From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton

Start date: February 1, 2018

Finish date: February 28, 2018

Discussion: 2018 RT Tournament of Books

Why we're reading this: Contender for the 2018 RT Tournament of Books, Round A
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What Members Thought

Sep 09, 2010 Alasse rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novel-of-manners, feminists-and-friends, 1001-books

This book reminded me of when I used to tutor a particular 15-year-old boy. I'd arrive and he'd be snacking and watching this dreadful MTV reality show called “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I used to spend a lot of time over there, so I caught enough bits and pieces of it to feel thoroughly revolted.

Those of you in the USA have probably seen it – it follows over-privileged kids as they organize and throw their lavish 16th birthday parties. But what I find scary about it aren't the 6-figure cars these This book reminded me of when I used to tutor a particular 15-year-old boy. I'd arrive and he'd be snacking and watching this dreadful MTV reality show called “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I used to spend a lot of time over there, so I caught enough bits and pieces of it to feel thoroughly revolted.

Those of you in the USA have probably seen it – it follows over-privileged kids as they organize and throw their lavish 16th birthday parties. But what I find scary about it aren't the 6-figure cars these kids get, but the sense of entitlement floating in the air. These children think that if they want something they will automatically get it – what's more, they think if they want something bad enough, that means they deserve it.

I remember standing there one day, waiting for my pupil to rinse his glass, and being overcome by a crushing feeling of pity. Because I really wanted to slap the kid on the TV, but at the same time I knew, with an overwhelming certainty, that this girl was never going to be truly happy, ever. Even if their parents could keep this up, this sort of entitled, shallow upbringing can only lead to frustration, one way or the other. What a waste of a perfectly good life.

I thought a lot about this moment while reading The House of Mirth. I felt sorry for Lily Bart, while hating her at the same time. I wanted to slap her, while knowing it wasn't her fault that she was the way she was. I wanted her to make up her mind, and at the same time dreaded every one of the options she had.

For make no mistakes – she does have options. A few of us at Bookish were discussing whether this was feminist literature or not. If feminist literature aims to portray women's lack of possibilities as constraining the female character, then this is not your average feminist book (I know, I know, but bear with me for a minute). Lily Bart does in fact have a few options to choose from, even though they would all entail some measure of dependence from other people. But none of these ever crystallize into anything tangible, because she won't make up her mind.

Wharton tries to imply that she's secretly an idealist, and she may be subconsciously sabotaging her own attempts at marrying money. But in fact, for most of the book she doesn't openly defy the system – mostly, she's just angry that she can't find a rich man to support her (she wants one, so she should have one, right?). Her moral scruples only show up when she's already put herself in a compromising position and she needs to save what little self-respect she has left. She is not an idealist, not in practice – she wants to work within the system.

Yet the very system of which she is a result has no place for her. She's a highly specialized product, an ornamental object, the Gilded Age in its most extreme expression - and as such, she's so profoundly dysfunctional she can't bring herself to make a choice for her future, because none of her options are even remotely acceptable. This world is so messed up, its own product can't function within it.

Watching Lily (view spoiler) can get annoying after a while (“will you make up your mind already? I have stuff to do, you know?!”). But it also brings me back to my thoughts that day, watching “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I vaguely thought that this world was f'd up if it was capable of creating such a monstrous thing as that over-entitled 16-year-old. This kid was the product of an environment that was condemning her, by effect of her upbringing, to be chronically dissatisfied for the rest of her life.

The world that Ms. Wharton portrays in her book is just as monstrous. And if it did this to people, and those people were mostly women, then by the FSM, this book serves its purpose, and it definitely is a feminist book.
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59 likes · Like · see review

Feb 27, 2018 Christopher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 20th-century, classics, favorites, american, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

7 likes · Like · see review

Feb 21, 2018 Elise rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, women, 1900s, read-in-2018

Nowhere near as focused or interesting as Age of Innocence. Well-drawn but frustrating characters stubbornly adhere to their society's ridiculously impractical rules, and Lily's protracted fall from upper-class grace became exasperating after a while. ...more

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Jan 24, 2016 Irene rated it really liked it

I love the complex, ambiguous characters that Wharton creates. This is the story of a woman who occupies a social no-man’s-land at the turn of the 20th century. Raised among New York’s wealthy socialites to be “ornamental” as she put it, she is left without funds when her parents sank into bankrupsy just before their death. She does not have the money and social standing to marry well nor the skills and temperament to survive as a working woman. Wharton draws us with incredible skill into this s ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

May 09, 2010 Rosana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2013, audio-books, bookish-w13-challenge

I listen to this in audiobook, and now I wished I had the book to browse through some of the passages. It is a masterpiece of sociology and psychology disguised as a work of fiction. It is also a feminist document.

