“'The whole truth?’ Miss Bart laughed. ‘What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it’s the story that’s easiest to believe. In this case it’s a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset’s story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it’s convenient to be on good terms with her.'”

The novel’s title comes from a pretty strict bible verse:
“The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

Part One is all about the house of mirth: the rich, pleasure-seeking upper class high society of early 1900’s New York; the set that Lily Bart is born into and bred to become. If you ask me, this house of mirth is boring as all get out! People doing nothing but conniving for money so they can impress the right people, dress a certain way and go from one party to another.

Lily isn’t very successful at navigating her way through this house of mirth.

“…she had a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it.”

It’s very sad when the whole of your self-confidence has to rest on being better than other people.

I tried reading this twice before, and gave up in Part One because I just couldn’t get interested in this world. This time I suffered through the first part, and discovered Part Two was Wharton-ly wonderful. Lily is forced out of the sphere of the rich and comfortable, and things get interesting. (I should have known Edith would redeem herself with me!)

It can be difficult to sympathize with Lily Bart. Wharton has written her as the fool in the bible verse. But as her story unfolds, I did sympathize with her. I love Wharton’s writing. She can weave a story in subtle layers, and before you know it, your heartstrings are woven in with it. Her characters go through intense emotions, and the reader, this reader anyway, can’t help but feel them deeply.

“She put back the dresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light, some note of laughter, some stray waft from the rosy shores of pleasure.”

~~~~~ I cheated ~~~~~

Like an anxious college student late for an assignment or a disgruntled teen dodging Shakespeare, I resorted to CliffsNotes in order to finish this book.

I know, shocking. But I trudged through the first two-thirds of it, not caring about any of the shallow and detestable characters. The longer I read, the more they annoyed me. Rich and vapid people living in New York City during the Gilded Era are not people I relate to.

Lily Bart is twenty-nine and unmarried. She doesn't have much money but likes to live as though she does, and needs to use her beauty and charm to get herself a wealthy man. Lily knows she needs to get a ring on her pretty, little finger before she gets any older, much as she'd like to remain independent.

The thing is, she's not really independent. She's stuck living with her boring old aunt (aged forty!) who won't even let her redecorate their stodgy drawing room. What's worse, though Auntie buys her nice clothes, she won't give her enough money to support her gambling habit.

Lily likes this dude Lawrence, who also likes her. For silly reasons, they never hook up and Lily flirts with a bunch of different guys. She gets her best friend's husband to help her out financially, and I didn't believe for one second that she thought he would do this out of the goodness of his heart. She's shocked and pissed when he wants something (wink, wink) in return.

So now she needs to pay him back if she ever wants to get rid of him, and then there's the matter of her gambling debts. She's not getting any younger and is disturbed to find two tiny lines near her mouth. The pressure is on to find herself a man!

The book rambles on, following Lily to dinner parties and on a Mediterranean cruise. Nothing much happens, though we're privy to all the juicy (not really) gossip among the well-to-do.

I don't have patience for these people with their petty concerns and melodrama. I apologize to all my friends who loved it, but my boredom and loathing of these characters grew the longer I read.

There was no way I could suffer through the last third and, for the first time in my life, saw the value in CliffsNotes.

I skimmed the last chapter so I could have the satisfaction of finishing the book.... and because, having seen the spoiler in Cliffs handy Notes, I thought the tragic ending would be slightly more interesting.

Not really.

In case this sort of book isn't your thing either but you're curious about the ending:  Lily develops insomnia, followed by an addiction to chloral. Lawrence finally decides to visit her and declare his true love but, upon arriving, learns that she accidentally or on purpose overdosed on the sleeping meds, dying before he could get a ring on that pretty, little finger. The end.

Edith Wharton was awarded a Pulitzer prize for a reason. Her writing is exquisite and her portrayals of 19th century American "high" society is meticulous and realistic (well, as much as I can tell living over 100 years later). "The House of Mirth" is no exception.

