Claire Messud reviews Hermione Lee's Edith Wharton (yes, yes, I am still going to be gifted this. The trick is to reward yourself I think) in the NYT Sunday Book Review:
In her short story "The Fullness of Life," Edith Wharton wrote that a woman's life is like "a great house full of rooms," most of which remain unseen: "and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes." In spite of the many books written about Wharton and her work — including R. W. B. Lewis's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1975 biography — it is Hermione Lee's determination to provide an unprecedented tour of all the rooms in Edith Wharton's mansion. The text is unquestionably authoritative, impressively — indeed, almost alarmingly — exhaustive (it includes lists of Wharton's neighbors, of fellow hotel guests, of the ads surrounding her published stories, of the wines in her cellars); and it seeks, with meticulous care, to approach the soul in her innermost sanctum.
read on
can u also email me the recipe for Rathna cafe sambhar!
Posted by
vimal |
11:44 PM, May 01, 2007