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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
■ Even though some passages are so well written that I had to close the book to take a minute to freak out, I was admittedly lost for the majority of this book.
■ The social manoeuvres are so subtle that I would read several pages wherein nothing happened, only to later learn that a massive social snub had happened and all he'll had broken lose. This made it a very disconcerting read.
■ The plot picked up in places and I did like Lily Bart as a character, however it did feel like a slog quite quickly.
■ I would definitely recommend 'The Age of Innocence' over this, as the emotional journey of the characters and the plot itself is more clear while still including Wharton's beautiful prose and cutting social commentary.
■ The social manoeuvres are so subtle that I would read several pages wherein nothing happened, only to later learn that a massive social snub had happened and all he'll had broken lose. This made it a very disconcerting read.
■ The plot picked up in places and I did like Lily Bart as a character, however it did feel like a slog quite quickly.
■ I would definitely recommend 'The Age of Innocence' over this, as the emotional journey of the characters and the plot itself is more clear while still including Wharton's beautiful prose and cutting social commentary.
This book has been popping up in my inbox in various newsletters so I decided to give it a try (or re-try - I think I've read it before, in an earlier life). I can't finish. I suppose the writing is ok, and it has a matching audiobook (with a good narrator) so I can listen or read as I wish. But - I just don't like it. I know books like these show us the history and how people lived, but it is just so upsetting to read about women who are nothing until they marry, who are at the whim of this man or another.
This a wonderful study of human behavior, morality, happiness, and class differences all wrapped up in a love story.
Great story, but the writing! I had to diagram every sentence just to understand it. I much prefer Wharton's "country" novels ('Summer' and 'Ethan Frome'), with their simple, straightforward writing style.
I picked this book up on a whim and am glad I did. Wharton's storytelling has a lot of the things I like about Jane Austen books: a Victorian setting, a look at the silliness of some of the upper class, a heroine who is both flawed and noble, etc. But the language of Wharton is easier to read. And her ending was not so pat as is often the case in an Austen book.
I thought this book was romantic, tragic, and beautiful in its use of language.
I thought this book was romantic, tragic, and beautiful in its use of language.
I did not know this was a tragedy. Sooo definitely a surprise since I was expecting an Austen-like novel. Even so, this book was incredible. I was so engaged with Edith Wharton's words and let myself sink into her beautifully tragic story. The "word", what was the word?!
Well, I knew nothing about this book going into it. And, it's a beautiful bummer as one of my friends put it. The sentences are finely wrought, the plotting elegant. The sadness, the smallness of Lily Bart's options structured well. There's antisemitism throughout, which is disturbing to read, but I think useful in that it provides insight into cultural norms and values, problematic as they were, at the turn of the 19th-20th century. There's an essay about this in the NY Times or something but I can't find it so sorry everyone.
Anyhow, I'd recommend this if you like novels on manners and criticism of wealth-culture and patriarchy! And bummers!
Anyhow, I'd recommend this if you like novels on manners and criticism of wealth-culture and patriarchy! And bummers!
I’ll start out by saying that despite the title, this was an incredibly depressing read. Don’t get me wrong; I loved the writing style and Lily Bart is one of the best-limned protagonists I’ve seen in a long time. And that’s why it’s such a depressing read. I preferred [b:The Age of Innocence|53835|The Age of Innocence|Edith Wharton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388248423s/53835.jpg|1959512], but this could be a companion to it in some ways – portraying the consequences of not marrying out of duty.
Lily Bart may just be her own worst enemy. I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with her as the novel progressed. There were multiple times in the book when I did start to sympathize with her, but then she’d put her poor judgment on full display and create crises that could have been averted entirely if she had thought out the consequences ahead of time. It didn’t help that she was indecisive – both as to what she wanted and how she was going to get it. The biggest example here was whether she would marry for money. There were several times in the book when it sounded like she had been on the brink of it, and it was really the only realistic and socially acceptable way for her to obtain the financial resources she desired, but every time she either consciously or unconsciously sabotaged it.
