The Age Of Innocence

By: Edith Wharton

Narrated by: Mary Sarah

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in upper class New York City. Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic, beautiful 30-year-old cousin, who has been living in Europe. This novel won the first ever Pulitzer awarded to a woman.

Public Domain (P)2013 Trout Lake Media

Performance Ratings Really Matter

Normally I listen to audiobooks during my commute, but for Age of Innocence (by Edith Wharton, narrated by Mary Sarah), I tried simultaneous listening and reading. By taking this approach, I immediately noticed several issues of missing words or using the wrong words.

Instead of "But then Regina always does what he tells her," the narrator said, "But when Regina always does what tells her."

Instead of "There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure," the narrator said, "There was a cousinly rumor of pleasure."

This interrupted the flow of the experience. These interruptions added to a dislike for the way that the narrator overused volume variation (in the same repeatable pattern).

When she missed words or used the wrong words, my disappointment grew but I tried to soldier on. However, later I found what I deduced to be whole lines of text missed by the narrator. What I heard was nonsensical and it did not match the text. This led to immediate buyer's remorse. I don't fault the narrator on this one. Mistakes happen. This is a producer/director's fault.

At that point, I was so frustrated that I had to put it down and never finished. I tried to return it so that I could try a different narrator, but it was not eligible for return.

Here are two outcomes worth sharing:

1. I will be more cautious when making purchases and take very seriously the "performance" rating by other reviewers. Before, I would eagerly make mass purchases from my Wish List, especially for Pulitzer or Newbery winners.

2. I developed a mistrust of audiobooks. I will take a Berean approach before forming opinions of the written work based upon the audio version.

Beautiful Book But Less-than-Beautiful Performance

Would you listen to The Age Of Innocence again? Why?

I wish I had the patience to sit through this narrator's reading one more time. As it was, I had to reverse and listen to sections over and over again due to her artistic choices so I feel like I have already listened to this book three or four times!

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Age Of Innocence?

I love the passion of the two key characters, Newland and Ellen, which is heightened by their inability to declare their love openly. Any scene in which they appear together is tense but passionate...and certainly memorable.

Would you be willing to try another one of Mary Sarah’s performances?

No. While she articulates the prose well and reads Wharton's novel with enthusiasm, I felt her artistic choice to open every sentence loudly and end it in a whisper was difficult and annoying. I had to hit the rewind button far too many times which seriously harmed the experience for me,

Who was the most memorable character of The Age Of Innocence and why?

The three main characters - Newland, Ellen and May - are memorable and deeply drawn. While May is depicted as an innocent child-woman, she turns out to be very clever indeed. Bit. my favorite character is Newland, who maintains his dignity despite his passionate love for Ellen. Ultimately, he makes the right choice but his passion is deeply felt.

Any additional comments?

Although it's difficult to believe in our modern times that two people in love could have their love constrained in such a way, the novel's depiction of this forbidden love is beautifully rendered.

Amateur reader. Terrible pace and pronuniciation.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

This is a wonderful but the reader Mary Sarah is so terrible I stopped after two chapters to see if I can find a better reader. Avoid her! She can't speak proper English, never mind French.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mary Sarah?

Imagine Juliet Stevenson

Any additional comments?

I feel like I should get a credit for this bad purchase. I guess I should have read the reviews.

Less than the sum of its parts

This is my first Wharton novel, and it is not an easy one to critique. It is a well-crafted novel; one can enjoy the prose and lose sight of the fact that the story is rather formulaic, and the crises happen mostly off-stage, and the book continues too long beyond the emotional denoument.

Wharton, like Wilde, writes brilliant sentences but doesn't quite manage to assemble them into a brilliant novel. I may read more of her, but it will be to enjoy her gem-quality prose, not for her storytelling.

The production is substandard. Fault for this lies equally with the narrator and the producer. The narrator tends to hurry her reading too much, and the producer has allowed too many re-reads and awkwards pauses to remain in the final recording.

Pick ANY Other Version of This Wonderful Novel

This book is a classic and one of my favorites, however, the narrator's atrocious pronunciation and weirdly frantic tonal inflections made a mess of Ms. Wharton's lovely prose. To give you an idea of the pacing, most unabridged versions run between 11 1/2 and 12 hours. This narrator manages to shave a full THREE hours off of that time in this unabridged version. The best thing about Edith Wharton is her ability to convey a depth of emotion in just a few perfectly-chosen words. The narrator's mangling of even the most commonplace phrases does the author a great disservice. There are quite a few other versions available on audible with much better narration. Awful.

Horrible narrator: who treats novel as horse race

I strongly recommend the The Age of Innocence, but more strongly do not recommend the narrator.

Tale of unrequited love per society rules.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Age Of Innocence to be better than the print version?

Yes, but only because it's easier for me to listen while I work, than take the time to read the book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I admired May the most, even though the author wrote her as "someone without imagination". In the long run, May knew exactly what was going on, gave the lovers a chance to go in a different direction, but they refused to go their own way and buck society's rules.

Which character – as performed by Mary Sarah – was your favorite?

The grandmamma character was well done.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

There is a film, but I think it would be
"Can you live your life for love?"