This is a story of Lily Bart - a young woman born and raised in luxury and sophistication who at the age of 19 finds herself penniless and depending on patronage of her wealthy relatives. Lily is an ambiguous figure. On one hand, she is spoiled and has an air of entitlement about her. She is determined to marry a rich man, she sometimes enters into questionable deals to improve her situation, she takes advantage of people around her. On the other hand, Lily unwittingly craves love, understanding, and closeness and thus sabotages numerous advantageous matches. She is manipulative, but unable to commit any serious moral sins, even to safe her own reputation and future prospects. As Lily's story progresses, after several errors in judgment, she finds herself disinherited and ostracized by people who just several months before fought for her attention. She gradually meets her downfall.

"The House of Mirth" is definitely the most tragic and my favorite of Wharton's novels. This book is filled with a feeling of impending doom and leaves you with a lasting impression. Highly recommended to all fans of classical literature.

There’s actually little mirth in this story. I read this after enjoying the author’s Ethan Frome and realizing again what a good writer Edith Wharton is.

Lily Bart belong to the ‘jet set’ of the early 1900’s. She hangs out in New York mansions, Newport and the Riviera. (As did the author.) Lily was from a wealthy family that spent down its fortune and then her parents died. Now she’s looking for a husband with money. She had some opportunities to marry earlier but she finds she’s waited a bit long – she’s 29 now and has to consider pompous, milksop 40-year old mama’s boys, and even someone who “…might ultimately decide to do her the honor of boring her for life.” Another is a “portentous little ass.”



Without a mother she doesn’t have anyone to play the field for her and line up men behind the scenes. Her income is barely enough to keep up with her clothing budget and card-playing money. She lives with various aunts for periods of time. I’m amazed at how much she and all these these folks talk about their money and money problems in casual conversation.

She’s very prim and proper in her relationships with men but she loses her reputation through no fault of her own. She feels that “…however unfounded the charges against her, she must be to blame for their having been made.” Her aunt dies and her money problems and her reputation problems force her to drop out of high society. She takes a seamstress job and lives in a boarding house, cementing her fate.

Her reputation goes downhill when first she’s seen coming out of an unmarried man’s house where she went for tea not knowing the maid wasn’t in. Then she makes the mistake of asking a friend’s husband to ‘invest’ $300 for her in the stock market. He magically turns it into $10,000 – basically giving her the money and then he spreads the story when he drinks. He tries to use this to pressure her into a relationship, tricking her into coming to his home when his wife is not here. She’s seen coming out of the house. Then she is deliberately and falsely accused of having an affair with another husband by a supposedly good friend who invites her on a yacht cruise to the Riviera. The woman did this just so she could cover her own infidelities to her husband. Lily falls in love with one of the men and he’s in love with her but her reputation scares him off. She becomes addicted to a powerful sleeping drug.  



There’s excellent writing and witty comments:

As her father aged and was ill, he got to the point where “It seemed to tire him to rest.”

Of one of the matrons: “… she couldn’t bear new people when she hadn’t discovered them herself.”

She “…was accustomed, in the way of happiness, to such scant light as shone through the cracks of other people’s lives.”

“…like many unpunctual persons, Mrs. Gormer disliked to be kept waiting.”



A great story and it kept my attention all the way through. Thanks to Heather, Dan and Joshie for encouraging me to read more of Edith Wharton in their comments on my review of Ethan Frome.

Top photo: New York Fifth Avenue mansions of the early 1900's.
Newport, RI Seaview Terrace mansion.
The author (1862-1937) from edithwharton.org

"

I am trying to figure out the building blocks behind this novel: the history of society which lead up to an upper class woman confronting the mores and values of the time by writing this book and rocking the boat from within.

Published in 1905, Edith Wharton obviously knew her 'customers' since this book was aimed at the very class she was born into, and not written for the 'plebs' roaming the universities in the hope of improving their chances to join the selected few. Neither did she use a language that would excite the less educated, lower strata of society. In fact, the text was too lexicon perfect. Well, the people who could afford to buy the book did not sweep streets or cleaned the houses of the blessed few, for sure.

