The Marne | Litsy

The Marne: A Tale of the War | Edith Wharton

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Much belated #whartonbuddyread post...

I feel like this one landed oddly for me. I think I'd have preferred it either pared right back to a short story, or else fleshed out and all the themes and threads elaborated into a novel. But still an interesting read.

LitStephanie I haven't read this one, but that cat is beautiful! 9mo

llwheeler Thanks 😺 9mo

Graywacke Love the kitty. This is the only Wharton I haven‘t liked. 8mo

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Graywacke

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

pan

This is a tough one to review. It‘s depressing to read something poor from a writer you love.

It seems Wharton rushed this out during WWI, where she fully supported France. The result is a simplistic story of an American boy who grew partially in France, becoming a Francophile, and who volunteers. Germans are vilified en masse, while French are praised and Americans are gently disparaged for the limited US commitment.👇👇

Lcsmcat

Graywacke The book is essentially propaganda. Hopefully Age of Innocence will win me over again. #whartonbuddyread 1y

Graywacke The photo of Wharton with US soldiers is from 1918. The two soldiers on the right are sons of Teddy Roosevelt. (edited) 1y

Tamra Unfortunately, I agree. 1y

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Lcsmcat I think a lot of us agree! 1y

AnnR I actually read The Marne but didn't comment on it before. As to your assessment of the story and writing, I cannot disagree. Nicely said. (I was going to skip it, but posted a quick review.) (edited) 1y

batsy I like how thoughtfully and gently you've stated your criticisms. Haven't read this and probably won't; I tend to be quite resistant to "war fiction". I struggled a bit with Cather's One of Ours, as well. 1y

Graywacke @Tamra @Lcsmcat I did not have an original response 🙂 @Ann_Reads I‘ll look for review. Glad you read it…hmm, or maybe I should sympathize with you for reading it or something along those lines 😄 Anyway I‘ll be happy to see your comments. 1y

Graywacke @batsy interesting because it didn‘t feel gentle, but harsh. I did file down my claws a little. Interesting about your response to war fiction. It‘s not something I search out or avoid. i liked One of Ours and thought it was very well done. I‘m still listening to 7 moons, which is essentially war fiction. 1y

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Lcsmcat

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

The quote above is from Edith Wharton‘s report from May 13, 1915. She stayed in France during the war, working with the French Red Cross and writing for American newspapers urging American involvement in the war. The Marne has been described as “guilt propaganda” aimed not at men of fighting age, but at the wealthy and power who make the decisions. There are glimpses of her writing prowess, and she takes aim again at the wealthy. But.

Lcsmcat Does it hold up as a novella on its own? Had anyone but Wharton written it, would it be read today? On the other hand, I saw connections to the present with Ukraine. Thoughts? Quotes? #whartonbuddyread (edited) 1y

Lcsmcat @jewright @Louise @Sace @Suet624 @arubabookwoman @Currey @catebutler @Catherine_Willoughby @crazeedi @mdm139 @emilyhaldi @KathyWheeler @llwheeler @CarolynM @Cathythoughts @BookishTrish @graywacke @leftcoastzen @ann_reads @sparklemn @sarahbellum @imaslowreader @tamra @samanne 1y

Graywacke Well, it evolves into an odd work of propaganda. Troy‘s experience at the front is momentary and not inspiring. It‘s pointless. Her focus on ambulances and hospitals makes sense, because it was her own experience. But obviously she filtered out all the awful stuff… 1y

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Graywacke If I didn‘t know anything about the context, I would assume this was a book for young readers that intentionally filtered out bad or naughty stuff. 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke I‘ve been thinking how difficult it was for me as a woman to know how accurately Troy was portrayed. But filtering out all the awful stuff - I can think of several reasons. 1. She hadn‘t actually been in battle and wasn‘t a young man; 2. She couldn‘t put the real truth and still get it published; 3. The real awfulness of war would defeat her purpose of getting America involved. It could be all of those reasons or none of them. 1y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat hmm. I need to both think it through more and explain my thinking better. I think the “filtering” fits for a propaganda as well as for young readers. But the overall result has me wondering who she was writing this for, and how successful it might be. I might also worry about how comfortable I was with her effort. But her critique by nationality killed that. She lost me when she criticized “Germans” in general. Anyway your comment that … 1y

