Wonderful!

Lily Bart is the most genuine character that I have had the pleasure of encountering in a long, long time. She is a product of her world and imprisoned by it. When I started the novel, I had flashbacks to Anna Karenina. Society lures these women into their situations and then condemns them for their inability to survive the gauntlet they are set.

Wharton obviously intimately understands the “old money” society of New York city and all the nuances that exist between those who are securely engrained in the upper echelon and those who are just trying to either remain there or climb to those heights. One cannot help wonder why anyone would want to be a part of such a narrow-minded, snobbish set; but at the same time one understands that having tasted that world a girl would have little idea of how to survive outside it. The dichotomy between what is true and the appearances that are merely kept at the surface make up the substance of the world that Lily must hang on to or perish.

In the midst of all this disingenuousness, Lily tries to keep a hold on her moral compass. While she is expected to marry for money, she can barely make herself fulfill that odious requirement. She has genuine feelings for Seldon and knows he has the same for her, but she is unable to put aside her need for wealth and accept his offered love. She is really and truly trapped by her station in society and therefore at the mercy of catty, unethical, frightened and jealous women, wealthy men who think they should be able to purchase any woman with their wealth, and uncaring relatives who are judgmental and capricious. Only two persons of her acquaintance actually make an effort to know who Lily IS, the rest just see who Lily ought to be or appears to be.

This is a sad and cynical story, but it reads with truth. Lily is a complicated character...not perfect, not saintly, but certainly mistreated and victimized. I loved that Lily accepted her own role in her fall and that, even in her desperation, refused to sink into the immorality of blackmail or trading her body for money. I very much wanted this tale to end differently, while at the same time knowing that it was unlikely Lily could regain her position without compromising her soul.

I remember reading Ethan Frome when I was much younger and not being overly impressed with it. I recently read a book of Wharton’s short stories and felt quite the opposite about them. This novel is remarkable and ranks high on my list of must-read classics. I will certainly read The Age of Innocence now and I am sure I need to revisit Frome, I obviously missed something essential the first time around.

It seems that through the whole 300 plus pages of this novel Lilly Bart is being lead by the invisible, but stern and cruel hand of her fate. Otherwise it is very difficult to explain her choices throughout even considering the context. Or maybe, it is not the fate, but a slightly over-powerful hand of the author? Another thing which struck me in this novel is how little love and passion is in there. There is no place for love in that world at all. One reads Anna Karenina or even Madam Bovary and one feels the uncontrollable passions these ladies are victims of. Here - just fate, calculations, money, social games but no love, no dreams. The feeble relationship between Selden and Lilly does not come nowhere near true drama.

And Selden is the one of most disgusting male characters I’ve met. All this talk about “republic of spirit” and then no integrity and a lot of cowardice and nothing else. All other characters are pretty disgusting as well. But that is I think by design. The value of the novel for me was as a snapshot of America’s upper class at the end of 19th century. Powerful writing, a few well crafted scenes, and the novel kept me reading to the end. But on the completion, I do not have an impulse to pick up the other one by Edith Wharton.

-El mundo es demasiado ruin.
-No es un lugar idílico y el único modo de seguir en él es luchar con sus propias armas... ¡y, sobre todo, querida, nunca sola!

I have taken much longer than usual to finish this novel. I blame it on two reasons. First, the subject matter of vacuous and decadent high society life in 20th century America is not of particular interest to me, and second, the writing is verbose and convoluted to the point of vapid. I had read The Age of Innocence by the same author, and had enjoyed that novel much more.

The story is slow-paced but effectively constructed, reaching the climax in the last fifth of the novel. It tells how one glamorous socialite Lily Bart endeavors to climb the New York social ladder at the turn of the last century, but meanwhile falls for an intelligent lawyer who can see right through her and tells her that is not the life she really wants. Then she finds herself trapped at every turn between her innate morality and the sweet illusion of being accepted into the upper-class milieu. After a couple of botched attempts to win over marriage prospects, she begins to question her own motive, but is too proud to accept help from the man she loves. Eventually, a few incidents lead her to realize the corruption and callousness of high society. Sadly, regret comes too late as she is betrayed time and again, and she begins to descend into penury.

I have to give the author credit for presenting the privileged class of her times in an honest and scathing manner. But I don’t feel an affinity to the protagonist, or to any of the other characters. I feel that Lily Bart was always free to make her own choices.

I’m giving this novel 3.4 stars, rounded down.

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n    The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of itn  

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Wharton's novel of the clash between personal integrity, social inclusion and wealth: Lily Bart has been told from childhood that her beauty is social currency but, somehow unable to force herself into a suitably 'good' i.e. rich, if loveless, marriage, she finds herself caught in scandalous rumours and a spiral of debt...

