The Touchstone has ratings and reviews. Sara said: Only her second published work, The Touchstone shows all the promise that Edith Wharton would .
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I reckon I'd like to be able to do that - but then, I'm the sort of person who likes quizzes. My dream job would be as the Chaser on The Chase which, if you don't know it, is a daytime quiz programme where a team Go on ask me a question. My dream job would be as the Chaser on The Chase which, if you don't know it, is a daytime quiz programme where a team of four attempt to escape the Chaser, a professional quizzer, as the Chaser hunts them down: Sadly, I don't even know enough to be the Chaser, let alone the Touchstone.
Because the Touchstone really can answer any question you ask it. Any question at all. Including the one about how to make a destructor death ray shooting pink plasma. So, perhaps not the sort of thing you want to give to just anyone. But, the question is, who should you give it to? They are, in fact, the Guardians of the Galaxy, only this version does not feature talking raccoons and ambulant trees but rather a somewhat ruffled civil servant.
Now, this is the first of Andrew Norriss's books where I don't think I agree with the answer. I'm not sure any institution could guard such knowledge since the knowledge would, in the end, corrupt the institution, leading the, in this case, Guardians, to see themselves as more important than that which they're guarding, ie.
It's what happens to institutional bureaucracies over time. I'd much rather have Douglas, our year-old hero, in charge of the Touchstone than the Guardians. I sort of think I'd even prefer the gung ho adventuress who gives him the Touchstone to have it. But then, there is one question that will answer with surety what your attitude to the Touchstone would be, and it's the same question that was posed to Achilles: When I was fourteen, I posed that question to my classmates and, to my surprise, received a unanimous reply: I was the only one, at the time, who wanted glory and fame.
I suspect that was because, to that point, I'd never really been unhappy, and, when you're 14, the prospect of dying at 28 seems just as dim and distant as dying at The Touchstone is for those who want a long and happy life and, as I've got older, I have come to appreciate that much, much more. But, in our increasingly safety conscious world, I fear we lose something by giving no avenue for the young glory hunter: If so, it's chief effect seems to be a proliferation of cute cat videos and the further loss of personal memory; if everything can be called up, why bother to recall it?
But, I suspect, memory is an underappreciated aspect of intelligence. We are currently applying a worldwide test to see if we can do without it. I suspect the answer will be no - and I don't think I need the Touchstone to tell me that. But I do need The Touchstone for another take on how to write a book without a single excess word or spurious phrase like that one!
Read it, tell others about it, answer questions on it. Make it your touchstone, if not your cornerstone. When I was a kid, I found and picked up this book lying in our dusty bookshelf at home and read the book my sibling loved. I used to wonder why they loved it, so I gave it a go and discovered one of the best books I've read, one that gives me nostalgia and one that made me fall in love with the science fiction genre. The book, with its capturing words and thrilling writing, had me head over heels over the idea of a touchstone; that just a touch away is answers to almost anything. To this day I w When I was a kid, I found and picked up this book lying in our dusty bookshelf at home and read the book my sibling loved.
To this day I want one. Other than the superb touchstone, I loved the story; the characters felt real and I could relate to them, and the writing was written beautifully.
I'd recommend everyone, especially kids, to read the brilliant, best book. Quite a simple little story that actually could be considered quite deep and thought provoking. What if you had the knowledge to achieve anything? What would you do? Be careful how you ask the question!! This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The hero here is 12 y. Oct 19, Jane rated it it was amazing. My favourite of Andrew Norriss's books. Jun 06, Amina Alina rated it it was amazing.
Liaba Hassan rated it really liked it Apr 06, Nilay Kaya rated it liked it Jan 07, Free download available at Project Gutenberg. I didn't know but this is Wharton's first novella and her second book which was published in Stephen Glennard betrays a former love - Mrs. Aubyn, selling her letters to him so that he may raise the money to marry his beautiful fiancee.
Excellent plot, a quite enjoyable reading. Another little gem of the literature. View all 8 comments. Her writing here was every bit as accomplished, acerbic and exquisite as in her more known works, though occasionally so much so that the complexity of the sentences made me go back and look at them again, partly to savour them and partly to comprehend them.
