Rating: 
Summary: The sad story of Lily Bart
Review: The House of Mirth is set in the glittering, society-conscious world of New York City shortly after the turn of the century. Lily Bart is a young, single woman who moves easily among the moneyed set even though she herself is just the poor relation of a wealthy, widowed aunt. Lily lives on the generosity of her friends, spending long weekends at their estates playing bridge, distracting husbands whose wives are having affairs or simply serving as a beautiful ornamentation for their dinner parties and lavish get-togethers.
As the story opens, Lily is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the financial demands that even this kind of lifestyle places upon her. And though she recognizes the shallowness and superficiality of the people in her social set, theirs is the lifestyle that Lily is accustomed to, the one she was raised in and the one in which she wants to remain at all costs. After a series of bad choices and the betrayal of those she thought to be her close friends, Lily is brought down time and again until she is literally on the bottom rung of society's ladder. It is her basic desire to always adhere to a higher code of morality that will ultimately contribute to Lily's final downfall and tragic, untimely end.
This novel is a harsh commentary on the New York society scene of Edith Wharton's era and the ruthlessness with which its members could either embrace or discard one of their own. Lily is her own worst enemy and while she seems to be inherently of better character than her society friends she is not above looking with disdain at those outside her social circle and repeatedly turns away from opportunities that would bring her true happiness and fulfillment. By the time she realizes the enormity of the mistakes and miscalculations she has made there is nothing she can do to alter the tragic course her life will take. A colorful and well-written novel but overall very sad and depressing.
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: The enigma of Lily Bart
Review: Can anyone truly tell me under what category our enigmatic Lily Bart should be placed? She's such....well.. an enigma, that she's difficult to put a finger on (no pun intended). Is she an antihero, a bona fide heroine, or somewhere stuck in the middle? In any event, at times I shook my head in disgust at some of her less than wise decisions, while I applauded and cheered as she undergoes a striking, yet tumultuous, epiphany of sorts that makes her all the more endearing and palpably real to the reader.
Seemingly infinite wealth, preeminent social status, and unmitigated decadence form the shaky foundation of Edith Wharton's fictional and frictional, yet highly plausible, house -- a house that, ironically enough, is conspicuously devoid of mirth. There exists, however, a method to Wharton's madness. As the bible verse(Ecl 7:4) states from which she nabbed the title, "...the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." As Lily is inexorably extricated from this house of miserable frivolity, I found it increasingly difficult to nonchalantly label Lily a failure, but rather as a heroine of noble courage.
The sheer genius of Wharton's amazingly fluid and enormously readable prose deftly concludes with "the word which made all clear" for Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden. The beauty of this is that Wharton does not lower herself and overtly spell it out to the reader as so many hackneyed authors do; instead, she places her blind faith in the astuteness of the reader to discern for oneself.Note: for those ordering the large print version, it is well worth it for the contemporary reviews written in 1905 as well as Edith Wharton's correspondences to Charles Scribner, but do not, however, read the intro by Elizabeth Hardwick before the text due to the fact that she inexcusably reveals the denouement in her so-called "introduction."
Rating: 
Summary: Mirth? I think not...
Review: Review of "The House Of Mirth"
Stephanie Grumbacher Edith Wharton's classic, "The House of Mirth", while written well, was flawed in several ways. Wharton's over-dramatic tale of a social climbing girl who needed to grow up lacked emotion altogether. Lily Bart, who is considered a heroine in nineteenth century literature, drags on in unhappiness for 310 pages without ever stopping to think logically about her money or use of time, ending up poor and lonely. She is what women of 2004 would look down upon with disgust: fragile and weak. Yet the book pulls the reader in by trying to understand why Bart would do the things she does. The book becomes seemingly unbearable by Bart's actions, but addicting in a way that you want to see if Lily will come to her senses. What the novel lacks in description it makes up for in its accurate portrayal of high profile society in the 1800's. Socialites like Bertha Dorset, who used their popularity and "rank" to keep her hold on people. Simon Rosedale thought that his money could get him whatever he wanted, including Lily. As for the dynamic in Lawrence Seldon and Bart's relationship, it lacked depth altogether. It seemed Lily only had one love, that being herself. "The House of Mirth", while an interesting look into the past, was overly drawn out and almost painful to read at points.
|
