Journal Entry 1 by miketroll on Friday, March 19, 2010

The House of Mirth was Edith Wharton's first major success as a novelist. It was published in 1905, when she was 43. She was born into ostentatiously wealthy New York "society" in the era of Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and drew her subject matter from that scene.

The protagonist of THOM is Lily Bart, a feted society beauty still single in her late twenties. Lily is intelligent, articulate, sophisticated, much in demand at Long Island country house parties. But she has an Achilles heel: no money. When her father's fortune crashes, she is forced to depend on the whim of an elderly aunt disinclined to fund Lily's expensive lifestyle.

Lily would fare better financially were she not so fastidious in her choice of men. There are plenty of rich dolts prepared to marry her, but she can't bear the thought of being permanently attached to one of these oafs. Just one man, Selden, is her true friend and intellectual match, but he himself has the social handicap of having to work for a living as a lawyer.

Comparison inevitably arose with Jane Austen, whose novels focus on the struggle of impecunious young women in polite society to find a suitable husband, in an era when independent professional careers were simply closed to women. Wharton's prose style certainly has much of the elegance of Austen's writing, if not Austen's lightness of touch and wicked irony.

Just as Austen has one or two heroines I'm not fond of (Emma and Fanny), I did not warm to Lily Bart. Her attitude to her social milieu is often ambivalent, hypocritical. She disdains the vulgar ostentation of her rich friends' lives - the vast floral displays, the constant emphasis on absurdly expensive foods, just because they are expensive. And yet Lily wants nothing more than to indulge herself in this same luxury. For all her sophistication, she is an indolent creature.

Having rejected rich suitors as husbands, Lily is disingenuous about the married men who ply her with cash. Does she really think they expect no more than a walk in the park? Anyway, life starts to get tougher for her. When she doesn't put out, her married admirers get tighter with the money, while their jealous wives unjustly smear Lily's reputation and no longer invite her to their parties...

No more spoilers. I enjoyed this novel, even though I'm still puzzling about the mirth of the title. I want to read more Edith Wharton, but don't expect many laughs! 

Journal Entry 2 by miketroll at Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Released 1 yr ago (3/31/2010 UTC) at Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom

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Mailed to Nu-Knees from Pentwyn PO. Hope you like it! 

Journal Entry 3 by Nu-Knees from Knaresborough, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Thursday, April 01, 2010

Thank you very much for this wonderful surprise, MT. I've read Ethan Frome, full of memorable characters although not exactly a barrel of laughs, and am interested in trying further novels by Edith Wharton, thank you. My current reading programme allows for a 'Victorian'* Classic a month so, as I've already committed my choices for the next quarter, courtesy of the Set It Yourself Reading Challenge #12, I've pencilled this one in for July!

* I'm using the term 'Victorian' very loosely: they're not all British, some pre-date her reign and I include the first few years of the 20th century, say pre-World War I.
 

Journal Entry 4 by Nu-Knees at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Thursday, August 19, 2010

I found this a fascinating and rather chilling depiction of life among the American elite at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries when to be rich must have been a nightmare and to try and live with them without sufficient means even worse! I can't see how anyone could breathe in such a stifling atmosphere, hemmed in by the constraints of polite society!
It didn't help my enjoyment that I didn't have much sympathy for, nor understanding of, Lily and some of the strange choices she made.
As I read, I could hear my mother's running commentary: she's her own worst enemy, it'll all end in tears, she had it coming....
Thanks again, MT. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to put this on my keeper shelves with my other classics, for a while at least, with a view to possibly going back to it, although probably not for a full reread. I've been fairly negative about several novels lately so it might just be phase I'm going through....