The House of Mirth

Rating:
Summary: Hmmm...
Review: This book is notable because it gives the reader an inside look at the ultra-rich old-money upperclass of a century ago.

The main character, Lily Bart, I found totally unlikeable. One can't feel sorry for someone who has had boundless opportunities to get a better deal in life than all but a few, but she squanders all of her opportunities because none meet her ideal of perfection.

What she's looking for is a life of being ultra-rich where she can boss around an army of servants and never have to do any work, and her only acceptable route for getting there is to marry someone that rich. But it's not enough that her husband merely be filthy rich, but that the money be old money and not new money, that he be good looking and intelligent. This, of course, is all too much for anyone to ask for. So she rejects the man who has old money and is good looking but is as dumb as a brick. She rejects the man who is smart and filthy rich but is fat and ugly and, oh my god, Jewish! And she rejects the man who is good looking and smart, but merely an upper middle class lawyer who can never buy her two mansions full of servants.

Lily is also horrified at the notion of actually EARNING money. The process by which men become super-rich repulses her (which is why only inherited money is pure).

You don't necessarily have to like the main character in order for a book to be a good book. But I found the book hard reading, mostly due to all the names that are thrown at the reader which soon become very hard to keep track of, and the oblique manner in which so many of the books major plot points are described, making it easy for the casual reader to get completely lost.

Rating:
Summary: Don't accept imitations
Review: This is the original "Sex and the City" and a century and the alleged sexual revolution have not lessened its sting. Any single woman of the present day can recognize some of herself in Lily Bart--the optimism, the refusal to settle, the accumulating horrors of growing old in the sexual marketplace. Even the economic details aren't far off--it's a nasty struggle to make it on your own in New York, and a lot of women seem to count on an "ATM" (see "Bergdorf Blondes") or rich boyfriend to make ends meet. As the years pass, this becomes less of an option, and all of us fear the modern version of the drudgery that Lily endures toward the end. A thought-provoking if somewhat depressing story, full of lavish period detail and Wharton's trademark precise and elegant prose. Read it and weep.

Rating:
Summary: What catty, evil characters this book has...
Review: What I *love* about this book are the characters. The characters in this book are so spiteful and malicious that you can't help but find yourself drawn into the tragic story of Lily Bart. After a series of unfortunate events, each more disastrous than the last, Lily finds that she has fallen from the highest rung of society to the very lowest of the working class. This book is about the viciousness of so-called "friends" and the self-destruction that befalls a woman in the early 1900s who wishes to remain single and free but is pressured to marry before she's too old. As social commentary, this book is excellent, and it's fairly entertaining. A good read.