Graywacke …she was writing for American financiers has me trying to rethink it. It‘s different inspiring the privileged to pay up vs inspiring the masses to die trying to kill. Is the former ethically less reprehensible? 1y

Tamra This was my least favorite of her work I‘ve read. It felt rushed and ended abruptly, almost as if this was an unfinished work. Definitely a work of its time and as war propaganda it was difficult for me to empathize as a 21st C person. I can‘t erase what I know and the fear I feel from the threat & consequences of modern warfare. (edited) 1y

Tamra @Graywacke not different. The end is the same. 😒 1y

Currey @Tamra @Graywacke @Lcsmcat I concur. It left me quite irritated. It did not feel complete and what ending there was did not seem directed at her goal (if her goal was to get more money and resources for the war effort). I can imagine she wanted her own crowd back home to care and to be part of what she was going through in France but this did not capture much of her experience (Red Cross). 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat @Graywacke Perhaps the ambiguity of Troy‘s heroism, which was all intent and no effect, reflected what Wharton was really attempting to say. That the heroics are for naught if the people with the money and power are not making the right decisions. At any rate, it is my least favorite of her books so far. 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey I didn‘t see Troy‘s joining the battle as heroic until he tried to remove the fallen soldier from the battlefield. Even as an ambulance driver he came off as bumbling and inept to me. 1y

Lcsmcat @Tamra @Graywacke I‘m an uneasy pacifist. (Let someone point out the holocaust and I tend to sputter about what less lethal action earlier might have done.) But I agree with @Tamra that financing a war is still war. People, mostly the young and otherwise powerless, are going to die. That said, I don‘t claim to have the answer. But does Wharton also seem a little uneasy? Or is she a total war hawk? 1y

Tamra @Lcsmcat completely agree about the unease. I recognize force is sometimes necessary, but it‘s ugly. Glorifying it and/or using it for the sake of revenge makes me uncomfortable too. My impression is for Troy, it became in the end a personal battle to avenge his friend. Whether on a individual or societal level, that gives me pause. Lots to think about for certain! (edited) 1y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat @Tamra I‘m not really a pacifist except that I find wars terrible. In wwi there were no victim countries, except Belgium. (The victims were the machine-gun fodder, who probably largely died of other causes.) So I‘m really uncomfortable taking sides. All sides were culpable (and only the US came out well). In wwii Germany was really a terror. 1y

Graywacke Anyway if I can get past the “Germans” thing I can see that Wharton‘s book deserves a little attention. So I appreciate your flagging that. She‘s not gung-ho war. She‘s taking a perspectives and ultimately exposing the boring parts of war and the unromantic injuries. That is a little interesting. But it‘s a rushed sloppy, under-thought, under-meditated, work (edited) 1y

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Leftcoastzen

The Marne: A Tale of the War | Edith Wharton

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#WhartonBuddyRead can‘t wait for our discussion. Troy like many young men,was eager to go to war as a soldier or to help in some way.It‘s fair to say it‘s a propaganda piece.To be fair,most young men were drawn to the old myths & stories of heroism, positive change,& even winning the peace.In WWI the dynamic changed.A modern machine war.After,the lost generation would plunge into how horrible it was, so many lost,& how they were forever changed.

Lcsmcat, Graywacke

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Leftcoastzen

The Marne: A Tale of the War | Edith Wharton

#whartonbuddyread
Hemingway was working with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. He was on a canteen run to bring chocolate & Cigarettes to the soldiers. Got hit by mortar fire. Ended up falling in love with his nurse.Agnes thought he was too young.

