Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: House of Mirth (Modern Library (Paperback)) by Edith Wharton ISBN: 0-375-75375-3 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (83 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Unhappy Heroine
Comment: I must admit I cheated and saw the movie before I read this book. I've had the novel for so long, but never got around to it. The film was stunning and I was sobbing at the end. Now after the reading the book - I am pleased to say the film follows the book closely and Gillian Anderson really captures the moral complexities of Lily Bart. I love how Wharton was able to find the hypocrisy in nineteenth century high society. Not only did she expose its follies, she also unveiled its fragility. Lily could have easily maneuvered her way out of nearing poverty, but she possesses a kind of morality that her privileged, back-stabbing friends do not. It is only by turning their backs on the truth do her peers hold up their shameful facade. I do find it disturbing that Lily believes her only way out is death...that she has nothing else to offer the world. Wharton uses this tactic, though, to symbolically represent the rich snubbing the poor - how they exist without even seeing them.
However, the most intriguing part about this novel is Lily's relationship with Seldon. In the beginning, he seems to always remind her of her vain attempts at marrying rich men. She can't go through with her designs, though. He strings her along, all the while he's having this under-handed liason with one of the most pretentious women of their social circle. Lily never gets to tell him how much she really loves him. Her pride reverts to bravery as she realizes she must face her future without his companionship. Does she die for an empty purse or a broken heart? I choose the latter.
Rating: 4
Summary: An American novel of manners
Comment: The House of Mirth is Wharton's first big novel, and it isn't as good as some of her later works. Nevertheless, Lily Bart, the central character, is well crafted as a woman who cannot reconcile her emotional desires with her deep-seated hatred of what she calls "dinginess" -- financial poverty. The book meticulously depicts her long, slow social downfall as she runs out of money and becomes the victim of malicious rumors spread by her enemies. Ultimately, she cannot marry the man she really loves because he is not rich enough.
The House of Mirth certainly has plenty of juicy elements -- sex scandals, blackmail, gambling, unrequited love, exotic trips to France, etc. It is also a great character study, particularly of Lawrence Selden, who is portrayed as an outside observer looking in on the social world of New York, much like the reader is doing. The social world of the novel is based on the most minute details of all social graces; the book has to be read pretty carefully if you want to get the most from it. Just as all the characters analyze every detail of every other character's actions, so too must the reader. Don't try to use this book as brain candy on a long plane flight. If you've got the time, it's well worth reading, despite some of the cheesy plot twists towards the end.
Rating: 5
Summary: The enigma of Lily Bart
Comment: 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."
 |
Title: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Louis Auchincloss ISBN: 0375753206 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 02 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
 |
Title: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, Richard Lingeman ISBN: 0451527607 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 10 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
 |
Title: CliffsNotes On Wharton's The House of Mirth by Bruce Edward Walker ISBN: 0764537164 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 28 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
 |
Title: Awakening by Kate Chopin ISBN: 0380002450 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 10 February, 1982 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
 |
Title: The Rise of Silas Lapham (The Penguin American Library) by William Dean Howells ISBN: 0140390308 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: April, 1983 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
