The House of Mirth

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)

Lily Bart is accustomed to a lavish lifestyle among the highest of New York society. Maintaining it will require a good marriage though, and she is already in her late 20s and getting desperate. It's clear that she is depending very much on others to maintain her place in society and her attempts to secure that place permanently are what contribute to her downfall.

Lily is clearly attracted to Lawrence Selden, and he to her, but he is not rich enough to keep her in the lifestyle which she insists is necessary. So she looks elsewhere for marriage prospects, pursuing Percy Gryce and then Simon Rosedale, neither of whom she actually likes and both of whom she fails to secure. In an attempt to invest what money she has, she seeks help from Gus Trenor, which turns out to be a huge mistake.

Gerty Farish was Lily's most stalwart friend, though ironically everything Lily did was to ensure that she didn't end up like Gerty, who was unmarried and lived alone in a small, modest flat and was excluded from fashionable social circles. I actually really liked Gerty who was probably the most genuine person in the book - being excluded from society means not being beholden to its requirements.

If Lily has a nemesis, it is surely Bertha Dorset, who contributes mightily to Lily's downfall. Bertha is notoriously unfaithful to her husband but deflects attention by spreading rumors and gossip about other people. She uses those around her for personal gain, manipulating them to serve her purposes. Lily comes into some evidence of one of Bertha's affairs and could have used it against her to help secure her place back in society, but in doing so would have also implicated Selden. As much as Lily could have been seen as being shallow and self-serving, she was definitely true to Selden.

I have no idea if high-falutin' New York society was actually anything like this during the Gilded Age, but if so I'm extremely glad I was not a part of it. Navigating one's life required the most intricate military precision, and I don't care how shallow and ridiculous you think these women were, they had to be smart and strategic in a way that I would completely fail at. I would have been eaten alive. At one point Lily laments: "All Jack has to do to get everything he wants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry him; whereas I have to calculate and contrive, and retreat and advance, as if I were going through an intricate dance, where one misstep would throw me hopelessly out of time." The language throughout the book reflected this strategic approach; for instance, when Lily doubts that Bertha Dorset's behavior towards a man will be sufficient to "effect his capture."

I've read three other books by Wharton and I don't recall the writing being so dense, but this took me a full week to read, which is unusual for me. I really enjoyed it until late in the story, and I'm trying not to let the ending color my impression of the whole thing. It did at first, but thinking back on it all to write this post has actually made me feel a bit better about the book as a whole. (It's a totally legit way to end, but just wasn't what I wanted to happen.) The social commentary was excellent and it was absolutely worth reading it just for that.

The House of Mirth was the March selection for the Classic Book a Month Club, and the first that I read for the year. I'll also be participating next month by reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which has been on my To Read list since I first had one, and which I managed to not read during my 2015 TBR Pile Challenge. This will finally be the year, folks!

Twilight Sleep

Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton (1927)

Pauline Manford's family is unhappy and falling apart in all kinds of ways, but she can't deal with reality and instead relies on a busy schedule of meaningless engagements, rest cures and a series of spiritual healers to fill the void of her days. Her greatest satisfaction is in spending ever more money on expanding and improving her home and gardens, paying the huge bills, and counting the money still in the bank. She's too "busy" to visit an acquaintance with cancer or talk to her ex-husband about an important matter and so enlists her daughter Nona to do so for her.

Nona feels anxious and oppressed as though by the weight of everything her mother refuses to shoulder, and is unhappily pining away after a married man. Pauline's husband Dexter is tired of her superficial life and is drawn to his step-son's wife, Lita, which goes completely without notice by Pauline. Lita wants to run off and be in the movies, but Pauline seems to think she can be convinced she doesn't want to. Pauline believes that if she says everything is fine, it will surely be so.

The phrase "twilight sleep" refers to an insensibility to pain without losing consciousness, and that is state that Pauline strives for. She does it without drugs, instead relying upon whatever dubious spiritual healer is currently in vogue, and her own vast powers of denial. She speaks at various charity engagements, not even realizing that the organizations she is supporting conflict with one another in their goals. Her friends are just as superficial and ridiculous as she is. One, Mrs. Landish, has become so obsessed with Vikings she has redone her house to reflect that style. She becomes upset when the rushes she wants to cover her floor with aren't available and she has to settle for commissioning handwoven rugs from Abyssinia. We can presume these efforts will all be for naught when Mrs. Landish discovers a new fad.

This satirical novel about bored people filling their empty lives with meaningless activities - work, affairs, fake spirituality - was never very popular and from the reviews I've read, some people find it really dull but I didn't. The funny thing is that I read it YEARS ago and all I remembered was that I liked it. And that it had something to do with drugs. It has nothing to do with drugs, and much of it is so subtle that I'm surprised I liked it so much. But maybe I was just much more enthralled with the 20s than I am now (and I suspect my brain worked better in my youth.) I still liked it well enough, and I think it really does capture the era nicely. It's not especially well-known, but if you like the 1920s and/or Edith Wharton, I think it's required reading.

The Age of Innocence : a review

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920)

Young Newland Archer is freshly engaged to May Welland, when her cousin Ellen Olenska arrives in New York amidst a fair bit of scandal. She has left her brute of a husband and there is talk that she may have been involved with another man. She is even considering divorce (gasp!) Newland is quite taken with Ellen and promptly tries to convince May to move their wedding date up. You can see where this is going. Newland and May marry, but he continues to combat his deep affection for Ellen. Divorce in this place and time is so controversial it is almost unthinkable (see: Ellen Olenska), so Newland’s problems aren’t as easily solved as they would be today.

Wharton’s book was originally sold as a “problem novel” about divorce, and though cultural mores about marriage and divorce have changed enough for the novel to seem a bit dated (and certainly to lessen the dramatic impact), there is still much food for thought. Newland lives in a restrictive society and yearns to be free of certain rules and obligations, yet his life isn’t unhappy. Who’s to say that he would have been any better off had he pursued Ellen?

I’m a sucker for these period novels, and Wharton’s writing was a pleasure to read. At times I was frustrated by the choices the characters made, not to mention their apparent thickheadedness, but in retrospect I’m glad because the resulting complications gave me so much to think about. If you’re interested classic novels of missed opportunities and thwarted love, I’d recommend giving this novel a chance.