Lcsmcat, Graywacke

Lcsmcat Thanks for sharing. I knew that was the basis for A Farewell to Arms, but I didn‘t know what point in his career he was at this point. 1y

Graywacke Cool info. Imagine getting hurt for cigarettes and chocolate… 1y

jewright Cigarettes and chocolate were basically currency during the war. 1y

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Lcsmcat

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

I pondered using a French graveyard to illustrate this week‘s section, because of that one moving scene. But looking at the quotes I highlighted, decided to go with WWI propaganda posters instead. Wharton‘s writing is powerful and I was arrested by several beautifully crafted phrases. But she leaves one in no doubt of what the “correct” response to war is. Dolce et decorum est and all that. I was surprised that 21 was the age to enlist ⬇️

Lcsmcat ⬆️ but a quick internet search showed it was the lower end of the draft age until just months before the end of the war. I also looked up the Plattsburg reference. They were like summer camps for grown men to train for war “just in case” starting in 1915. #whartonbuddyread (edited) 1y

Lcsmcat “The choristers were all good and kindly persons, shaken out of the rut of right feeling by the first real fright of their lives.” 1y

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Lcsmcat “while, even among the right-minded, there subsisted a vague feeling that war was an avoidable thing, which one had only to reprobate enough to prevent its recurrence.” 1y

Lcsmcat “No one was listened to for long, and the most eagerly-sought-for were like the figures in a movy-show, forever breathlessly whisking past to make way for others.” 1y

Lcsmcat “Troy, listening to the heated talk at his parents‘ table, perceived with disgust and wonder that at the bottom of the anti-war sentiment, whatever specious impartiality it put on, there was always the odd belief that life-in-itself—just the mere raw fact of being alive—was the one thing that mattered, and getting killed the one thing to be avoided.” 1y

Lcsmcat And some random phrases that grabbed my attention: “gag of neutrality” “The pacifists crept into their holes,”and “keeping up a kind of continuous picnic on the ruins of civilization.” 1y

Graywacke “to disappear … into the black gulf of this unfathomable thing called War, that seemed suddenly to have escaped out of the history books like a dangerous lunatic escaping from the asylum in which he was supposed to be securely confined” 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat I am happy to be back reading Wharton. However, I agree it does lean rather heavily toward “we have to get into this fight”. I do love the way she mocked the rich for doing their bit for the war effort by not being able to get home fast enough and having to have tea with a wounded soldier or a nurse or two. 1y

Graywacke I was really uncomfortable with the generic “Germans” are bad. In WWI every leader of every country was bad and every person was subject to where they happened to live. And in the US, anti-German _immigrant_ sentiment was a real hurtful problem. Unfortunately that colored everything for me. It‘s clearly a work of propaganda and as terrible as any other. I‘m obviously having trouble with that. (Although I probably should take a more distant view.) 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey I‘m trying to appreciate her ability to craft a beautiful sentence, and skewer the privileged, but I‘ll admit this isn‘t my favorite of hers. 1y

Louise Good morning, reading friends. Unfortunately, I‘ll need to skip this book and hope to join in for the next. I have just begun intensive physical therapy for chronic pain and find I‘m utterly exhausted between sessions. Reading your comments and quotes is helping me to gain a sense of the book vicariously. Thank you for that! 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Another great quote! And I too am taking it personally. Not because of my German ancestors (who mostly arrived here pre-revolution). But you‘re not wrong about the anti-immigrant sentiment- Cather pointed that out too. For me, however, it‘s the anti-pacifist contempt. As if being anti-war made one automatically a bad person. I‘m having to work to see the good writing behind the dogma. 1y

Lcsmcat @Louise I‘m so sorry. I hope the physical therapy works, but I know in the short-term it can really take it out of you. Keeping you in my thoughts. 1y

Louise @Lcsmcat Thank you so much, Linda. 💗 1y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat it was tricky, being a pacifist during wwi (or ii) 1y