In another American book, published in 1900, by the V I R Publishing company, written by Mrs. Emma F. Angell Drake, M.D, titled What A Young Wife Ought To Know, the rules of marriage is spelled out in no uncertain terms over 290 pages in small print. It is one of my most treasured possessions, with an interesting story behind this gift.

Nevertheless, in this book the selection of marriage partners in the upper echelons of American society is explained. The difference between a mistress and a wife is clearly defined. A wife is chosen to carry forward the bloodline of the man. She is selected from the same social circles as the bridegroom, has an impressive inheritance of her own, is well educated for her role to raise the successors to the throne. The wife is compensated by way of property, jewelry, and monetary benefits for her important role as hostess, manager of the estate and home, as well as her role as mother. She has no other sexual obligations to her husband, other than producing the off-springs, securing the continuation of the bloodline. The selection of the wife includes a careful investigation into her family's medical history, and is chosen for her biological and physical attributes (or contribution to the bloodline). Money can buy excellence in everything.

For any other 'physical' needs, the bridegroom has a mistress to take care of that. She is provided with a home and financial support, on the condition that she will not produce children or be socially acknowledged by the wife. On breaching the agreement, the mistress will forfeit all privileges and be ousted from society.

Gobsmacking, yes. I was blown away when I read this book almost a century later. Whether it was meant as a secret guideline to the selected few, is uncertain. What it did was explain the social conduct of the wealthy that was incomprehensible or probably unknown as well, to the lower classes. It became the source of thousands of novels to this day.

It is from this angle, that I read Edith Wharton's tale of Lily Bart in The House Of Mirth. The young Lily had everything going for her to be accepted as a wife to the rich and fortunate. She had money, the 'right' education(and it wasn't academic in nature), beauty and acres and acres of background to be the most sought-after bride in waiting. But Lily, going against her mother's teachings, decided to not only choose money, but also love in the same sentence. Like Princess Diana, many decades later, Lily rejected the status quo and paid a dear price for her rebellion. The rules for both woman were the same. The consequences as brutal and tragic as the ancient, unchanged blueprint dictated.

The difference between the two young women was however that Lily lost everything when her father died and his irresponsible financial dealings came to light (her mother's social ambitions played a big role in his financial demise). Without the impressive financial portfolio to back her up, as well as her mother passing away shortly after her father, Lily became a social outcast. Lost in her own ambitious delusions of grandeur, she battled on, hoping to reach her personal goals and prove her own theory right. Love and money simply should be a symbiotic truth, she believed. One cannot function without the other. But upper society brutally rejected this possibility and taught her a lesson she refused to face.

This is the gist of the book, dragged out over a long, often tedious, yet fascinating tale. Based on the reality of the time, the author did not try to create a romantic environment and write a fairy tale for love-sick Romance aficionados. She was actively confronting a cruel existing establishment who were committing perfect murders of souls and minds safely locked up behind opulent grandeur and greed. Edith Wharton exposed this hidden world for what it truly was and did so in graphic detail in this book. Despite her efforts, nothing really changed. It is still out there, secured by high walls, electric fences, bodyguards and highly trained guard dogs. All defined as status symbols, so by the way.

By writing this 'novel', since the protagonists was a fictitious character, Edith Wharton announced her own liberation from this privileged life to become an independent thinker and women in her own right, without the constricting social rules of this part of society.

Edith Wharton became one of several women of the time, who paved the way for other women born into this social class, to reconsider their options and liberate their enslavement to this system, if they so desired. Reading many biographies of privileged women who did just that, it is obvious that something happened in their lives to make it happen. The rules of the game did not change, and many aspiring young women from lower classes still work hard at it to get into this kind of life today, since it represents the ultimate definition of true happiness. Money, social standing and privileges spread all around. Let them be.

Some of the women born into it at the turn of the twentieth century, had a different perspective on that life. Edith Wharton painted a complete picture. She highlighted both sides of the coin and scratched away the fake gold covering up the even lesser metals below the surface.

