Sarah's Library

10/8 - Enjoying this short book so far.  The story is engaging, the writing easy to understand, Wharton even has a page of notes at the back of the book explaining some of the more difficult words or phrases in the story.  Wharton jumps back and forth between 'current time' and about 20 years earlier, she does this without advising the reader of the time change, which has caused me some confusion.  There is a perfect description of the landscape of the farm and beyond seen after a dreadful winter storm.  The description is so clear I could see exactly what the narrator was seeing - spectacular sunrise, dazzlingly glittery snow and amazingly clear atmosphere after such foul weather the night before.  If only you didn't have to have the violence of the storm to have the beautiful morning after.  To be continued...
11/8 - I don't usually get themes or hidden messages that authors try to convey through their stories, I just enjoy the book for what it is telling me on the surface.  But Ethan Frome's 'message' (if that's what it is) seems to be quite obvious.  Wharton seems to be saying that no matter what you do to try to improve your situation in life, fate won't let you.  If your fate is to live a miserable life, and you try to make it better (in whatever small or big way), fate will turn those actions around and bring you back to your miserable life, perhaps even make it worse to punish you.  The descriptions of the scenery are beautiful but the story itself is quite depressing, but despite the latter I actually enjoyed the story.