Travel Writing: “mirroring” Edith Wharton

For Travel Journalism class, which is run by experienced travel journalist Susan Grossman, we were given a passage by travel writer Edith Wharton and told to take a few introductory words from one of her sentences and “mirror” her style of writing.

You can find some of her travel writings here.

This is what I eventually produced… 

 

Travel Writing a la Edith Wharton

And nowhere in the world in this century could one still see something so awkwardly sophisticated. In this darkened light of muted glamour, amidst mismatched chairs and chandeliers hung too low, men sit tapping cigarettes into grimy ashtrays, leering at the ladies sitting cross-legged on the sofas across from them, their lipstick pressed onto napkins beside them, the abandoned remnants of food smeared onto plates perched precariously on tablecloths between their elbows.

Moonlight filters across their faces from the small cracked windowpanes embedded high into walls, and as the tired clock chimes an hour far behind its schedule, someone exerts a hearty guffaw, attracting nearby eyes to watch her head thrown back in triumphant glee. The laughing woman lowers her head and stamps her heeled knee-high boot on the wooden flooring, causing the men in the basement below her to startle and jerk their heads nervously to the ceiling, almost spilling their cards onto the oblong holed table of green felt. A relieved sigh murmurs through the room, dissipating ever so slightly the pervading haze of cigar smoke, liquor and tension.

Ye old ‘speakeasy’

….. Does it remind you of anywhere, or of anything?

If you’re a fan of old films, this may come to mind: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakeasy

 

Do you know of anywhere that still has something similar to them?