Oh, Lily! This is the third time I've read this book - and each time I want Lily to make different decisions. Wharton punctuates the text like an Athenian tragedy: there are a series of key moments when things could have been different when she skips a walk with a rich suitor to see Selden - and they decide that they can't fall in love as neither has sufficient money; when Lily is unbearably naive about a man 'investing' her money and paying her 'dividends'; when she and Selden are so close to deciding their fate - until he sees her leaving a man's house at midnight and jumps to the wrong conclusion (and how brave that Wharton writes that scary scene with Gus Trenor), the first time she feels the Eumenides or Furies pursuing her; when she learns that she has been disinherited by her judgmental aunt.

What makes this so powerful is that Lily is no innocent - she's a willing participant in the superficial Society life that she so adores. She loves the beautiful things, the rich interiors, the elegant food, the expensive gowns - and her soul contracts when faced with the dingy lifestyle of Gerty Farish, the independent woman who is the spectre of what Lily cannot face becoming. But what else could she do and be given her upbringing?
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Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialised product she was: an organism as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock. 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? That it is apt to be hampered by material necessities or complicated by moral scruples?

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Acidic, critical, clear-sighted, probing and compassionate: Wharton exposes the workings of Old New York where wealth rules, relationships are transactional, and the plight of a woman who wants to play but is too honourable (yes, this requires an old-fashioned word) for her own good means she pays a very high price for her non-conformity.

ps. Anyone traumatised by the bleak ending may like to know that Wharton also wrote The Glimpses of the Moon which replays the relationship between Lily and Selden in a more romantic/comic mode.

La pluma extraordinaria de Wharton supone una feroz crítica a la exclusiva e inflexible alta sociedad neoyorquina de principios del siglo XX. La protagonista, Lily, se encuentra atrapada en un mundo de apariencias donde se ve obligada a pagar duramente cualquier mínimo error de las reglas de su entorno.
Tengo que decir que es una de esas novelas que no me ha entusiasmado en un principio, sobre todo por la actitud de Lily en los inicios de la novela. No obstante, el final me resultó sobrecogedor.

|| 4.5 stars ||

Gosh… The drama, the intrigue, the scandal, the tragedy! I loved it!

This book had me on the edge of my seat, clutching my proverbial pearls, the whole way through!

I felt indignation and sympathy from beginning to end, but above all, a deep want to find out how everything would end for Lily. I never expected to become so deeply invested in this story, but I genuinely found myself caring.

It’s crazy to me that someone so vain, materialistic, and self-pitying, living a life so selfishly and uselessly, could still evoke such a passionate reaction out of me.
Whereas I logically should have felt nothing but disdain or contempt towards Lily’s ideals and goals, I foolishly found myself wishing for her success, in whatever way she wanted to obtain it. I saw hints of kindness and selflessness in the smallest of gestures from her, and I continually made excuses for any of her faults, right along with all of her many blinded admirers.
I even went as far as to feel hatred or spite towards those who did her wrong or passed judgement on her, even though I know I would have, personally, disliked her just as much as any of them if I had to deal with her in real life, perhaps even more.
Such a funny yet intriguing contrast that all is, isn’t it? Makes you think about how much more lenient and forgiving we would be of people in our own lives if we took the time to understand their inner-world better…

The in-depth analysis of Lily’s character as well as the machinations of how she relentlessly operated in an artificial high-society, were more layered and intriguing than I could have figured. It was filled with criticisms as well as introspection on some interesting matters, but never went too far with them. With that I mean to say, the author never went ahead of herself by preaching or droning on about a particular subject or message, but instead always kept the focus on the story and the characters themselves.

Not to mention, the writing was absolutely exquisite; insightful without the usual pretentiousness attributed to that particular adjective, grippingly emotional to the point of true investment from the reader, and seamlessly flowing in a way that kept your attention throughout.

On a whole other note, though, I want to say that when it came to the romantic department of this book, I never quite understood Lily, and found her to be insanely foolish. Not only could she have saved herself from all her problems through marriage a million times over, but it was not merely her flightiness in this regard that bothered me. Mostly, it was her inability to see a good thing when it was right in front of her.
I was always a big fan of Rosedale, and grew more and more fond of him as the book went on, while I simply didn’t care one bit for Selden. All Selden ever did was judge her by means of some pretentious moral superiority he claimed to possess, whereas Rosedale held her in immense admiration. He was a powerful, broody, rich, imposing man, seen as cut-throat by many, yet he had a soft spot only for her that made him willing to help her without any intent to give up.
You cannot possibly convince me that, had this been a contemporary romance novel rather than a dramatic tragedy written over a hundred years ago, he would not have been the “love interest” instead of Selden. There would have simply been no way, since he was clearly the better choice.

