Book Review: The Buccaneers

OK, because I'm supposed to leave in a couple of hours to go take an exam about local statutes governing the practice of public accounting, and because I know nothing about said statutes, I thought I would procrastinate a little further and a write a quick review of The Buccaneers, which I was finally able to finish this weekend.

First, I have to admit that I haven't read Edith Wharton in a while. Back in the day I made my way through Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and what have you. Those works are all in the general vein of, "Person becomes entangled in unfortunate romantic circumstance -- person realizes too late that he/she has missed out on one true chance for happiness. Person resigns self to fate, facing the long, unfulfilling years ahead with grim sense of duty." Great literature, but not exactly fairytale endings.

The Buccaneers was unusual in two regards: first, only about 70% of the work was actually written by Wharton herself. She died prior to its completion, and Marion Mainwaring, a little-known (as far as I can tell) author who had studied Wharton's work for years, completed it based on a synopsis of the book that accompanied Wharton's original manuscript. What made this challenging was that Wharton had departed from the synopsis at many places in the manuscript, so the final work had to be adapted accordingly.

The second unusual feature is that the ending is not classic Wharton; I'll leave it at that so as to not spoil the book for anyone.

I enjoyed the book immensely, but I have one suggestion: don't do what I did and flip to the back and read all the details about which parts of the book are original and which parts are new. Because I knew exactly where Wharton's manuscript left off and Mainwaring's began, I found myself subconsciously critiquing the Mainwaring portions -- everything from the dialogue to the word choice to the behavior of certain characters. This did hinder my enjoyment of certain parts of the book and in hindsight, I would have been better off reading for enjoyment first and examining the details after the fact. That said, I don't think readers of Wharton's other novels will be disappointed with this work.