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed this story of a man who falls in love with a married woman, whom he talks out of divorcing and leaves her with the choice of returning to her husband, (who is hinted as being an abusive man) or living a life of genteel poverty alone. His fear is that she will become the mistress of one man or another and yet he marries her cousin and leaves her behind.
I found the ending very poignant and true. Sometimes we long for something and that longing is more important than the actual fulfillment of the thing you long for. I did do some crying over this one.

Did not finish due to poor audio quality

I don't usually write reviews for Audible, but as this is the first book I have ever felt the need to return, I thought I ought to explain why so others could avoid the same trouble. The issue is not the story itself; I enjoyed that part very much. However, the audio recording prevented me from fully experiencing or even understanding the story.

The problem for me was that the audio volume varied from very high to very low, often within a single sentence. As a result, at almost every point I was either unable to make out what was being said or wanting to cover my ears. If I turned the volume to a level where I could hear the lower registers, the higher ones became painfully loud; if I turned the volume down to spare my hearing at the higher points, the lower ones became almost inaudible. Maybe someone with better audio equipment might not have the same trouble, but I've never encountered this issue with any audiobook before.

After about an hour of listening, I decided this recording was too unpleasant to be worth my time, and returned it. I am planning to get this same book in a different recording, however. What I could comfortably hear, I liked.

Demonstrating "a selfish life does not= happiness"

Great Story Classic. Gives Jane Austin worthy competition!
Occasionally the distinction of voices is sorely missing.

Reader may it difficult to like

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Not really.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Age Of Innocence?

In the next to last chapter when Archer finally has the light bulb go off and realize the rest of the family thinks he is in a physical affair when in fact it is everything but physical. Silly man!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator went too fast and did not have different character voices. Also, I had to keep changing the volume. I reduced the speed to 3/4 and could follow along. However, I did miss much of the details due to the volume issue and lack of identifying the character.

Did The Age Of Innocence inspire you to do anything?

No

great book but terrible narration

Edith Wharton's masterpiece is, of course, a superlative book. Unfortunately this narration is so poor that it obscures it. Mary Sarah reads so fast that she is difficult to understand. That is compounded by frequent mistakes in punctuation, so that the meaning of the sentence is mangled up. Words are mispronounced - and the French words become mostly unrecognisable. I'm afraid this is the worst narration I have ever heard on Audible. I'm wondering whether the recording was not intended for mass publication at all, but was some private reading - in that case, one would feel sympathy for Mary Sarah.

Fortunately, all the other Audible books I have had over the years have had a much higher standard of narration.

Nice bittersweet story, average performance,

I really enjoyed the heady atmosphere of the writing, the narration could do better. The society that Wharton criticises is brought to life well by the narrator, but everything feels a little too fast moving and rushed. I would recommend listening to it at a slightly lower speed.

Dry narration and slow plot

What disappointed you about The Age Of Innocence?

I found the narration dry and uninteresting. I kept drifting away and not being bothered to go back to where I was last paying attention and I just found there to be nothing in the story to hold my attention.

Would you ever listen to anything by Edith Wharton again?

I don't think so. I would like to give her another go by physically reading her, however, as I've enjoyed short stories by her previously.

Would you be willing to try another one of Mary Sarah’s performances?

I have Anne of Green Gables narrated by her, but if I don't get along with that - I've already read it physically so I know I like the story - then I won't be listening to anything else narrated by Mary Sarah.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment. I really, really wanted to like it.

Narrator - say no

Would you try another book written by Edith Wharton or narrated by Mary Sarah?

Edith yes, narrator no. Very odd, staccato delivery; bizarre intonation and frequent mis-pronunciations. The performance marred my enjoyment of the story.

What did you like best about this story?

encapsulates the rigidity of the American upper class rites. Male protagonist is for the time of its writing, unusually in passive role whilst the matriarchs move the action on.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Mary Sarah?

Alan Carr would have done a better job.

Could you see The Age Of Innocence being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

Errr that would be DDL and Michelle Pfeiffer

Any additional comments?

Production was cheap. When narrator made mistake, clumsy edits or no edits. At one point you hear the narrator practise a word three times before getting it right.

Read much too fast

What disappointed you about The Age Of Innocence?

This book is read much too fast, I couldn't concentrate on the narrators voice so gave up trying to listen to it and bought another version by a different narrator instead.

Lyrical voice; gentle story

Mary Sarah tells this gentle story of unrequited love in 1870s New York in such a quiet, unassuming way, you may well drop off to sleep. You've been warned. Wharton was the first woman to win the Pullitzer Prize with The Age Of Innocence in 1921. And its subtle and often ironical depiction of the mores and manners of the rich and fashionable New York set confirms why. Perfect for a holiday read when you don't want the blood pressure raised.

A disapointing so called classic

I listened to the age of innocence as I had heard about it but never read it , I listened all the way through getting more and more bored with it though the reader was very good and the indolence of the rich in that era came across very well there was simply no substance to the story it just went on and on with every chapter very much the same ,though I am glad to have read it I will not read it again as with many other classics I have loved