House of Mirth

I've always loved Edith Wharton's work, as she knew how to explore the psychology of character in the world she knew (Old New York "old money" of the Gilded Age). Although my feelings about Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden have changed over the years, they are still fascinating characters. The book is riveting in its focus on characters and the vicious alliances and values the "haves" hold against the "have nots" and their treatment of people who do not live up to their hollow, shallow standards. Bertha Dorset is a prime example. At the same time, you can't help but feel Wharton's disapproval for the life she knew well, especially as it pertains to how young women were brought up and what little was expected of them. Wharton doesn't sugarcoat the fate of these women just as she doesn't sugarcoat the fate of Lily Bart, which is one of her strengths as a writer. You might not end up loving Lily Bart or any of the characters but place them in their time and you get a fascinating portrait of what life was really like, for the rich and poor, in Gilded Age America. Definitely worth the read.

This Kindle editions appears to have been translated from some foreign language back into English by a computer translation. The language is not understandable. For example, a line might appear in the original "she was going home" and appear in thus edition as "she goes U.S.A. houses now". I hope someone will look into this. It is very strange that such an edition could appear on Amazon.

For the final weeks of this year, I wanted to step away from the modern set of storytellers and revisit my favorites of bygone eras. I would be an ignorant churl to neglect Mrs. Edith Wharton, for her writing has become unmatched in my mind and has proven an absolute delight to me each time I pull the lamp chain and take elegant carriage rides with her multifaceted storylines and characters. Honestly, you just cannot find writing like this anymore and The House of Mirth is still this reader’s choice for a perfect escape into early 20th century-late 19th century New York society and with saying goodbye to 2015; I decided no better book could be found than revisiting the ornamental world of privilege, ultimate damaging opinions and malicious whispers behind gloved hands that surrounded my old friend Lily Bart.In this tragic and realistic tale we have more than a frilly story of a poor little rich girl, we have an elevated cast of characters with the familiar complexity of personalities that Mrs. Wharton excelled in creating for her readers. She was known for her biting commentary and after reading a good listing of her magnetic titles; The House of Mirth seems to be her darkest examination about the other side of the door of the grand houses on Fifth Avenue versus the comedic satire that wonderfully twirls together the first part of  The Buccaneers . In this story we experience various emotional and passionate pages of: happiness, greed, love, jealousy and endless possibilities of hope and lines of regret and despair. The further you sink into the elegantly crafted world Mrs. Wharton has painted with such striking and commanding strokes of events; the more you will never forget those moments. I know I never have or will and I couldn’t have found a better way to let 2015 go with style and reflection than revisiting the complex journey of emotions and trials that beautifully dwells in this understated classic. Highly Recommend.

(Spoilers!) It took me some time to digest this novel, not really sure of what to make of Lily Bart’s life. She lives, on the one hand, as pointed out to her by her sometime suitor, Selden, a vacuous life without meaning or contribution to society. All Lily has is her breeding, her beauty and her charm. She was orphaned just about at the time of her ‘coming out’ in high society and left to the charities of a cold, obtuse, small minded aunt. She lives off a small inheritance which is barely enough to keep her in style. She is constantly short of money she needs to maintain her beauty and charm at its peak. Lily is beautiful and enchanting and the members of the wealthy high society circles she floats through want her around for that reason. She is there to amuse the other guests, add panache to their gatherings and provide gossip for their mills.But Lily, deep underneath, is larger than her role as a desirable bauble. Selden, a well bred attorney with no fortune, perceives this and is, at varying times in the novel, tempted to open his heart to her. But fate always seems to take a hand. Lily casts away her opportunities to make the ‘right’ match carelessly. Some inner voice seems to be telling her that she would be sacrificing something important, although she seems unable to put her finger on it. She is, when suddenly in temporary clover, given to good works and she senses that she might somehow find some meaning to her life. She is repulsed when it turns out that a very wealthy husband of one of her ‘sponsors’ (she doesn’t really have friends, except the plain, relatively penurious Gerty who tries to save her but fails) expects more than thanks for his assistance to her in business affairs. Her ethical sense compels her to pay him back every sense in spite of the fact that this means financial disaster. It is, in fact, her attempt to at first obtain the money from her aunt that leads to her ultimate downfall.But her true trial comes when she purchases from a destitute charwoman very incriminating letters from one of her female sponsors to Selden, which reveal her adulterous behavior. She has a moment of moral crises when it is pointed out to her that use of these letters would restore her to her position of society’s favorite, but she, in the end, cannot bring herself to do it.In a way, you might say that the genesis of Lily’s fatal flaw, her inability to live and act as crassly as does the hoi polloi she swims with, is traceable to Selden who, in a moment of frankness, opens her eyes to the vacuous nature of high society’s pursuits. He might as well have shot her dead. Although a number of people do Lily harm, Selden is the real villain of the piece. Presented with a last chance to save her, he is unable to cast aside his self centered aloofness and realizes only too late what a fool he has been.The novel is well written, full of spot on characterizations of the Gilded Age. Only the somewhat maudlin finish prevents me from giving the novel a 5. (As an aside, I kept on hoping that somehow Lily would be saved, but given the endings of the 2 other novels by Wharton I have read, Ethan Frome and Age of Innocence, I should have known better)

