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“If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked yourself who he was…��
- Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

Famously known as an acute observer of class and society in classics such as The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome strays far from her typical stomping grounds, leaving behind wealth and privilege to follow a struggling farmer who is exceedingly close to complete financial ruin. Despite the drastic change of scenery, she nevertheless delivers a hammer-blow of a doomed love story, in one of the least likely places imaginable.

The setting is the aptly named (and fictitious) village of Starkfield, a bleak and grim place that �� like Narnia �� seems caught in an endless winter. A million miles from New York City high society, the novel’s titular lead is a young man caught in a loveless marriage with a sickly, possibly hypochondriacal wife named Zenobia. The only glimmer of sunshine in Ethan’s gray world is his wife’s cousin, Mattie Silver, a beautiful, lively young woman who has come to live with them.

This rather dreary love triangle provides the setup for Wharton’s short, well-executed tragedy. I don’t think it is spoiling anything to say that this is a combination of Shakespeare, Anna Karenina, and the Winter Olympics.

Ethan Frome is a framed story, with a prologue and epilogue narrated in the first-person by an engineer who has traveled to Starkfield to do some work. While there, this observer becomes haunted by the image of an aged Ethan, the survivor of an ambiguously-labeled “smash-up.��

It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives�� were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.

Because of a snowstorm, the narrator is invited into Ethan's house, where he ostensibly learns the bits and pieces of Ethan’s tale. From there, and for the bulk of the book, Wharton switches to the third-person for what amounts to an extended flashback, showing how Ethan came to be that “ruin of a man.��

At 157 pages in length, Wharton has to make every word count. There is no fat, no wasted moments. The characters are drawn boldly. Though they lack great depth, they are mostly memorable. Of the trifecta, Mattie makes the least impression. She is a bit of a cipher, more symbol than person, existing mainly to show Ethan that there are worlds within worlds, and that he has the possibility of a different life.

Ethan is frustrating. Physically strong, he is mentally �� and perhaps morally �� weak. Just about everything that goes wrong in this novel could have been avoided by even average decision making. Then again, if everyone in fiction used common sense, there would be a lot less drama worth reading about. Though I didn't like him, I can't quite shake him, either.

In my opinion, Zenobia �� who goes by Zeena �� is the most memorable of Wharton’s creations. Heck, I'd go so far as to say that she's one of the more exceptional low-key villains I've encountered in American letters. Without ever raising her voice or hatching a plot, she skillfully wields her chilly demeanor, her highly refined passive-aggressiveness, and her preternatural understanding of her husband to get exactly what she wants. Though she is mostly hateful, Wharton eventually gives us a few insights into her personality that enrich our understanding of her.

Ethan Frome is a work that is extremely straightforward. The symbols are unambiguous, as is its central theme, that of small-town conventionality stunting an individual’s ability to find happiness and growth via unconventional pathways. Yet, the simplicity is deceptive. Though uncomplicated, the prose does a beautiful job of conveying the oppressiveness of Ethan’s existence, where the walls �� represented by the weather, community expectations, and economic failures �� are constantly closing in.

When I first read this is high school, I really liked it, and not only because it can be read comfortably in just a couple sittings, and requires no parsing of language to get its meaning. No, my attachment sprung from the repressed passion between Ethan and Mattie, and the way it seemed like the entire universe balanced on their love. At the time, such romantic nonsense really appealed to my sensibilities. As one example among many, I saw Titanic in the theater five times. Five times. While I truly love the historical ship, I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t also there for Leo and Kate and their brilliantly-flaming meteor of a relationship.

Now far removed from high school, I appreciate Ethan Frome on a different level. Ethan’s flaw is in failing to recognize that his problems go beyond the constricting ethical framework in which he is hemmed. His failure is not one of imagination �� he knows there is a better life out there, for the taking �� but of motivation. Hamlet-like in his dithering, Ethan has an unfortunate genius for choosing the worst option to a difficult question. Instead of looking for the way forward, he is looking for a way out, and that is not the same thing.

Ethan Frome rests on its ending. After all, from the very first page, we are teased with the riddle of Ethan’s fateful moment. For the book to work, the denouement has to work. I think it does. The finale is a bit operatic, bordering on black comedy, but it is effective because of Wharton’s unadorned, just-the-facts style. The epilogue, as well, provides a powerful kicker.

This is a novel that is written with assuredness and confidence. Wharton seems to know exactly what she’s doing with every word. Because of this, and because of her talent, Ethan Frome certainly belongs in the category of “classics.�� With that said, it can feel like a minor one. It does not grapple with huge ideas or say something profound about an age. It’s just the story of an unhappy marriage, of a man one step shy of a fool, who can’t get anything to work. For all that, it’s really hard to forget. Certainly, it'll make you think twice about outdoor winter recreation.