An excellent historical document, confirming, to me, the rules spelled out to young married women in 1900 in this other book I did not want to believe until many years later, when my world was broadened by more reading and life experiences. And yes, much more research.

The book could have been a cold academic assessment of social conditions within a particular income group, but instead the information was presented in the form of a novel to make it more entertaining reading. And it is a good one: picturesque, atmospheric, a strong story line, multiple characters, and a deeper message covering the saga. The author was a truly talented storyteller and writer.

Disguised as fiction, truth has a way of capturing and entertaining a much wider audience who can act upon it. Magic.

This is why I loved this novel. It gets five stars for the purpose it served and the thought that went into it.

What an extravagant, poignant, and beautiful ride this has been! Reading this book has made me delve deep into the human psyche. The House of Mirth is a beautiful, evocative story set in the Gilded Age, where many of the author’s famous works are set. In this story, we see how desperate human beings who are part of this elite group can become, as they cling to it at the risk of their inner self — the real person. It is a society where only the fittest survive. Lily Bart is the female protagonist. She is unmarried, extremely beautiful, and has had many potential rich suitors, that can promise her an easy claim to this lavish and social group who have formed this world where the more money and connections one has, the better. Such elitist people are untouchable — they are considered to be “gold” in this group of New York socialites, even though they lead a faux, unfeeling existence, full of hypocrisy, and are in a constant state of pretending — playing a role.

But where does Lily Bart fit in all this? She has no claim to wealth, property, or any family that is of such high social or financial standing as the circle of friends she runs in. She has been brought up to rely on her beauty and has no skills. From the onset, the reader sees the distance between Lily Bart and the rest of the group. Her beauty is too much — it somehow makes her too unreachable, just as her goals seem to be — and we see the distance between her and the group, and the distance she casts within her self — by pretending that she doesn’t care when she does; when she cannot reconcile her values with the socio-economic plight of a woman in the society she finds herself in, and society’s solution to solve her financial woes — marrying into money. She builds a wall within herself, and that was not hard to do in such a society, where money is at the heart of friendship. I immediately sensed this need for security from Lily, and her resistance to solidify it when the opportunity presented itself. After all, how would a woman secure her wealth in such conditions as Lily’s without marriage to a man she didn’t really love but had enormous pockets of wealth? A man of social influence and standing in the most pretentious of societies.

Lawrence Selden, to some extent, is Lily's moral conscience. In a perfect world, she would give in to this quietly rebellious, philosophical man who seems to feed more on his soul than on lavish gifts and money. However, he too seems to reflect a truth within Lily that she doesn’t even know herself — or doesn’t want to know. This frightens her, for at that time truth didn’t mix well with a society that said more when nothing was uttered, and where they pretended nothing was wrong, when everything was wrong.

This was such a thought-provoking, insightful, and beautiful read. Once again, Edith Wharton’s ability to tap into the deeper layers of the individual and the different types of personalities, astounded me. She was definitely a genius in portraying people at their strongest and at their weakest, in such a clever and witty way; an eerily ugly yet realistic way. The ugliness of the human spirit and the beauty of it is cleverly conveyed through poetic prose, clever dialogue, and a vast array of personalities.

It is amazing how she could make the reader feel so much for a protagonist like Lily Bart, who is a snob but has no money of her own, yet lives off her friends, attending one soiree after another, playing Bridge and having to rely on her rich friend’s husband to bail her our of her growing debt — yet despises the poorest of society, looking down at them as though they are no better than the rubbish in the bins. Yet despite all this, the reader can’t help but sympathise and rally around this pretentious Lily Bart. There were times that I became so protective of her, and other times I wanted to shake some sense into her, and to show her what a deeper mess she was digging herself into.

Lily’s despising the poor, amplified her inner fears and her inner loathing of herself and her circumstances. I felt that she could see herself in them, or the future she so desperately ran from. It was heartbreaking to see how a person with such potential could slowly become indebted and lose any self-worth they may have had. It was also disheartening to see how friendships were easily lost when one was faced with adversity.

