If you could switch places with a character, who would it be?
 
 
The literary character you’d most like to be


I’ve had an enduring fascination with Countess Ellen Olenska from Edith Wharton’s "The Age of Innocence."

At first blush, why would I ever want to step into the Gilded Age era of corsets, ironclad social conventions and seen-and-not-heard roles for all but the richest of women?  

And the countess certainly isn’t rich.  

She married a Polish count and discovered him to be cruel and unfaithful. Stranded on the continent with little money of her own, Ellen makes a most scandalous choice for women in the 1870s.  

She leaves her count, returns to London and submits to the generosity and societal protection of her wealthy grandmother.  

People openly snub her and she has to play it meek and mild. In the eyes of her peers, she’s damaged goods.

But here’s what I admire about Ellen: She’s smart, fiercely curious and intellectual. Her enlightened thinking challenges, shocks and inspires the people around her.

In a scene between Ellen and Newland Archer, a wealthy young man engaged to an 18-year-old ingenue named May but already entranced with the countess, she asks of the nature of his engagement.

“Are you very much in love with her?" Ellen asks.

“As much as a man can be," he responds.

You can hear the flare of Ellen’s curiosity.  

“Do you think there’s a limit?" she asks.

“If there is, I haven’t found it,” Newland replies.

Once Newland, in a haze of anguished indecision, admits his love for Ellen, she challenges him. 

“May and I had a frank talk in Florida,” he tells her.  “She wants a long engagement to give me time.”

“Time to give her up for another woman,” the Countess interrupts.

“If I want to,” he says.

I won’t spoil the end of "The Age of Innocence" for you but let’s just say that the wise and independent Ellen Olenska chooses the more noble and much more difficult path.

So, into which literary character’s life would you find it most interesting to step?  Are you drawn by adventure, complexity, super powers or courage?

Tweet me @KerriMPR.and I’ll report back next week.


— Kerri Miller | MPR News

 
This Week on The Thread
Ask a Bookseller: a sci-fi romance that steers clear of gender

Brooklyn Lindsey of Crash Books in Lakeland, Florida calls "This is How You Lose the Time War" a time-traveling letter. The novel by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone follows a series of letters exchanged between Red and Blue, who are on opposite sides of a massive time war. Part of what makes this star-crossed-lovers novel interesting is that the authors take care not to place gender to these two characters. The two go to creative and appropriately sci-fi lengths to keep their correspondence secret. If discovered, their bond could spell their deaths. Or, it could change everything.
Writer Kathryn Schulz on the cyclical nature of love and loss

Writer and journalist Kathryn Schulz met the woman she would marry just 18 months before her cherished father died. Both events were seismic shifts in her life, and as she writes in her new memoir, "Lost and Found," the loss made the joy somehow sweeter. This Friday on Big Books and Bold Ideas, host Kerri Miller talked with Schulz about the way death and life intertwine and how love inevitably brings with it the prospect of pain. But ultimately, it’s worth the risk.
'Greenland' revives E.M. Forster — and spins a tale of racism and self-discovery

A Black, British aspiring novelist has three weeks to revise his historical novel about the love affair between E.M. Forster and an Egyptian tram driver, a complex relationship similar to his own. "Greenland," David Santos Donaldson's debut novel, is a smart, exhilarating work about racism and self-knowledge whose unwieldiness is compensated for by its daring.
Seven books to help you understand Jan. 6

The House select committee hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection began earlier this month and have already revealed new facts and information about the assault on the U.S. Capitol and the people involved. The committee is presenting the findings of its investigation into former President Donald Trump's responsibility in the attempted coup, the fake electors scheme, financial support of the insurrection, right-wing groups that breached the Capitol and which witnesses failed to cooperate with the select committee. To help you better understand these findings as they're presented over the next few weeks, NPR compiled a list of books on the events of Jan. 6 and its aftermath.
From the archives: Author Sue Miller on her novel 'Monogamy'

Families relationships are intricate and multilayered. Sue Miller’s "Monogamy" examines these complex ties within a family following the death of Graham, a beloved and gregarious father. After his death, his second wife Annie discovers Graham wasn’t always faithful during their 30-year marriage. The resulting grief, anger, reassessing and ultimate acceptance is the work of being human. 
In new edition of classic Watergate expose, Woodward and Bernstein link Nixon, Trump

"All the President's Men" is back. The publisher, Simon & Schuster, has issued a commemorative edition to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the burglary this week (although the original version of the book itself did not appear until two years later). The new edition is more than an artifact or a prompt for nostalgia. It coincides with the televised hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. And to underscore the connection, the authors have included a fresh, 15-page foreword explicitly linking Nixon and former President Donald Trump.
Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe today!

Preference Center ❘ Unsubscribe

This email was sent by: Minnesota Public Radio
480 Cedar Street Saint Paul, MN, 55101