Reviewed by Harriet
The spring night drew them into its deepening embrace. The ripples of the lake had gradually widened and faded into a silken smoothness, and high above the mountains the moon was turning from gold to white in a sky powdered with vanishing stars.
Written in 1922, Glimpses of the Moon has surprised many Wharton fans for being a novel with a happy ending. While certainly it ends on a more hopeful and positive note than her most celebrated works, The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, the future facing the two young protagonists of the novel is no conventional romantic idyll.
When the novel opens Nick and Susy Lansing are on honeymoon in a beautiful, luxurious villa on the shores of Lake Como. You might assume that these two, intelligent, witty, well-bred and beautiful, are typical leaders in their cosmopolitan society, but all is not what it seems. The villa belongs to an impoverished English friend who keeps his head above water by renting it to wealthy friends, but has kindly lent it to the young couple, whose recent marriage is by way of being a daring experiment. Nick and Susy are broke, surviving by selling her grandmother’s jewellery and by the the kindness of richer friends, who are prepared to put them up for limited periods in exchange for their charm and wit. Both would have done well to marry for money, but unfortunately they fell in love with each other instead. Having wisely asked for cash instead of wedding presents, they have agreed to give marriage a try for a year – divorce is now easy, and at least they have the pleasure of being together for those twelve months. But now, wallowing in the charms of Como and each other’s company, they are already having second thoughts:
When Susy spoke it was in a voice languid with visions. “I have been thinking,” she said, “that we ought to be able to make it last at least a year longer.”
Her husband received the remark without any sign of surprise or disapprobation; his answer showed that he not only understood her, but had been inwardly following the same train of thought.
“You mean,” he enquired after a pause, “without counting your grandmother’s pearls?”
“Yes—without the pearls.”
He pondered a while, and then rejoined in a tender whisper: “Tell me again just how.”
Susy’s plan is simple – they will spend their time what we would now call house-sitting, thereby enjoying lovely accommodation and borrowed servants, while Nick completes the novel he’s begun but is not getting on very well with. Possibly this could have worked, but Nick turns out to have moral qualms. These show up first when Susy, preparing for their departure from Como, packs several boxes of their host’s excellent cigars for Nick to continue to enjoy. Nick is rather shocked, but worse is to come. The fabulous Venice palazzo which is their next resting place has been loaned to Susy on the understanding that she will, once a week, post a letter to the owner’s absent husband, giving him the impression that she is in Venice while in fact she is enjoying a month elsewhere with her latest lover. Nick has not been party to this plan, and when he finds out, it’s the final straw for him, and the marriage disintegrates.
Having married ‘with the definite understanding that whenever either of them got the chance to do better he or she should be immediately released’, they agree to put this plan in action. Nick gets taken on as a sort of secretary/translator/social guide to an exceptionally wealthy family from the American mid-West who have aspirations but lack the education or confidence to fulfil them. They are a likeable couple, and their daughter Coral, interesting and bright though not a conventional beauty, is drawn to Nick, who finds her intriguing and tentatively considers her as a new partner. Susy, meanwhile, is in London, being romanced by the same friend who loaned them the Como villa and has now inherited a title and all the trappings that go with it. So it seems that their somewhat cynical plans look to be fulfilled. But Susy becomes deeply disillusioned by the frivolity of her wealthy friends, who happily swop one partner for another, and swears off ‘the world of pearls and chinchilla’. Nick, too, realises how far he has come from his desire to be a serious writer. And of course they are still in love with each other.
And so comes the ending – inevitably one of compromise on both sides, in which Susy recognises ‘Not great love, then…but just the common humble average of human love was hers’. As for Nick, he is still prey to ‘soberer feelings’. But both recognise that they need each other, and essentially must make the best of it.
So – a happy ending? Maybe, but this is Edith Wharton and her wit, her cynicism, and her brilliant observation of the badly behaved wealthy is still present. I found this is hugely enjoyable read, so thanks to Pushkin for bringing it out of retirement.
Harriet is a co-founder and one of the editors of Shiny.
Edith Wharton, Glimpses of the Moon (Pushkin Press, 2024). 978-1805330929, 336pp., paperback original.
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