Throughout the novel, the pages seeped with the isolation that such a society brings upon itself and the isolation that Lily Bart felt, even when she was always with her group of socialite friends. It was also an anxiety-provoking journey; to feel her financial despair — travelling through life without any solid plans — almost drifting without purpose. It seems that many of this elite group in those times — in the Gilded Age, were full of conversation, wealth, food, and mirth — but were completely lacking love, truth, and feeling. They were starved from what was real even if they had so much wealth — they were feeding their material lust and desires, yet starving their souls. It also seemed that mind games were the only forms of communication — as though every type of human interaction was like a game of Charades, where one had to guess what the other was thinking. But it was crucial that they didn’t give too much of themselves away as true feeling was scoffed.

Overall, The House of Mirth is another novel where each sentence welcomes deep soul-searching, and insight into how society was at this particular time. I haven’t shed so many tears when reading a novel as I did with this book. Lily Bart is a beautiful soul who has lost her way in a society where finding who you really are means nothing, and cannot compete with a world where social influence and having the finest dress-maker and the best of everything means everything. Finding a wealthy husband if a woman has no inheritance or wealth of her own in such a society means the world, even if it means losing one’s soul and one’s freedom.

n  A quiet scholar came home one night,
From a social gathering, large and polite.
Asked how he'd liked it, the scholar said:
'If they were books, I'd leave them unread.'n
Goethe, East-West Divan

[Note: Republication with new intro quote, after accidentally deleting book and review when removing it from one shelf when I thought it was on another. My apologies.]


A superb, timeless novel that went to my top 50 because it was a real kick in the a$$ to NYC upper class society in the early 20th Century. So, why haven't we had these societal mirrors nearly as often or recent as we should?

>>>>>>>>

An utter beauty* of modest means, orphaned at a young age and raised to be a perfect wife of wealth and privilege,

+

her desire for love and wealth and status yet with a streak of independence, her moral compass and a touch of folly,

+

a depraved, hostile, covetous and capricious upper class society in Gilded Age New York City,

n  =n

This timeless classic tragedy arising from innocent Lily Bart's struggle against society and its expectations.


She felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her.

The eponymous verse from the King James Bible:

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."
Ecclesiastes 7:4, KJV**


_________________________________


*"Everything about her was warm and soft and scented; even the stains of her grief became her as raindrops do the beaten rose." Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth


**Wharton's alternative title was "A Moment's Ornament," from one of her favorite poems, "She was a Phantom of Delight," first stanza (1804) "

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament:....

Wm. Wordsworth, "She was a Phantom of Delight," first stanza (1804)

Definitely well written and still relevant.

"Affluence, unless stimulated by a keen imagination, forms but the vaguest notion of the practical strain of poverty."

Well, the ending of the novel wasn't what I was expecting. Overall it was a good read, if tedious at times, they don't just come out and state the obvious in classics. I'll never forget the character Lily Bart. Obsessed with high society life, she runs into obstacles at every turn trying to snag herself a wealthy husband. For all her efforts and beauty it's oh so tragic, and considering a true love is right under her nose from the start of the novel. All these strings pulling her in different directions keep her from the revelation and the only truth she needs dwelling on, but no one else is paying her bills or adorning her with jewels (except for a relative for some of the novel who presides as her caregiver, who doles out a humble amount, Lily is insatiable in her desires for more). A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.....

Add on after digestion. Did anyone feel like Edith Wharton stopped writing the novel awhile?

I know many authors who can write beautiful scenes beautifully,but there are few who can also write sad scenes as beautifully as Wharton.Yes,she is a real pro at love tragedies.When reading,sometimes I cynically wonder if each description and character gangs together to dig nasty holes here and there,even though the heroine tries every possible effort to get herself out of them.The story line is simple and easily predictable,which leaves it to your imagination why each character thinks and acts in this way or that.
This is the beauty of this gem and her outstanding writing makes it possible.

“You asked me just now for the truth—well, the truth about any girl is that once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks.—My good Gerty, you don't happen to have a cigarette about you?”

Beautifully written snapshot of the New York elite at the turn of the century.