And then her financial woes. Again, I started out feeling kind of sorry for her, since she didn’t seem to grow up with any good role models when it came to managing money:
“In this desultory yet agitated fashion, life went on through Lily’s teens: a zig-zag broken course down which the family craft glided on a rapid current of amusement, tugged at by the underflow of a perpetual need – the need of more money. Lily could not recall the time when there had been money enough, and in some vague way her father seemed always to blame for the deficiency. It could certainly not be the fault of Mrs. Bart, who was spoken of by her friends as a “wonderful manager.” Mrs. Bart was famous for the unlimited effect she produced on limited means, and to the lady and her acquaintances there was something heroic in living as though one were much richer than one’s bank-book denoted.
“Lily was naturally proud of her mother’s aptitude in this line; she had been brought up in the faith that whatever it cost, one must have a good cook and be what Mrs. Bart called “decently dressed.” Mrs. Bart’s worst reproach to her husband was to ask him if he expected her to “live like a pig;” and his replying in the negative was always regarded as a justification for cabling to Paris for an extra dress or two and telephoning to the jeweler that he might, after all, send home the turquoise bracelet which Mrs. Bart had looked at that morning.” (Pages 31-32).
And in a great example of showing rather than telling, the family hall-table is described as “showered with square envelopes that were opened in haste and oblong envelopes which were allowed to gather dust in the depths of a bronze jar.” At the time, invitations to dinners and expensive parties were delivered in square envelopes, while bills came in oblong envelopes.
But Lily was not a child by the time everything caught up with them; at the age of eighteen she “had made a dazzling debut, fringed by a heavy thunder-cloud of bills. The light of the debut still lingered on the horizon, but the cloud had thickened; and suddenly it broke.” (Page 32). So I started getting frustrated when she ran up gambling debts and used borrowed money to buy high-end clothes and accessories – it was like she hadn’t learned anything about the perils of living beyond one’s means even from direct observation as an adult.
I’m not sure if this was written with the goal of highlighting (if not stoking) class tensions, but it did that very effectively – parts of this could be lifted for a “1001 reasons the 99% should be disgusted with the 1%" book. Especially the outrageous sense of entitlement: “A world in which such things could be seemed a miserable place to Lily Bart; but then she had never been able to understand the laws of a universe which was so ready to leave her out of its calculations.” (Page 29). Not only that, but she “was not made for mean and shabby surroundings, for the squalid compromises of poverty. Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury; it was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.” (Page 27). And then there was this:
“She had always accepted with philosophic calm the fact that such existences as hers were pedestalled on foundations of obscure humanity. The dreary limbo of dinginess lay all around and beneath that little illuminated circle in which life reached its finest efflorescence, as the mud and sleet of a winter night enclose a hot-house filled with tropical flowers. All this was in the natural order of things, and the orchid basking in its artificially created atmosphere could round the delicate curves of its petals undisturbed by the ice on the panes.” (Page 162).
She wasn’t the only one, either – after the collapse of the Bart family’s financial house of cards, Mrs. Bart ceased to care for her husband: “he had become extinct when he ceased to fulfill his purpose.” (Page 34). And while there was some money left, “to Mrs. Bart it seemed worse than nothing – the mere mockery of what she was entitled to,” and, “she sank into a kind of furious apathy, a state of inert anger against fate.” (Page 35). And she saw being poor as a “confession of failure.” Most of all, Mrs. Bart was “not above the inconsistency of charging fate, rather than herself, with her own misfortunes…” (Page 36). Like mother, like daughter.
I also thought it was interesting how flowers were incorporated throughout the book. It’s not just Lily’s name; her memory of her family’s financial collapse was intertwined with flowers – the wilting American Beauty roses on the table and her desire for fresh jonquils or lilies-of-the-valley. Lily identifies with orchids and flowers in general and imagined herself as “diffusing elegance as a flower sheds perfume.” (Page 107). Later she is described as being like “some rare flower grown for exhibition, a flower from which every bud had been nipped except the crowning blossom of her beauty.” (Page 341). And the white dress from her role in a tableau vivant at the Bry’s party “gave forth an odour of violets which came to her like a breath from the flower-edged fountain…” (Page 341). I knew Wharton was going for a scriptural reference with the title but given the role of flowers in the novel I found it odd she didn’t go with the many scriptural references to the evanescence of flowers. The most striking example to me is “consider the lilies of the field,” which are described later on as “here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 6:28-30). Or “The grass withers and the flowers fall…” (Isaiah 40:8).
