The House of Mirth

I just finished listening to a wonderful recording of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (narrated by Barbara Caruso other of whose recordings I have also enjoyed greatly...especially Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH).

I'd never read any Edith Wharton before but I must say that now I'm planning to.

This story of turn of the (20th) century New York concerns Miss Lily Bart, a "poor, miserable, marriageable girl" who is accustomed to the lap of luxury. Think of it as a Jane Austen set up, but much, much darker.

When we first meet Lily, she is scheming to marry wealthy, dull Mr. Percy Gryce. With her beauty, charm, and wiles, it should be a shoe-in. But just as she is about to clinch the deal, she ruins everything, by realizing how much more she enjoys being with an interesting man. Whom she doesn't want to marry because he can't support her in the style to which she has become accustomed.

Lily has been a poor dependent of wealthy friends and relations for the past 10 years or so. As her name suggests, she has been brought up in wealth as a fragile, ornamental young lady, dependent on all the resources of a hothouse to fully blossom. That is until she is thrust into poverty by her father's economic ruin and death. She lives by making herself useful in various ways to the pleasure-seeking leisure class ladies in her circle, and so, acquires the both the tastes and expensive needs of associating with the rich. Because of her extraordinary beauty and charm she has never lacked suitors. But here lies the problem -- she's just too picky. And like many beautiful, charming young women, she finds that her assets also make her a target for many kinds of insult and victimization.

We watch as one scheme after another that she formulates for her economic preservation falls apart, due to malice, bad luck, misunderstanding, lack of communication or arbitrary social rules that hamper young women. Though some of the factors that contribute to Lily's plight would no longer be relevant today, I think most of them would. But what makes the book so powerful is that Lily's growing backbone is what causes the pillars of her world to crumble, and we weep that her strength is not properly valued.

At the beginning I thought I would hate the story...Miss Bart seems at first such an unsympathetic, spoiled, conniving little gold-digger. But it didn't take long to get me interested. And by the end...well...I am not, in general, a crier, but I must say, I did tear up. I loved every bit of the book except the ending, which I disagree with. Without giving a spoiler, all I can say is that that I think Edith Wharton wrote the ending that Lily would have wanted, but I as a reader found it unsatisfying. I wanted more poetic justice.

I will add that on the strength of my taste for the book, I borrowed the 2000 movie of the same name, starring Gillian Anderson. Don't bother. While it is fairly faithful to the dialog of the book, and the costumes are nice, the acting is pretty bad. And they made some fairly critical plot changes for no better reason that I can see than to save money by cutting down on the number of roles.