The Reef: An Introduction
Reading Schedule, Major Themes, and Key Characters
Welcome to our fourth read in the Year with Edith Wharton project! Published in 1912, The Reef examines morality, desire, and—since it’s Wharton—social conventions at the turn of the twentieth century. The novel is set in Paris and rural France, two places close to Wharton’s heart. We follow four characters whose lives become entangled in a web of romantic complications and ethical dilemmas. There are two love triangles and an ambiguous ending for our main romantic interests. In true Wharton style, there is no simple resolution to complex moral questions. I’m gearing up for a messy but enjoyable experience!
The Reef is often called Wharton’s most “Jamesian” novel. Wharton and Henry James were more than just peers; they were lifelong friends. James admired The Reef and was impressed that she could write such a masterpiece while dealing with one of her husband’s worst depressive episodes.
The Reef is charged with personal memories. The most classical of her novels in composition, it comes from the heart of what James called one of the 'whirligig' phases of her life. Edith Wharton was fifty in 1912. She was coping with one of her husband's severe depressive collapses, and was constantly on the move. In these conditions she completed a novel which betrays nothing of personal strain, while speaking of the sources of fear, uncertainty, desire and guilt with the impersonal authority of art. James saw the achievement immediately. 'I think she is very wonderful,' he wrote to Howard Sturgis, 'to have been able to write the exquisite Reef ...with that amount of harum-scarum banging about her ears'.1
Some critics have also suggested that through writing The Reef, Wharton is processing her emotions regarding her passionate love affair and sexual awakening with Morton Fullerton, while also learning about and coming to terms with her husband's many affairs during their mostly sexless marriage. Critics propose that Anna and Sophy symbolize two sides of Wharton as she tries to cope during this ‘whirligig’ phase of life. I’m interested to see how the personal is addressed (or not addressed) in this novel.
Reading Schedule:
My edition is divided into five parts, and we will spend about a week on each. This relaxed pace should give people time to catch up if they join the read-along late. It also allows us a few weeks at the end of August to catch up and discuss the novel. If you don’t have a copy of The Reef and want to join, you can download a free e-book from Project Gutenberg. There’s also a LibriVox recording if you prefer audiobooks over eBooks.
I plan to read Daisy Miller by Henry James while we work through The Reef to see if I agree with the “Jamesian” comparison. Feel free to join me in this bonus read.
There is also a movie adaptation called Passion’s Way (1999) starring Timothy Dalton and Sela Ward. I’m trying to track down a copy so I can watch this in the last week of August. It appears to be available for free on Tubi, as well as on several paid streaming platforms.
Themes and Major Characters:
Here are some key themes to keep in mind while reading:
Class Hierarchies: A very common theme in Wharton novels. How are characters from different classes perceived and treated?
Gender Double Standards: How does society judge men and women for similar actions?
Knowledge v. Ignorance: Is it better to know the truth or to be ignorant? In what ways does knowledge undermine trust between the characters in The Reef?
Social Conventions v. Personal Desire: How are social conventions in tension or even direct conflict with personal desire? How do social constraints force the characters to sacrifice personal happiness in the name of propriety?
Modernism and Psychological Realism: Wharton examines the psychological effects of external events. Although The Reef isn’t an experimental novel in terms of form or prose style, it does explore Modernist themes such as the uncertainty of knowledge, the instability of truth, and the complexities of human consciousness.
Finally, let’s take a look at some of the characters we’re going to meet in The Reef:
Anna Leath: An American widow living in France who rekindles an affair with her former lover, George Darrow.
George Darrow: A diplomat who never got over his love for Anna Leath, but when she brushes him off, strikes up a flirtation with a young aspiring actress he meets on his crossing to France.
Sophy Viner: A young American woman of ambiguous social status who aspires to become an actress. She becomes entangled first with George and later with Anna’s step-son, Owen.
Owen Leath: Anna's idealistic stepson, whose engagement to Sophy catalyzes the central conflict.
Madame de Chantelle: Owen's grandmother and Anna's formidable mother-in-law from her first marriage. She’s the matriarch of this family and attempts to control the mess of love triangles that arise between Anna, George, Sophy, and Owen.
I look forward to discussing The Reef with you over the next two months as part of my Year with Edith Wharton. I’m learning how to host a year-long read-along like this as I go (you can probably tell), and I wonder if it would be helpful to us to use the chat feature here on Substack for more centralized discussions. I will send out a chat thread for The Reef, and we can see if we like it. Please share your thoughts on this and any other ways to improve the read-along in the comments.
I hope this little introduction has you itching to dive into The Reef (see what I did there). I look forward to reading all your comments as we go along. As always, thank you for joining me on this literary journey.
Happy Reading!
Gooder, Jean. “Unlocking Edith Wharton: An Introduction to ‘The Reef.’” The Cambridge Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 1, 1986, pp. 33–52. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42966603.
From your outline of "The Reef" above, it seems a little reminiscent of Jane Austen's "Persuasion", at least, from the point-of-view of the storyline of former lovers George and Anna being given a second chance at a lifetime relationship.
I see by your Instagram post that you’re reading an edition of “The Reef” with an introduction by Louis Auchincloss. The edition I’m reading includes an introduction by Julian Barnes (which is the only part of the book I’ve read so far), in which he lists some of the “key words” or themes he sees evident in Wharton’s novel.
One such word is “natural”, in the sense of being a spontaneous, true-to-yourself person as opposed to one who is more constrained by social norms and expectations. Barnes also singles out the word “veil” to identify how we often conceal our true emotions from those around us. “Life” is another charged word in the story; there are those who embrace and enjoy life with all its risks and uncertainties, and those who are intimidated by the world and try to get through life as unscathed as possible. Other words Barnes sees as resonating through the novel are “house”, in the sense of how a person’s home reflects the person who lives in it, as well as “luck”, as we are all victims of what chance and fortune may cast in our way. “Silence”, too, is an important concept in “The Reef”, as what the characters choose not to say to each other can be just as--or even more important--as what they do choose to say. Silence can be an effective way of communicating.
Barnes has a few more observations to make, such as the meaning of the reef in the novel’s title, but I’ll leave it there for now.