The story is simple. A man has saved the love letters written to him by a woman who was a famous writer but who has died. The letters will fetch him a small fortune, with which he can marry the woman of his dreams, but he pays the price of a guilty conscience. Meanwhile, everyone around him the usual Wharton-esque hypocrites revels in the letters but finds the revelation of them a deplorable business. Having read several of her other works, I found the ending a little bland, but I still enjoyed the novella.
Read it for the gorgeous prose, the interesting insights and for Edith Wharton. View all 7 comments. What is it with Edith Wharton and "unromantic" love? In The Age of Innocence we see love thwarted and denied; in Ethan Fromme, misguided and perverted; in Summer, disgraced and hardened. In The Touchstone, the theme of love continues to be unidealistic.
It is betrayed and exposed, even sold. Glennard, a man struggling to make ends meet, is once engaged to a woman who was a famous literary figure. Finding that there is a demand for any letters that would reveal much more of the life of the famous What is it with Edith Wharton and "unromantic" love? Finding that there is a demand for any letters that would reveal much more of the life of the famous author, Glennard secretly sells the letters to a publisher.
With the money he gets from the sale, he starts anew and marries a beautiful woman, Alexa Trent. Thinking that life would be smooth-sailing from then on, Glennard belatedly realizes the effect of his action. When the letters are published and sold like the proverbial hot cakes, he is slowly and belligerently besieged by criticism.
Seen as uncallous by many readers, the letters' publication exposes many confessions so intimate that their very exposure is seen by many as downright betrayal.
The Touchstone by Edith Wharton
Glennard is not a bad man. He didn't sell the letters for malicious reasons. He was in dire strait and the letters, being rightfully his, provides a way out of his predicament and he takes it, thinking that it wouldn't matter to his former lover as she has long died. But actions like his have ways of backfiring, and his did big time. Seeing the public's negative reactions, he begins to feel guilty.
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The torment escalates when his very wife reads the letters and finds out he owns them. This is where Wharton's genius emerges: Wharton worded it succinctly and graphically that Glennard's emotions take off from the pages and begin to breath. Like in her other novels, Wharton describes the process through the perspective of a tormented soul.
She does it so well you'd think she was in the know. It was not bad, but kinda melodramatic and the characters were rather annoying. As a satire it was good. A nice short read, with some interesting lines. Mar 25, Wanda rated it really liked it Shelves: Free download at Project Gutenberg - http: Jul 02, Captain Sir Roddy, R. I believe that The Touchstone may have been Wharton's first published work of fiction too. The novella tells the story of Stephen Glennard a youngish gentleman of New York's upper-crust society who is trying to find the financial wherewithal to marry his fiance, Miss Alexa Trent.
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Sitting in his club one evening he encounters an advertisement from a Professor Joslin who is looking for any pa I just finished reading The Touchstone again, in conjunction with reading Henry James's The Aspern Papers. Sitting in his club one evening he encounters an advertisement from a Professor Joslin who is looking for any papers and correspondence from the late author, Miss Margaret Aubyn. Miss Aubyn just happens to be the woman that Glennard had had a long-term intimate relationship with almost up until she died a few years earlier.
In short order, the reader discovers that Glennard has bundles and bundles of very personal letters that he received from Miss Aubyn during the course of their relationship. He then decides to have them published, and the two-volumes become a huge literary hit with the reading public. As people begin reading the volumes, particular those in Glennard's circle of friends, he finds out that most people are frankly appalled that anyone would expose these intimate letters to public scrutiny.
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It is not long before Glennard himself begins to doubt his own motives for publishing the letters, and it begins to negatively impact his own relationship with his now wife, Alexa. In fact, they've even bought themselves a nice little house on the outskirts of New York City with the riches he's gained by selling the letters. Even Alexa--who doesn't know that these intimate letters were addressed to Glennard, or that he's sold them--is basically horrified that anyone could be so callous and black-hearted as to open this incredibly personal window into Miss Aubyn's heart and soul.
For much of the novella the story revolves around the struggle and tension between Glennard's desire to do right and provide a meaningful income and life for his new wife, and the increasing guilt he is feeling for his betrayal of his former relationship with Miss Aubyn. It builds to an important and emotionally powerful climactic scene involving Glennard and Alexa. The topics of personal privacy, betrayal, trust, and the role of literary biographers and academic research are really front-and-center in both novellas.
