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A review by crankylibrarian
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
5.0
Wharton was a brilliant writer; with a keen ability to twist the knife with beautifully constructed phrases. Describing Lily's self conscious positioning of herself on a bench, she writes,
"The spot was charming, and Lily was not insensible to the charm, or to the fact that her presence enhanced it; but she was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company, and the combination of a handsome girl and a romantic scene struck her as too good to be wasted."
That pretty much sums up Lily and the novel: pretension, glittering but insubstantial social artifice, leading to ultimate disappointment and waste. Yet I was touched by Lily's struggle to remain true to her moral values in the face of overwhelming temptation to abandon them, first for luxury, and later for self-preservation. Lily's inconsistency is maddening, but makes her far more real, and more empathetic than the ineffectual men who love her but abandon her.
"The spot was charming, and Lily was not insensible to the charm, or to the fact that her presence enhanced it; but she was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company, and the combination of a handsome girl and a romantic scene struck her as too good to be wasted."
That pretty much sums up Lily and the novel: pretension, glittering but insubstantial social artifice, leading to ultimate disappointment and waste. Yet I was touched by Lily's struggle to remain true to her moral values in the face of overwhelming temptation to abandon them, first for luxury, and later for self-preservation. Lily's inconsistency is maddening, but makes her far more real, and more empathetic than the ineffectual men who love her but abandon her.