The Age of Innocence: To the End

Welcome back to our series on Edith Wharton’s very complex (and wonderful) novel. This week, in discussing the ending, we find ourselves at, well, a loss for words. Nevertheless, we persist. We attempt to reckon with the complicated nature of May’s character, Newland’s fatalism and paralyzed life of the mind, the question of whether he’s a tragic character, how we may or may not re-think the countess in light of the ending, and much more! As always, happy listening! To learn about The Tapestry curriculum from the CiRCE Institute click here! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit closereads.substack.com/

You can listen to The Age of Innocence: To the End online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Age of Innocence: To the End is an episode from Close Reads Podcast by Goldberry Studios.

This episode is 90:05 long.

This episode was published on Jan 27, 2026.

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