Xingu 1916
4/5
()
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton was born in 1862 to a prominent and wealthy New York family. In 1885 she married Boston socialite 'Teddy' Wharton but the marriage was unhappy and they divorced in 1913. The couple travelled frequently to Europe and settled in France, where Wharton stayed until her death in 1937. Her first major novel was The House of Mirth (1905); many short stories, travel books, memoirs and novels followed, including Ethan Frome (1911) and The Reef (1912). She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with The Age of Innocence (1920) and she was thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also decorated for her humanitarian work during the First World War.
Read more from Edith Wharton
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mother's Recompense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Touchstone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Glimpses of the Moon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Custom of the Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Children Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Maid: The 'Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Son at the Front Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/550 Feminist Masterpieces you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Writing of Fiction: The Classic Guide to the Art of the Short Story and the Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoman Fever and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reef Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Works of Edith Wharton. Illustrated: The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome and others Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Backward Glance: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Italian Villas and Their Gardens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoman Fever: Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Custom of the Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Morocco Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Here and Beyond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Morocco Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Short Stories Of Edith Wharton - Volume I: Madame de Treymes & Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Children Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twilight Sleep Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Greatest American Short Stories (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Xingu 1916
Related ebooks
I Live a Life Like Yours: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Girl Who Was Saturday Night: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Existential Englishman: Paris Among the Artists Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Man on the Third Floor Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Playthings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReptile Memoirs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House Without Windows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnd Then She Fell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew Millennium Boyz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Yellow Wallpaper Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Catastrophe: And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Veins of the Ocean: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Transit of Venus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dead Rock Stars: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Kind of Vanishing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dolls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs Figs in Autumn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe and Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDr. Haggard's Disease Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Beginner’s Guide to Murder Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Little Known Facts: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5You Have Me to Love Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bookworm: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sweet Undoings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Philosophy Resistance Squad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBottle Grove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love and Theft: A Memoir of Mental Illness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Liquid Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heart Is a Burial Ground Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pilgrim: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Xingu 1916
43 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Classics are not my thing although I try, but this is such an entertaining story
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a story of contradictions. Even though this story is less that fifty pages long, it packs a wallop of a punch. Though billed as a satire it is also a humorous and witty commentary on human psychology. Some even think it is a cerebral jab at Henry James after he criticized Wharton's writing. No matter how "Xingu" is perceived or meant to be perceived, Mrs. Roby is my hero.In a nutshell, a group of snobbish high society women form a lunch group to gather and discuss didactic topics and one-up each other. In their view, the weakest link is Mrs. Roby, a seemingly not-so-bright woman who doesn't appear to fit in with them. She asks all the wrong questions and clearly doesn't know societal protocol. When the group invites an even snobbier author to discuss her latest book, "The Wings of Death," the event falls apart. Osric Dane is even more dismissive than the snobs in the group. It isn't until Mrs. Roby one-ups them all by mentioning a xingu philosophy. No one has ever heard of xingu but they all, including author Osric Dane, must pretend they know it well. Only after Mrs. Roby and Ms. Dane leave does the group dare to look up the word xingu and discover they have been duped. Xingu is actually a river in Brazil.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Have you ever pretended to know what was going on just to keep up with a conversation and researched the topic afterward? This is a very short story that deals with just such a conversation. Amusing, quick read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition.I don't normally review individual short stories, but one of my reading resolutions this year is to read works by Edith Wharton, and this story was available at Project Gutenberg.It's an amusing tale about a group of ladies who meet to discuss artistic and intellectual subjects over lunch. When they invite the author of the acclaimed novel "The Wings of Death" to attend a meeting, they find themselves tied in knots by the argumentative author and the mischievous Mrs. Roby, whom they have always considered insufficently intellectual and a failure as a member of the Lunch Club.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was pretty funny!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thin was a comical short story about a pretentious group of woman who met weekly to discuss culture and the likes. The funny thing about it is they really didn't know what they were talking about and this new member Mrs. Roby really put them in their place.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A short story first published in the early twentieth century, Xingu deals with intellectual pretension. So long as the reader does not have a problem with reading a book with the earlier setting, this book is a clever, engaging, quick read.
Book preview
Xingu 1916 - Edith Wharton
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Xingu, by Edith Wharton
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Xingu
1916
Author: Edith Wharton
Release Date: January 3, 2008 [EBook #24131]
Last Updated: January 8, 2013
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK XINGU ***
Produced by David Widger
XINGU
By Edith Wharton
Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner's Sons
Contents
I
Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated Osric Dane,
on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to be present at the next meeting.
The club was to meet at Mrs. Bellinger's. The other members, behind her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on.
Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club's distinguished guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth could afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set herself. An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep a footman clearly intended her to maintain an equally specialized staff of responsibilities. It was the more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society were bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have been so tenacious of the right to entertain Osric Dane.
The question of that lady's reception had for a month past profoundly moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as Mrs. Leveret were fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the author of The Wings of Death,
no forebodings disturbed the conscious adequacy of Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. The Wings of Death
had, in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck's suggestion, been chosen as the subject of discussion at the last club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled to express her own opinion or to appropriate whatever sounded well in the comments of the others.
Mrs. Roby alone had abstained from profiting by the opportunity; but it was now openly recognised that, as a member of the Lunch Club, Mrs.