Which is perhaps not all that surprising considering that Edith Wharton and Henry James not only knew each other well, but became very good friends. Finally, The Touchstone truly is a most excellent introduction to the fiction of Edith Wharton, the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in , for her novel, The Age of Innocence Jul 21, Marita rated it liked it.
Maybe Wharton's charm and acerbity wear with the more of her books that you read or maybe this one just is not her best. Lovely writing, some interesting insights but ultimately difficult to be invested in. The idea is compelling: But if you've read Wharton, from the get-go you know it's not going to pan out all too well.
And then it doesn't. And I couldn't quite get myself to care about any of the characters. A Maybe Wharton's charm and acerbity wear with the more of her books that you read or maybe this one just is not her best. And that was that. Jan 05, Maureen Lo rated it really liked it Shelves: How can he betrayed his ex gf's though dead personal privacy and trust by publishing her love letters to him just to get rich and marry someone else? Apr 23, Kailey rated it it was amazing. Raised more questions than it answered, which is the best thing a book can do. Most notably for me, Wharton raises my favorite question asked by female writers of her period: It brings to mind the dilemma at the background of most of Kate Chopin's work - the irreconcilable natures of the "life that is within and the life that is without.
The premise of The Touchstone tugs at your imagination and Edith Wharton's lovely use of language entices further. The building of tension is palpable, but I was a little frustrated with the ending. I think it could have been more dramatic had Alexa reacted differently or Margaret Aubyn been alive. It's interesting how Wharton plays with morality, both in theory and in practice.
All in all, I liked this novella and can recommend it. Nov 27, Jennifer D. Munro rated it really liked it. Fantastic plot, long chewy sentences, surprisingly happy ending, published in and stands the test of time. Nov 23, Terence rated it really liked it Shelves: I have long been a fan of Edith Wharton, and feel she obviously was an inspiration for F.
This story, her first novella, is so tightly wound and beautifully executed that it is a perfect example of pacing and intrigue. Wharton knew how to cut too, "Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair" and expose the constructs of love at her time. It's a quick read and just solidifies her for me as one of Ame I have long been a fan of Edith Wharton, and feel she obviously was an inspiration for F. It's a quick read and just solidifies her for me as one of America's great writers. Conscience can play an important role in the behaviour of an individual.
But, does one always act upon it? This is the dilemma with which the reader is confronted in The Touchstone, one of the earliest works of Edith Wharton. A young lawyer, in a precarious economic situation, has the means of obtainig the affluence and, consequently, of obtaining the girl Conscience can play an important role in the behaviour of an individual.
A young lawyer, in a precarious economic situation, has the means of obtainig the affluence and, consequently, of obtaining the girl he loves. But this means is morally reprehensible, in his opinion. Wharton builds up the ensuing fight between good and bad, between the accepatable and unacceptable to such a pitch, that the reader cannot but feel himself involved into this psychological battle.
But, is there a possibility of a redemption? Can one undo what has been done? Or, at least repair the deed committed by an act of atonement? View all 3 comments. The Touchstone is an early Edith Wharton story about a man of no principles. He was loved, but could not return that love.
He held letters from a woman who loved him and, after her death, sold them, creating a rift in his own marriage. While critics write Wharton was depicting the universal roles of men and women in her time, I found the book loaded with phrases and instances that expressed subtle rage. No one I read has said this, but I think the book was an outlet for Wharton to express her a The Touchstone is an early Edith Wharton story about a man of no principles. No one I read has said this, but I think the book was an outlet for Wharton to express her anger at "doing, being and saying the expected thing.
It places the woman who loved him in the category of the unloved and marks him as less of a man. And it was all for money. Apr 29, Mark Walsh rated it really liked it. This is the first Wharton ive read - it was collected with 3 other novellas. I love this story! Her writing word for word is beautiful.
So is the way she desribes her characters' thoughts and feelings. Jun 01, Dawn rated it it was ok. I loved "Ethan Frome," the first Wharton work I read. I did not love this novella. Much ado about not much. And unless I'm missing something, Alexa mentions "the baby" early on, and then never again. Sep 08, Karlan rated it it was amazing Shelves: Wharton's novella captures the psychological problems of a young man who should be happy but who destroys his own chances. Owning a Nook has led me to read more books which I missed when young. This return to authors from the past may be an unforeseen consequence of the E reader.
Stephen Glennard is a frustrated man.