Anyway, in conclusion, I think it’s safe to say that this book was oddly addictive as well as engaging, and that I couldn’t help but be engrossed entirely!

What a piece of art
Is our Lily Bart
Surrounded by men who don’t need much urgin’
Yet Lily is a 29 year old virgin

She’s a part of a truly disgusting society – the filthy rich of New York, 1905 - all they do is party till five in the morning and have discreet affairs and play bridge for money and get waited on hand and foot (snap your fingers once for a Faberge egg on toast, twice for a new hat made of ptarmigan feathers) and rush off to Monaco and gamble and party and have affairs and snap their fingers for a new hat made of tigers eyelashes) and oversee charitable foundations to help the limbless and get huffy if the gold plates of leftover anteater brains aren’t cleared away quick enough.

First they all love Lily Bart because she’s tall and lovely and says the right thing to everybody. But clearly she hasn’t said enough of the right things or she’d already have been married to a millionaire. Something holds her back from making such an obvious move & this leaves her in a position where she becomes a convenient woman to take the blame when there is some blame-shifting to be done, so she ends up stumbling around like a wounded okapi and the pack turns on her or really just shoves her to the side and moves on.

Edith skewers the appalling attitudes of the rich:

Judy knew it must be “horrid” for poor Lily to have to stop to consider whether she could afford real lace on her petticoats, and not to have a motor-car and a steam-yacht at her orders; but the daily friction of unpaid bills, the daily nibble of small temptations to expenditures, were trials as far out of her experience as the domestic problems of the charwoman.

Here’s a great comment on one miserable attitude to the rich:

Such flashes of joy as Lily moved in would have blinded Miss Farish, who was accustomed, in the way of happiness, to such scant light as shone through the cracks of other people’s lives.

I know that Edith Wharton came from the top of the top families of Old New York, the ones who can’t remember how they came to be so rich, but reading this you might think she was a Marxist because the only possible reaction to her detailed description of this nasty collection of human parasites is to support violent revolution. Burn down their houses and off to Madame Guillotine for the lot of them! Let the tumbrils roll!

What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. … Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains! They have a world to win!

No, I don’t think that was our Edie’s intention, but reading the House of Mirth could surely nudge a person towards the overthrow of capitalism.

THE EDITH WHARTON STYLE

It can be convoluted. Okay, it’s ALWAYS convoluted. Also, the meanings of some words have changed. The word “intercourse” for instance.

Hitherto he had found, in her presence and her talk, the aesthetic amusement which a reflective man is apt to seek in desultory intercourse with pretty women.

Please don’t waterboard this Wharton named Edie
Whose mind being so sharp & whose eyes being so beady
Make it tough for a reader depressingly needy
Whose eyes are so blurry & brain so weedy
We are daunted by sentences subtle and serpentine -
As un-user-friendly as a Trump-supporting porcupine
These days we like novels to be important but easy
And sleazy and cheesy and breezy, not queasy

I will give a couple of examples –

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Ah, lucky girls who grow up in the shelter of a mother’s love – a mother who knows how to contrive opportunities without conceding favours, how to take advantage of propinquity without allowing appetite to be dulled by habit!

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Brilliant young ladies, a little blinded by their own effulgence, are apt to forget that the modest satellite drowned in their light is still performing its own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate.

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Lily walked on unconscious of her surroundings. She was still treading the buoyant ether which emanates from the high moments of life.

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And here is a description of a young mother returning from work to her baby :

Having passionately celebrated her reunion with her offspring, and excused herself in cryptic language for the lateness of her return, Nettie restored the baby to the crib

This is crazy overwriting and there are 300 pages of it. Can be excruciating at times. Can make you want to overthrow Edith Wharton violently. But on the whole, pretty good stuff. But gloomy. Did I mention that? It’s so gloomy you will need a Leonard Cohen album handy to listen to at the end in order to decompress. (Suggested song : “First we take Manhattan” – obvious!) Ain’t no mirth in the house of mirth.

This book reminded me of when I used to tutor a particular 15-year-old boy. I'd arrive and he'd be snacking and watching this dreadful MTV reality show called “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I used to spend a lot of time over there, so I caught enough bits and pieces of it to feel thoroughly revolted.

Those of you in the USA have probably seen it – it follows over-privileged kids as they organize and throw their lavish 16th birthday parties. But what I find scary about it aren't the 6-figure cars these kids get, but the sense of entitlement floating in the air. These children think that if they want something they will automatically get it – what's more, they think if they want something bad enough, that means they deserve it.