Knowing Edith Wharton’s reputation as a writer but not having read any of her books, I was anticipating wit and dry humour. What I wasn’t quite expecting was the deft way in which the author wields the literary equivalent of a scalpel to dissect the snobbery, hypocrisy and downright cruelty of the New York social scene. I mentioned the mocking humour and here are a few of my favourite examples:On the eligible but tedious bachelor, Percy Gryce: ‘Mr. Gryce was like a merchant whose warehouses are crammed with an unmarketable commodity.’On Lily’s aunt, Mrs Peniston: ‘To attempt to bring her into active relation with life was like tugging at a piece of furniture which has been screwed to the floor.’‘It was the “simple country wedding” to which guests are conveyed in special trains, and from which the hordes of the uninvited have to be fended off by the intervention of the police.’‘Lily presently saw Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined way through the doors, and, in the broad wake she left, the light figure of Mrs. Fisher bobbing after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug.’And I have to mention the elegance of the writing that can convey so much in just a few sentences. For example, as Lily observes those she has regarded as friends: ‘That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way. Under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement.’Throughout the book, my sympathy was always with Lily and the situation she finds herself in. Yes, she has a role which is largely confined to being an ‘adornment’ to the social scene. However, I admired her determination to use the gifts she has been given, even if that does involve a degree of manipulation. Unfortunately, an entirely innocent action and a chance meeting set in motion a chain of events that put Lily in the power of others, risking her future happiness. Lily believes her beauty allows her to manipulate men but, sadly, she finds it is she who is being manipulated because of a mistake and the need to maintain her social status because of her (relative) poverty.It transpires that navigating the social scene is akin to a game of snakes and ladders. Working your way up takes time, requires skill in order to cultivate contacts and involves being seen in the right places with the right people. ‘She had been fashioned to adorn and delight; to what other end does nature round the rose-leaf and paint the humming-bird’s breast? And was it her fault that the purely decorative mission is less easily and harmoniously fulfilled among social beings than in the world of nature?’ However, one misstep, one troublesome rumour or item of mischievous gossip and you can slide down very quickly. ‘Lily had the doomed sense of the castaway who has signalled in vain to fleeing sails.’Very few of the characters in the book come out well. So-called friends (I’m looking at you, Mrs. Fisher) prove to be anything but in Lily’s hour of need – because they are too timid, too afraid of what others will say or possess ulterior motives.I’ll confess, I was unprepared for the impact the ending had on me. Part of me could understand why Lily did what she did and part of me wished she had found the strength to take another course. The romantic in me wanted another outcome altogether which, I’ll admit, would not have been true to the spirit of what the author was trying to communicate in the book. Call me an old softy.This will definitely not be the last book by Edith Wharton I read. What an amazing author to have discovered; even more amazing when you realise The House of Mirth was Wharton’s first published novel.

Edith Wharton's 'The House of Mirth' focuses on the beautiful socialite Lily Barton, who is in her late twenties and, after ten years on the 'marriage market', is still looking for a suitably rich husband. Brought up to be purely decorative, Lily seemingly leads a life of luxury and pleasure, but we soon learn that she actually has only a very small income and lives on the charity of a rich aunt who is becoming increasingly disapproving of Lily's gadabout life. Worried about her gambling debts and desperately trying to keep up with the rich set, Lily sets her sights on the very wealthy, if boring Percy Grace, but her plans to snare Mr Gryce are ruined when she becomes attracted to the dark and handsome Lawrence Selden. Mr Selden, however, despite finding Lily breathtakingly beautiful, is a man of only modest means and being aware of Lily's ambitions to marry well, he tries to avoid taking her too seriously. As Lily and Selden circle around each other, both attracted to one another but neither of them willing to commit themselves, Lily becomes desperately worried about her increasing debts and she foolishly approaches the husband of one of her friends to help her to invest her small amount of capital. When it becomes apparent to Lily that the money she has been receiving is not from the dividends on her own money, Lily finds herself embroiled in a whole series of events that eventually lead to her fall from grace, but to reveal more would spoil the story for those who have yet to read it.Beautifully written and perceptively observed, Edith Wharton's story of New York society and the lives of the rich and idle, juxtaposed with the lot of the much less wealthy and those who fall by the wayside, makes for a compelling read. Aside from the story's main protagonists, this novel is filled with a whole cast of interesting characters and is it easy to become drawn right into Lily Barton's life and watch her as she travels towards her downfall. Although, as bystanders, we can see the mistakes Lily is making and we may become exasperated with her for her foolhardiness, Lily is not as shallow as she initially seems, she does have scruples and she avoids taking others down with her, and the reader (or this one anyhow) feels for her in her predicament. First published in 1905 and one of Edith Wharton's best novels, this is a poignant and resonant story and one to read, to think about and to then put back in the bookcase to read again later. Recommended.5 Stars.