Lily Bart will stay with me for a long time.

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 22, 2018 Zadignose marked it as not-now

Edith BORE-ton. I survived a chapter and a half. At least I learned that friend-zoning is not a new concept.

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 09, 2011 Julie marked it as didnt-finish · review of another edition

Shelves: group-read-bookish

Fifteen minutes ago, I wrote in my status that this book was boring me and I was seriously considering giving it up. As soon as I put that out there, I felt a sense of relief, which tells me that I should indeed give it up. I liked the book ok in the beginning but then it got boring. Nothing interesting is happening. Combine little plot with 1800's style difficult to read writing and I start finding any excuse I can to read another book. I don't care what dresses Lily Bart wears. I don't care if ...more

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Nov 18, 2015 Joey Anderson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

If you do not wish to read a painful and tragic story of a woman obsessed, then avoid this one. Lily Bart is a woman who has been conditioned by her mother and her society to desire a life of leisure and luxury in the milieu of the rich and famous circa 1905.

Without presenting a single primary sympathetic character, Wharton criticizes American values of wealth, fame, and the acquisition of material possessions. Now while many American novels excoriate or satirize our national obsession and wors If you do not wish to read a painful and tragic story of a woman obsessed, then avoid this one. Lily Bart is a woman who has been conditioned by her mother and her society to desire a life of leisure and luxury in the milieu of the rich and famous circa 1905.

Without presenting a single primary sympathetic character, Wharton criticizes American values of wealth, fame, and the acquisition of material possessions. Now while many American novels excoriate or satirize our national obsession and worship of these qualities, few display a female character whose only purpose in life is to maintain her privileged lifestyle when she has no money but trades on her physical beauty and wit.

Many readers would probably think that times have changed and women are more praised today for their intelligence and abilities, but I don’t think much has changed in a hundred years. Generally, women are still valued for their physical beauty and men are prized for their wealth or their intelligence.

Lily becomes the object of prey for men and women alike (Lily’s most virulent antagonists are other women) as she becomes a victim of financial fraud, sexual assault, false imprisonment, and false accusations until she becomes vanquished from the very society with which she is obsessed.

Obsession is not pretty, but Lily defines her value as a person as being a part of that society, so she never quits attempting to regain her former place. After she is evicted by one of her “friends” from this society, she only begins a downward spiral to the “dingy” life she finds horrible.

I also like how Wharton presents the idea how our parents and society condition us. A very convincing argument for most of us and pretty much like our parents even though we value the rebel. Many of us adopt our parents’ religion, their attitude toward education, and their political affiliation. We may differ in degree, but not in kind. Many of us think we choose our values, but many of us follow the same road of our parents.

And although many of us say we do not value wealth, we still try to become as wealthy as we can (I’ve never met anyone who says they value poverty or even a modest income). Many of us value fame and notoriety (I think of the older generation who wanted to be in the newspaper or the younger generation who determine their value by how many “likes” they have on Twitter or Facebook). And we always need something bigger and better or new (I find it interesting that Americans are more in debt now than they were before the crash in 2008).

Wharton’s novel may be a morality tale, but very few Americans seem to have learned from it.

One of the flaws of the novel Is the ending which I found sentimental and inconsistent with the rest of the novel. It seems as if the last chapter was a publisher’s demand to soften the tragedy (what many nineteenth and early twentieth-century publishers desired from the novels they found too desperate to sell well). ...more

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Mar 25, 2014 Dawn rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, audiobook

This book just about drove me crazy, or I should say the character of Lily Bart did. I am sure that people could hear me yelling at the book while I told Lily how stupid she was and how annoying.

Now, there is no denying that Wharton is a fantastic writer. Someone who wasn't could not have elicited those emotional responses while I read the story. But did Lily have to be so shallow and weak? That's my big issue, I can not get over the fact that the heroine of the book, the main character, was su ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Heather(Gibby) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-to-read

Edith Wharton does a masterful character study in evolving the character of Lily.
At first glance she is a gold digging socialite, but there is a true moral fibre within her, that make playing that hand life has dealt her, all the more difficult.

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