I remember standing there one day, waiting for my pupil to rinse his glass, and being overcome by a crushing feeling of pity. Because I really wanted to slap the kid on the TV, but at the same time I knew, with an overwhelming certainty, that this girl was never going to be truly happy, ever. Even if their parents could keep this up, this sort of entitled, shallow upbringing can only lead to frustration, one way or the other. What a waste of a perfectly good life.

I thought a lot about this moment while reading The House of Mirth. I felt sorry for Lily Bart, while hating her at the same time. I wanted to slap her, while knowing it wasn't her fault that she was the way she was. I wanted her to make up her mind, and at the same time dreaded every one of the options she had.

For make no mistakes – she does have options. A few of us at Bookish were discussing whether this was feminist literature or not. If feminist literature aims to portray women's lack of possibilities as constraining the female character, then this is not your average feminist book (I know, I know, but bear with me for a minute). Lily Bart does in fact have a few options to choose from, even though they would all entail some measure of dependence from other people. But none of these ever crystallize into anything tangible, because she won't make up her mind.

Wharton tries to imply that she's secretly an idealist, and she may be subconsciously sabotaging her own attempts at marrying money. But in fact, for most of the book she doesn't openly defy the system – mostly, she's just angry that she can't find a rich man to support her (she wants one, so she should have one, right?). Her moral scruples only show up when she's already put herself in a compromising position and she needs to save what little self-respect she has left. She is not an idealist, not in practice – she wants to work within the system.

Yet the very system of which she is a result has no place for her. She's a highly specialized product, an ornamental object, the Gilded Age in its most extreme expression - and as such, she's so profoundly dysfunctional she can't bring herself to make a choice for her future, because none of her options are even remotely acceptable. This world is so messed up, its own product can't function within it.

Watching Lily shy away from at least 4 potential husbands, a few socialite patrons and even an opportunity for blackmail can get annoying after a while (“will you make up your mind already? I have stuff to do, you know?!”). But it also brings me back to my thoughts that day, watching “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I vaguely thought that this world was f'd up if it was capable of creating such a monstrous thing as that over-entitled 16-year-old. This kid was the product of an environment that was condemning her, by effect of her upbringing, to be chronically dissatisfied for the rest of her life.

The world that Ms. Wharton portrays in her book is just as monstrous. And if it did this to people, and those people were mostly women, then by the FSM, this book serves its purpose, and it definitely is a feminist book.

I have read almost all of Edith Wharton's writing. I have the highest regard for her work. She was overshadowed by Fitzgerald and Hemingway in her day but even so she won the Pulitzer prize in 1921 for her novel The Age of Innocence. The House of Mirth was one of her early novels and my favorite, although I like all of her novels.

Lily Bart, the protagonist in The House of Mirth, is such a captivating and tragic figure that she has stayed in my mind for years. Of course, creating great characters was one of Wharton's wonderful gifts.

For those readers that have not discovered Edith Wharton, give her a try. The House of Mirth would be perfect to start with.

4.5*

Wharton gives me heroines I'll always remember. Know how you read books and the characters become references for real people? First, she gave me Countess Olenska. And now, Miss Lily Bart. Be not mistaken, all characters in this novel take a backstage to Lily and her complexity. She is respectable, yet maintains impulsiveness that creates the façade that she is not. She is carefree, yet conventional; spunky, yet detached; charismatic, yet reserved. Most of all, she loves beautiful things, desires beautiful spaces, maintains a designer wardrobe, believes she deserves a wealthy husband. Despite all of these wishes, she refuses to sell her soul to get her desires and she runs from love when she spots it. Did I say that Lily is complicated? And daring and brave and clever and alone and ill-advised and...well there are many more descriptions because this is how Wharton writes this very fascinating character within a story that has many turns of plot all fully embracing and reiterating a central theme.

This may sound strange, but I read this novel and immediately recalled these lines from William Carlos Williams' Spring and All, which I keep by my nightstand:

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All thought of misery has left us. Why should we care? Children laughingly fling themselves under the wheels of the street cars, airplanes crash gaily to the earth. Someone has written a poem.

Oh life, bizarre fowl, what color are your wings?

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Please don't let the movie influence your picture of Lily Bart. The movie does no justice to her nuances. Instead, read Edith Wharton's very intentional and powerful prose, where even those things that seem trivial, those things that are outlandish, all connect to one central idea. Wharton was also complex. She "lived in two worlds... and wrote that her intelligence frightened her fashionable friends as much as her elegance dismayed her intellectual companions." She broke off an engagement when her fiancé's mother didn't approve; she had a three-year affair with a journalist; she divorced her husband; she became the first woman to be awarded the Legion d'honneur and the first woman to win The Pulitzer. She inspired a generation of writers following her tradition in the novel of manners. The Age of Innocence remains my favorite, but give me Lily Bart and the tangled women of Wharton's novels and short fiction any day.