Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119271 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'To my mind, her greatest novel ... beautifully written ... never jaded or perfunctory. The humour sedately delirious. Above all, it is a passionate book' NINA BAWDEN

About the Author
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born into a prosperous New York family in 1862. She wrote over fifteen novels, was distinguished for her work in the First World War and was the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Letters from Yale University. She died in

Customer Reviews

Mirthless "House"
America and Europe of the 1800s were stiff, gilded, formal place, full of "old" families, rigid customs and social transgressions. Especially for women.

And nobody chronicled them better than Edith Wharton, who spun exquisitely barbed novels out of the social clashes of the late nineteenth century. "The House of Mirth" is one of her darker stories, where scandals and lack of conformity trigger a tragic downward spiral for a vibrant woman.

Like most not-so-rich women, Lily Bart is on the prowl for a marriage to keep her in luxury and affluent circles. What's more, she has a rapid intellect and striking looks, but she is also a habitual liar who defies society's strictures (she gambles and smokes). Her only friend is Lawrence Seldon, but she is determined not to marry for love alone.

Unfortunately, her schemes and plans start to collapse -- her adoring suitors either aren't rich enough, or her independent spirit sends her off. Her desperation becomes even more intense as she finds herself in the thick of a scandal, spun up by a malicious society matron to cover up her own affair. With her reputation in ruins, Lily's life spirals down into a new life of unemployment, poverty, and the final tragedy.

Edith Wharton always paid a lot of attention to a woman's restricted life in the Gilded Age, and how scandals, unconventionality and society's hypocrisy could ruin them. But "The House of Mirth" pays more attention to this than most -- it's a bleakly realistic story, unflinchingly showing Lily's slow descent into miserable loneliness.

Despite that, Wharton's writing is pure flowering poetry with a knack for evocation ("Her small pale face seemed the mere setting of a pair of dark exaggerated eyes"), and has a sensual quality with all the descriptions of silks, plants, soft light and luxurious mansions. And she vividly portrays the upper echelons of New York society at the time -- affairs, gossip and gilded salons -- as well as the restricted lives of women

But Wharton is just as capable of describing the darker, sadder world that Lily falls into ("... blurred the gaunt roof-lines, threw a mauve veil over the discouraging perspective of the side streets"). Sedoesn't pull any punches with the tragic finale, which has a distinct air of inevitability about it -- no fairy-tale last-minute save by a Prince Charming.

Lily starts out the book as a glimmering satellite of society, who can be rather selfish and cruel, but who nevertheless gains some sympathy because she just doesn't deserve everything that happens. The cruel, glittering society of the time had no room for women who stood outside the lines, and Lily's slow downward spiral is an illustration of this -- she's driven into miserable poverty and drug addiction. Lovely.

"The House of Mirth" is anything but mirthful -- it's the study of a woman's slow downfall, and the cruel society that left her friendless and disgraced. Haunting and vivid.

A Touching Tale of Human Weakness
I have long been a fan of Edith Wharton's work after seeing the film adaptation of The Age of Innocence, but this is my favorite of her stories. I have never seen the film version, for fear to would ruin the novel for me.
I have to disagree with the previous reviewer who found Wharton's writing style too difficult for the modern reader. The writing is intellectual, in that she uses good words and perfect grammar, unlike most popular novels today, but very easy to understand. I could not put this book down once I picked it up, but is deliciously long enough to keep me entertained for a week.

The story's protagonist, the beautiful Lily Bart is at first glance what we imagine a young lady of society in the late 1800's to be, flirty, charming but a little self-centered and love for all things elegant and beautiful. As the story progresses we grasp her vulnerability and her insecurities and also her all too human love of wealth and "beautiful things." She is unable to give into her love for the only person who truly understands and respects her because he is unable to give her all the material things she desires. However when is given the opportunities to become like other women and marry for money to a man she hates, she cannot bring herself to do some. The story is a dance of Liliy's struggle between the things she wants and must have and the other alternative.

Great writing, horrible heroine
Was there ever a more spineless, worthless heroine than Lily Bart? Come on, even Aunt Pittypat has more backbone than she does. At the outset of Wharton's beautifully-written book, Lily is clearly already "on the shelf" at age 29 or so, and she is a proud, secure girl who makes her home with an aging relative. Lily makes a series of really stupid life choices throughout the bulk of the book, which make her relatives unhappy and then make her friends unhappy; they mostly ostracize her as a result, and she swans along, gently puzzled about these changes in her social fortunes. As her lifestyle declines (into a genteel sort of poverty) and she continues to wonder, all the way to the end of the book, I just wanted to throw it out of the window.

Usually when you read a book, you become privy to knowledge and insights of the characters because the characters have drawn the conclusions in their own minds. The reader sort of follows along with the deductive processes of the character. Yet this book is written as though Wharton, and therefore we, have more insight into Lily's mind than she herself does. It's frustrating to read (though the writing is, as all of Wharton's books, elegant and evocative). I don't like Lily Bart, and I probably won't reread this book.