everything from the sparse landscape to the unappealing personal circumstances within this depressing tale hint at a gloomy conclusion. When we first see Ethan Frome, the narrator describes him as a broken man, both physically and psychologically, even from a first glance. As the narrator learns more about Frome from townspeople and eventually Frome himself, this first impression proves to be quite accurate. After the unnamed narrator employs Frome to drive him to work, he slowly learns a few surprising tidbits about the obscure man.
One night, due to extenuating circumstances, Ethan takes the narrator into his home to stay the night. From there, the story switches to an omniscient point of view, detailing how Ethan became his current self. It is an age old tale: Man loves woman, man cannot have woman, Man and his love attempt to be together. Sadly, this love story has a tragic ending for everyone involved.
Despite Wharton's magnificently descriptive writing, the story tends to drag at particular points. The book may have been better suited as a short story as opposed to a novel. Overall, the story itself was thoughtful and well written, just not very captivating at times.
Reading Ethan Frome has all the pleasures of swallowing a porcupine April 1, 2008
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
I hate this book more than any other I've read. Edith Wharton indulges herself in a meticulous catalog of imaginary human misery. It is, in it's way, the spiteful grandmother of all the modern fiction that rejoices in the pathetic dysfunction of annoying nobodies. Read it and you have wasted precious hours of your life that you could have spent seeking real joy.
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