There is also a botanical aspect to all this, although I’m not sure to what extent Wharton would have been drawing on it for this novel. A plant’s flowers house its sex organs, and the reason flowers are so showy is to attract a plant’s pollinators. Orchids are an especially interesting case; their strategy is to make the flowers look so similar to female pollinating insects that the males will attempt to mate with the flowers, and in the process pollinate the plant. More typically, of course, the colors, scents, and nectar of flowers will attract the appropriate pollinators for the species. Once the flower is pollinated, the pistil will swell and grow into a fruit (botanically, anything that develops from a flower is a fruit, which is why tomatoes and summer squash are classed as fruits). In other words, the plant puts energy and resources into making flowers attractive for a reason, and if it fails the plant will be the last of its line. And Lily,
When Lily participated in the tableaux vivant at the Bry’s party, she was re-creating the painting “Mrs. Richard Bennett Lloyd” by Sir Joshua Reynolds:
Favorite quotes:
“She [Lily’s mother] had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her making.” (Page 34).
“When a girl’s as good-looking as that she’d better marry; then no questions are asked. In our imperfectly organized society there is no provision as yet for the young woman who claims the privileges of marriage without assuming its obligations.” (Pages 169-170).
“She was realizing for the first time that a woman’s dignity may cost more to keep up than her carriage.” (Page 182).
“Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn’t any.” (Page 247).
“It was easy enough to despise the world but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.” (Page 280).
Lily Bart may just be her own worst enemy. I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with her as the novel progressed. There were multiple times in the book when I did start to sympathize with her, but then she’d put her poor judgment on full display and create crises that could have been averted entirely if she had thought out the consequences ahead of time. It didn’t help that she was indecisive – both as to what she wanted and how she was going to get it. The biggest example here was whether she would marry for money. There were several times in the book when it sounded like she had been on the brink of it, and it was really the only realistic and socially acceptable way for her to obtain the financial resources she desired, but every time she either consciously or unconsciously sabotaged it.
And then her financial woes. Again, I started out feeling kind of sorry for her, since she didn’t seem to grow up with any good role models when it came to managing money:
“In this desultory yet agitated fashion, life went on through Lily’s teens: a zig-zag broken course down which the family craft glided on a rapid current of amusement, tugged at by the underflow of a perpetual need – the need of more money. Lily could not recall the time when there had been money enough, and in some vague way her father seemed always to blame for the deficiency. It could certainly not be the fault of Mrs. Bart, who was spoken of by her friends as a “wonderful manager.” Mrs. Bart was famous for the unlimited effect she produced on limited means, and to the lady and her acquaintances there was something heroic in living as though one were much richer than one’s bank-book denoted.
“Lily was naturally proud of her mother’s aptitude in this line; she had been brought up in the faith that whatever it cost, one must have a good cook and be what Mrs. Bart called “decently dressed.” Mrs. Bart’s worst reproach to her husband was to ask him if he expected her to “live like a pig;” and his replying in the negative was always regarded as a justification for cabling to Paris for an extra dress or two and telephoning to the jeweler that he might, after all, send home the turquoise bracelet which Mrs. Bart had looked at that morning.” (Pages 31-32).
And in a great example of showing rather than telling, the family hall-table is described as “showered with square envelopes that were opened in haste and oblong envelopes which were allowed to gather dust in the depths of a bronze jar.” At the time, invitations to dinners and expensive parties were delivered in square envelopes, while bills came in oblong envelopes.
But Lily was not a child by the time everything caught up with them; at the age of eighteen she “had made a dazzling debut, fringed by a heavy thunder-cloud of bills. The light of the debut still lingered on the horizon, but the cloud had thickened; and suddenly it broke.” (Page 32). So I started getting frustrated when she ran up gambling debts and used borrowed money to buy high-end clothes and accessories – it was like she hadn’t learned anything about the perils of living beyond one’s means even from direct observation as an adult.