Lily Bart, beautiful, impoverished, aged 29, is in urgent need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite of late-nineteenth-century New York, but somehow she keeps missing her chances. Once I slowed my reading pace to go with its flow, I adored this 1905 classic and, with caveats, highly recommend it. The caveats are: Wharton’s prose style is formal and leisurely – long sentences with many subordinate clauses, abstract ideas and elaborate figures of speech. She explores her characters’ states of mind in great depth, and with a habit of oblique implication rather than clear statement. Additional ambiguity arises from her inability, writing when she did, to refer directly to sex. By the end, all ambiguities are clarified, I wasn’t left guessing, and my inferences had been correct – so the difficulties were ultimately rewarding. One final caveat: there is a Jewish character who is described in the unexamined anti-Semitic clichés of that era. He is, however, one of the few sympathetic characters in a novel in which many others are far more harshly described and judged. The immense power of the book is Lily herself and the love that grows between her and a man who isn’t rich enough to qualify as her husband and who dislikes how she seems to compromise herself. Will they or won’t they? Is she a vapid social butterfly or a person of moral worth and integrity? Wharton kept me willing and hoping, and savouring the journey all the way through.

When I had read the first few chapters of this book I seriously considered abandoning it. However, I persevered and am so glad I did as this novel ended up having a big impact on me. I hadn't read any Edith Wharton before and I think this is a good one to start with. I loved the ins-and-outs of the relationships between the characters and imagine not much in society has changed throughout the years, apart from dress and modes of transport! The ending was a genuine shock and not the 'happy ever after' that's the norm. I think that's good sometimes though, as real life isn't a bed of roses, so why should fictional life be? I managed to snag a copy of 'The Age of Innocence' in a charity shop so look forward to reading that too.

Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth describes the life of Lily Bart, an early twentieth century It Girl, who at twenty nine years old, has lived through eleven years on New York’s society party circuit.Lily looks to the future and sees her life narrowing. Early in the book she is on the verge of marrying a fabulously rich man, only to turn away at the last moment because she doesn’t love this boring mummy’s boy. She also had the chance to marry a middling prosperous lawyer, who she does love, only to turn her back on that idea as well. After making these decisions, a general tendency to contrariness hardens into a firm determination to escape her fate. When problems created by others damage her prospects, Lily throws a few spanners of her own in the works. She is seemingly incapable of allowing herself to follow her natural course, whether this course is marriage to a rich man, marriage to a man she loves, the well paid life of a social fixer, or even a career as the owner of an elegant hat boutique. Whenever a course opens up, Lily helps shut it down. She wants to escape the social machine of which she is a part, only to find herself in a different part of the same machine. There are those who wear fancy hats, and there are those who make fancy hats for those that wear them. Both are part of the same mechanism.So, on the positive side, this is a story which feels universal in the way it considers freedom and fate. On a less positive note, the book was a frustrating read, as Lily trips herself up over and over again. Then there is the voice telling her story, which for all its apparent freedom to look down on flawed human characters, has a few flaws and prejudices of its own. This waspish author voice is prone to switching between character points of view with confusing suddenness. I also found myself feeling distinctly uneasy towards the beginning of the book, reading the stereotyped portrayal of Jewish businessman, Simon Rosedale:“a plump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric a brac.”I wondered if this was supposed to be Lily’s point of view, but as I say, point of view is not stable in this book, and remains ultimately with the author. This voice portrays many of her characters in an unflattering light, but does not otherwise link a specific heritage with human failings. So bringing up a Jewish heritage in relation to an individual’s shortcomings felt jarring. Even though later in the book he becomes a somewhat more sympathetic character, the portrayal of Rosedale still left a bad taste. I know we are reading about a different time with different attitudes, but there is this odd feeling that a point of view which aspires to seeing the weakness in others has blind spots of its own.Ultimately for me, The House of Mirth was like being in the company of an unpredictable Greek goddess. This deity has the power to flit about over the lower human world and make some profound observations in poetic language, while also displaying a rather human and irrational partiality for some people over others.