PabloQ
02-29-2008, 06:59 PM
The House of Mirth is Edith Wharton's story of living beyond one's means. It's a tragic story about naivity and foolishness, a story of ambition, a story of despair. Wharton's writing flows and her story is easy to follow.
Lily Bart is likable character. She's beautiful, 29 years old and single. Very early on you see that Lily doesn't seem to have the wisdom to look at situations through the eyes of the people with whom she mingles. In broad daylight, she visits with a young man in his apartment to have a cup of tea to kill time while waiting to take a train to a country estate. She's seen leaving the man's apartment and runs into a person who she knows through social circles. What is a young single woman doing visiting a man in his apartment during the afternoon? Because Lily knows it's an innocent visit she seems to disregard what others might think.
Lily is well regarded among the rich of New York. She is invited to country estates because she is entertaining and amusing. But she continues to make choices that start to erode her reputation. She naively puts herself into one situation after another and as a spectator, you know she's on a tragic path, that she lacks the ability to extract herself from her spiralling fall and that the people who are steadfast in their friendship to her are barely more capable. At the beginning of the novel, she is happy and hopeful, but as the novel moves on she becomes sad as figure and eventually her character becomes irretrievably sad.
Wharton was an American author who wrote novels in the early twentieth century. She knew her way around New York society and that experience shows in the believable portrayal of the attitudes and mannerisms of the characters. She depicts society in three layers -- the rich, the nouveau wanna-bes, and the masses. Lily Bart makes stops at all 3 layers. Ironically, when Lily has hit rock bottom, a working girl that has been able to turn her life around to find a decent husband and produce a sweet baby is the straw that breaks Lily's back. Lily can't exercise the type of turnaround that this person has produced.
I give the novel 3 stars even though I enjoyed the book immensely. It's just not 5 star knock your socks off stuff.
Lily Bart is likable character. She's beautiful, 29 years old and single. Very early on you see that Lily doesn't seem to have the wisdom to look at situations through the eyes of the people with whom she mingles. In broad daylight, she visits with a young man in his apartment to have a cup of tea to kill time while waiting to take a train to a country estate. She's seen leaving the man's apartment and runs into a person who she knows through social circles. What is a young single woman doing visiting a man in his apartment during the afternoon? Because Lily knows it's an innocent visit she seems to disregard what others might think.
Lily is well regarded among the rich of New York. She is invited to country estates because she is entertaining and amusing. But she continues to make choices that start to erode her reputation. She naively puts herself into one situation after another and as a spectator, you know she's on a tragic path, that she lacks the ability to extract herself from her spiralling fall and that the people who are steadfast in their friendship to her are barely more capable. At the beginning of the novel, she is happy and hopeful, but as the novel moves on she becomes sad as figure and eventually her character becomes irretrievably sad.
Wharton was an American author who wrote novels in the early twentieth century. She knew her way around New York society and that experience shows in the believable portrayal of the attitudes and mannerisms of the characters. She depicts society in three layers -- the rich, the nouveau wanna-bes, and the masses. Lily Bart makes stops at all 3 layers. Ironically, when Lily has hit rock bottom, a working girl that has been able to turn her life around to find a decent husband and produce a sweet baby is the straw that breaks Lily's back. Lily can't exercise the type of turnaround that this person has produced.
I give the novel 3 stars even though I enjoyed the book immensely. It's just not 5 star knock your socks off stuff.