I’m not sure if this was written with the goal of highlighting (if not stoking) class tensions, but it did that very effectively – parts of this could be lifted for a “1001 reasons the 99% should be disgusted with the 1%" book. Especially the outrageous sense of entitlement: “A world in which such things could be seemed a miserable place to Lily Bart; but then she had never been able to understand the laws of a universe which was so ready to leave her out of its calculations.” (Page 29). Not only that, but she “was not made for mean and shabby surroundings, for the squalid compromises of poverty. Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury; it was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.” (Page 27). And then there was this:
“She had always accepted with philosophic calm the fact that such existences as hers were pedestalled on foundations of obscure humanity. The dreary limbo of dinginess lay all around and beneath that little illuminated circle in which life reached its finest efflorescence, as the mud and sleet of a winter night enclose a hot-house filled with tropical flowers. All this was in the natural order of things, and the orchid basking in its artificially created atmosphere could round the delicate curves of its petals undisturbed by the ice on the panes.” (Page 162).
She wasn’t the only one, either – after the collapse of the Bart family’s financial house of cards, Mrs. Bart ceased to care for her husband: “he had become extinct when he ceased to fulfill his purpose.” (Page 34). And while there was some money left, “to Mrs. Bart it seemed worse than nothing – the mere mockery of what she was entitled to,” and, “she sank into a kind of furious apathy, a state of inert anger against fate.” (Page 35). And she saw being poor as a “confession of failure.” Most of all, Mrs. Bart was “not above the inconsistency of charging fate, rather than herself, with her own misfortunes…” (Page 36). Like mother, like daughter.
I also thought it was interesting how flowers were incorporated throughout the book. It’s not just Lily’s name; her memory of her family’s financial collapse was intertwined with flowers – the wilting American Beauty roses on the table and her desire for fresh jonquils or lilies-of-the-valley. Lily identifies with orchids and flowers in general and imagined herself as “diffusing elegance as a flower sheds perfume.” (Page 107). Later she is described as being like “some rare flower grown for exhibition, a flower from which every bud had been nipped except the crowning blossom of her beauty.” (Page 341). And the white dress from her role in a tableau vivant at the Bry’s party “gave forth an odour of violets which came to her like a breath from the flower-edged fountain…” (Page 341). I knew Wharton was going for a scriptural reference with the title but given the role of flowers in the novel I found it odd she didn’t go with the many scriptural references to the evanescence of flowers. The most striking example to me is “consider the lilies of the field,” which are described later on as “here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 6:28-30). Or “The grass withers and the flowers fall…” (Isaiah 40:8).
There is also a botanical aspect to all this, although I’m not sure to what extent Wharton would have been drawing on it for this novel. A plant’s flowers house its sex organs, and the reason flowers are so showy is to attract a plant’s pollinators. Orchids are an especially interesting case; their strategy is to make the flowers look so similar to female pollinating insects that the males will attempt to mate with the flowers, and in the process pollinate the plant. More typically, of course, the colors, scents, and nectar of flowers will attract the appropriate pollinators for the species. Once the flower is pollinated, the pistil will swell and grow into a fruit (botanically, anything that develops from a flower is a fruit, which is why tomatoes and summer squash are classed as fruits). In other words, the plant puts energy and resources into making flowers attractive for a reason, and if it fails the plant will be the last of its line. And Lily,
Spoiler
while showy and attractive for a time, does not marry and is ultimately the last of her line.When Lily participated in the tableaux vivant at the Bry’s party, she was re-creating the painting “Mrs. Richard Bennett Lloyd” by Sir Joshua Reynolds:
Favorite quotes:
“She [Lily’s mother] had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her making.” (Page 34).
“When a girl’s as good-looking as that she’d better marry; then no questions are asked. In our imperfectly organized society there is no provision as yet for the young woman who claims the privileges of marriage without assuming its obligations.” (Pages 169-170).
“She was realizing for the first time that a woman’s dignity may cost more to keep up than her carriage.” (Page 182).
“Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn’t any.” (Page 247).
“It was easy enough to despise the world but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.” (Page 280).
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes