Xingu

Xingu is a humourous short story by Edith Wharton, about a group of six women who meet together at a lunch club hosted by Mrs Ballinger. At this meeting, they have invited an author of one of the books they have supposed to have read, but find they can't really discuss it, as they meet more to socialise than to discuss books. Wharton captures perfectly the need of the characters to outdo each other, with the point seemingly to be as pretentious as possible.