The House of Mirth---Edith Wharton

My rating: 5 stars

I loved this book. I love that it isn't about mirth even though the title leads you to believe that it is. I love that a house isn't really the focal point of the novel (even though smart readers will understand the metaphor). I love that this book is a wicked evisceration of "society" and "status", and that it questions established ideas about morality. I love that this book follows decisions and consequences, and that sometimes the outcome of these simply infuriated me. Also, I love that while I was reading this book I could picture just about every reality star on television today, although not as the hero/heroine of the piece.

Lily Bart is an imperfect heroine. Born into riches, spoiled by her mother and ruined (financially) by her over-worked, never-there father, she ends up having to rely on distant relatives for support. The dutiful, yet emotionally distant and morally judgmental Mrs. Peniston, her father's sister, reluctantly takes her in and gives her an allowance for clothes and jewels and all of the other trappings Lily needs to remain in society. It is, of course, understood that Lily will marry into money. Her natural beauty and her mastery of the artifice necessary to ensnare an eligible, wealthy bachelor pretty much assures her success. Yet Lily, when we meet her, is 29 and still "Miss Bart". Her social circle includes wealthy couples (the Trenors and the Dorsets), her cousin Jack Stepney, various Van Osbergh heirs/heiresses, some Van Alstynes (also distant relations), and a very formidable divorcee named Carry Fisher. CARRY FISHER!!! How wonderful is that?

 I don't want to spell out the plot here, so I won't. Suffice to say that Lily doesn't trap the wealthy bachelor she has set her sights (if not her heart) on, but she does find something else worth quite a bit more. She finds herself, which is just about the corniest thing I could think of writing down, but is absolutely the truth.  Lily Bart finds herself in a slow, painful, and remarkably precise fall from grace. She finds herself in a knowing...an understanding of the rules and how the game is played and when someone will be sacrificed and for what. In this novel there is a great deal of bad behavior. There is an enormous helping of snobbery. There is adultery and tomfoolery and much jacknapery (I made that one up, but wow how it fits!). Men are cuckolded and entitled and women are deceitful and cruel. Hearts are broken and marriages are arranged and love creeps softly in. How I loved the character of poor, sweet Gerty Farish whose hopes are quiet but whose heart is true. How I hated haughty, spoiled, entitled, deceitful Bertha Dorset who pretty much reminds me of any Real Housewife in whatever city anywhere. How frustrated I was with loyal, well-meaning, but constrained by his status Lawrence Selden who was perhaps the only one other than Gerty to understand Lily Bart.

This is not a happy book, but it is certainly an important one. The portal back in time to 1900's New York is pretty much worth it for the description of social expectations alone. How convoluted the rules and regulations were for success in acceptable social circles. How difficult it was to break into an established coterie of thugs (ok, society folk, but the distinction isn't really there), especially if you were new money or a Jew. How breathtakingly blind by choice these people were to infractions, bad behavior, and outright deceit. Money was  important but social status could make you a god.

I think that this is the point where I started picturing Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of PRACTICALLY EVERYWHERE, and The Bachelor. Bad behavior practically shouts the similarities, but so do the casual cruelties, the feeling of entitlement for absolutely no reason except someone once told you you were pretty/handsome, and the closed ranks of a very prurient and jealously guarded circle. It makes no sense, but those are the acceptable rules and people will do just about anything, and at the expense of just about anything, to make the inner circle.

The House of Mirth strives to make us understand just what it means to make and fail to make this transition. Far from being filled with joy the inhabitants of this house are mistrustful, wary, desperately jealous, dishonest, and miserable. Lily Bart is the vehicle through which all of these things must pass and they do with a vengeance. She is the girl in the gilded cage and eventually she is the woman on the very edge of everything.