Graywacke @Louise wish you well! 1y

arubabookwoman @Graywacke It very much has the feel of propaganda to me. Although we are at the halfway point in the book, I feel not far enough along in the book to make any comments. I'm wondering if the book was written too soon after the war (published 1918) to provide perspective. 1y

Graywacke @arubabookwoman i understand it was written during the war to help inspire US action and US troops. But was published too late to have possible impact. 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Yes, we don‘t talk about it much in the US, but it was to the extent that the Episcopal Bishop of Utah was forced to resign because he didn‘t support WWI. So even clergy were supposed to support war. (That whole “thou shalt not kill” thing was just a suggestion?) 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat @Graywacke The human capacity to quickly identify “other” and turn them into the enemy is a root cause of so much of the wrongs in this world. Wharton could have been pro-French and even supportive of defending the French people without making monsters of the other side 1y

Currey @Lcsmcat I am finding some intellectual stimulation in watching Wharton build a male character who has difficulty making himself understood (a common characteristic for Wharton) and who she wants us to sympathize with. What exactly makes him sympathetic? That he is sensitive enough to see the beauty of the French countryside or that he wants to fight for the French people? That he sits at the feet of the one girl who doesn‘t want war? 1y

Lcsmcat @arubabookwoman I do think it was too soon for perspective. But Wharton was too good f an author for that to be accidental. She wasn‘t trying to write history, but propaganda. We, knowing when the war ended, marvel at how “late” it was, but we have to remember that, in the thick of it, no one knew where the end would be. It had dragged on for years and could continue to do so. 1y

Louise @Graywacke Thanks, Dan! 1y

Lcsmcat @Currey I struggle with Troy. He‘s so young that I get that he doesn‘t understand the horrors of war and only sees the “glory.” But he seemed to have more of an internal, intellectual personality at the beginning that his sudden macho “gotta go fight” side is jarring. I‘m curious to see how he develops in the second half of the book. 1y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat anyone see wharton in Troy? And what do we make of the name Troy Belknap. Let‘s let Troy be our Trojan. But am I reading too much into the idea that bells wake you up from a nap? Our woke Trojan (but 1918 version)? (apologies for any goofball vibes here) 1y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Interesting thoughts about the name. Wharton has certainly used names to illustrate characters before. And yes, I think Troy‘s opinions are Wharton‘s. 1y

Leftcoastzen It is such a propaganda piece. I do love how in the beginning she still skewers her class , as the characters at first, seem just so put out by having their travel messed up than pondering the significance of the war. 1y

Leftcoastzen Also found it interesting that Troy wants to drive an ambulance. Both Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos did that.The U.S.didn‘t really join the war till April of 1917 and it was over in November 1918. (edited) 1y

Lcsmcat @Leftcoastzen My brain went straight to Hemingway too. Was he known enough at this point, or was ambulance driving just what young men did to be part of the war? 1y

Leftcoastzen It was young men trying to help.I think he was writing then but unpublished. 1y

jewright I see Troy as feeling as if he belongs to France. It‘s another home for him. I can totally see why he feels he needs to go help. Teenage boys are still this way. At that age, they still feel invincible. Yes, people die in wars, but that won‘t happen to them. 1y

Lcsmcat @jewright So true! Both about Troy‘s feelings for France and the invincible teenage boy. 😀 1y

CarolynM I‘m on holiday and I haven‘t managed to start this one yet, I probably won‘t get there until you‘ve all finished but I‘ll come back and look at the comments later. 1y

Lcsmcat @CarolynM Enjoy your holiday! 1y

Tamra @Leftcoastzen Wharton had such a deft way of skewering! 😉 It‘s one of the things I love about her writing. 1y

Tamra Finishing Chapter 6, I am left wondering just how we‘re supposed to feel about Troy. I‘m rather ambivalent, which is no doubt intentional. (edited) 1y

Lcsmcat @Tamra It‘s like he‘s supposed to be “Everyman” so we don‘t get him as a distinct person. 1y

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Graywacke

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

Started. Not much to it yet. #whartonbuddyread

Lcsmcat

Lcsmcat Not a spoiler, but I think we stop right as it‘s getting going. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I guess that‘s the danger in dividing a short book. 1y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat has other issues. But I‘ll save for Saturday. 🙂 1y

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LitsyEvents

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

Repost for @Lcsmcat

A reminder, as you‘re planning your January reading, that the #whartonbuddyread resumes with her WWI propaganda novel The Marne on January 14th.

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Lcsmcat

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

A reminder, as you‘re planning your January reading, that the #whartonbuddyread resumes with her WWI propaganda novel The Marne on January 14th.

Lcsmcat @jewright @Louise @Sace @Suet624 @arubabookwoman @Currey @catebutler @Catherine_Willoughby @crazeedi @mdm139 @emilyhaldi @rubyslippersreads @KathyWheeler @llwheeler @CarolynM @Cathythoughts @BookishTrish @graywacke @leftcoastzen @ann_reads @sparklemn @sarahbellum @imaslowreader @tamra @samanne 1y

rubyslippersreads I‘m so swamped, I‘m going to sit this one out. 1y

Lcsmcat @rubyslippersreads OK. Do you want to be tagged for the next one? 1y

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Tamra Thank you for the reminder! 1y

Liz_M @LitsyEvents 1y

Leftcoastzen I‘m in! Thanks for the reminder! 1y

CarolynM Thanks Linda. I‘m hoping to be on holidays then. I will definitely read the book, but I might not be around for the discussion. 1y

Lcsmcat @CarolynM You can always chime in later. 1y

Louise Thanks for the reminder. I wasn‘t sure when things were going to get started again. Will order the book asap. Happy New Year! 1y

Lcsmcat @Louise Happy New Year to you too! 1y

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LitsyEvents

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

#Whartonbuddyread plans for January read all up. See the original post from @lcmscat to join in.
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2504846

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Lcsmcat

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

I‘ll send a reminder closer to time, but the votes are in and, it‘s a tie. 🤷🏻‍♀️ So I made an executive decision to split the book across two weeks. That much more discussion to be had with the interesting readers who make up the #whartonbuddyread.

Leftcoastzen Thanks ! I‘ve really enjoyed reading Wharton with everyone ! 1y

CarolynM Thanks. Looking forward to it 🙂 1y

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Liz_M @LitsyEvents 1y

Graywacke Thanks 👍 1y

Currey Sounds good. Thank you @Lcsmcat 1y

Louise Looking forward! Thanks! 1y

Cathythoughts Thankyou ! Looking forward to it too. 1y

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Lcsmcat

The Marne | Wharton, Edith

Hey #whartonbuddyread gang. This is our next selection. Due to subject matter (WWI) I‘m suggesting we read it in January, after the holidays. Here‘s my question- although it has 12 chapters, the whole thing is under 100 pages. Do you want to do it all in one go, or split the discussion across two weeks? Let me know and I‘ll post a schedule.

Tamra Thank you for tagging me! I‘m flexible. (edited) 1y

sarahbellum I‘m going to sit this one out, but please continue to tag me for future Wharton reads 🙂 1y

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Currey All at one go is fine with me but can do anything. 1y

Leftcoastzen I kinda like half / half but sure I could manage in one go ! 1y

AnnR I'm not certain if I'll be joining in yet. I like a 2 week schedule but please go with whatever everyone else prefers. Thank you. 1y

Graywacke I‘m ok either way, but vote for 2 weeks so we have some of our discussion in mind while we read the end. 1y

SamAnne I‘d love to join. 1y

CarolynM I‘d vote for a all in one go, but I‘m happy to do a 2 week schedule too. 1y

Lcsmcat @SamAnne I‘ll add you to the tag list! 1y

jewright One go works for me! 1y

llwheeler In one go is fine with me 1y

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